Scary Drugs-in-Games Headline is Actually Company's Own Press Release

Ahem, RedLightCenter IS AN ADULT COMPANY. They deal with pornography and so forth. This is not a game but a social program similar to second life but 100% for adults. They aren't advertising in any fashion to attract youngsters and almost all of the sites they advertise on are "adult" as in children shouldn't be on those sites to begin with. They don't deal with the gaming industry and only really deal with the adult industry.

@GamePolitics

Just so Dennis, but in Press Release circles (just like in Politics) that kind of quoting is expected, commonplace, and often used to exploit your own agenda. So, sure it's a misquote but the quote still applies.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go feed my illegal drug habit. (I got curious in 1985 after trying a handful of Pac-Man Power Pellets and a strange mushroom offered by a shady Italian.)

Read that quote about the NIMF carefully... Anyone else notice how they say "Nation Institute on Family and the Media" while it's really "National Institute on Media and the Family"? If your going to misquote someone to create false and undeserved publicity, at least take a little time with it and make sure you type out the name correctly...

This is exactly what the industry didn't need.

When people make statements comparing SCMRPG to high art, it's trying to argue evolution to a creationist or vice versa. Each side fervently believes they are de facto correct just by saying so. Art, after all, is in the eyes of the beholder.

My biggest gripe with SCMRPG is that it is an insensitive and unabashedly selfish work. There are hundreds of bad RPG Maker games that yank the sprites from commercial titles and set them to flaky MIDI music. To stand out from the crowd and get attention for himself, I think Ledonne chose to do something controversial. To that end, he has naturally succeeded. He has his stalwart fans, like you apparently. And he also has his critics, like me. And we are talking about him and his work and you know he is loving it. It's exploiting that amusing cycle where one group complains, another retaliates, and the creator reaps all the benefits. You see it on this site all the time.

It's that selfishness I have a problem with. It doesn't matter if it's Slamdance of the Dawson College shooting. Ledonne has a certain arrogant aloofness about him that I find insulting to good taste. And wherever he goes and whatever he says, he exhumes the old Columbine hatchet again. Those victims just can't catch a break, can they?

I believe would be different if Ledonne chose to not reference Columbine directly. I would have more respect for him. As I've noted before, The Twilight Zone was filled with political commentary. However, it was presented in stealth - pitched as a surrealistic horror or science fiction episode. It's hardly the only show to do that. You could look at a lot of horror and science fiction and understand what the writers are getting at. But sometimes when you take this sneaky approach, it winds up being more potent. The audience is led into thinking outside the box in another context, and then asked to now reconsider the box. It is a very effective tactic.

SCMRPG, in comparison, gives you the unabridged box. We approach the box with our prejudices and judge it by label on the side. It's a gusty thing to do and certainly not without criticism. In that sense, I don't think SCMRPG is very effective device for presenting and in essence talking about an issue. It is, however, exceeding good at drawing attention to itself which - again - I believe was the intention all along.

Furthermore, I don't personally understand what SCMRPG wants me to walk away with. It loses me when it goes to Hell. I suppose the intent was to get inside the minds of the shooters, quite literally, and see the world as warped as they saw it. Where everyone is a "jock" or a "preppy girl" or whatnot. But on Wikipedia, which does a good job of tracking the game's controversy and history, Ledonne has said that the game is an "indictment of our society at large." What is that supposed to mean? That jock and preppy girl deserved to die? That the media is intrinsically irresponsible? That school shooters get to fulfill their dreams in Hell? And where do the victims fall in all this?

Please enlighten me. I don't see it.

I think this advertising is very clever and the company behind it can only make the industry look better.

-bigmike

This is just retarded.

If this exploads in the media I just might freak. I've never even heard of this game.

[...] [...]

Really? I thought after SCMRPG, games were poised to take on "serious" content like drug abuse, pornography, and dating services!

Oh, I forgot. The magic line of hypocrisy is drawn between here and there.

"the world’s second most populated virtual social world"

Really?

Well this is just stupid!
All this does is cast the gaming industry in a worse light if anyone actually listened to this garbage! Nice job ripping it apart GP!
In unrelated news, I can't seem to log on to WoW T_T

Blah, Blah, Blah, same shit, different day. I guess the only thing that these people like David Walsh think should be in video games are what's appropriate for 4 year olds and nothing more. To hell with adult or teenager gamers.

@Kyouryuu
Neither was created to be highly entertaining.

Drop the arrogant artist bullshit and give me a reason why.

@Kyoutyuu
What social commentary is this game trying to make?

Besides being a shitty game that is trying to ride a controversy wave so it can survive another 6 months without going bankrupt. Its creating false statments about the industry.

SCMRPG is a game in the same way that Saving Private Ryan is a movie. It is intent is to make you think about something you would rather not think about.
SPR would have been a rather tasteless movie had it been promoted as an action-packed thriller.

I dont see what the problem is, this is the same technique that (now) Rockstar used when they released their first GTA game - hiring Max Clifford to drum up Violence in Videogames controversy.

Only thing here is it's actually titled as a Press Release, and is credited as coming from redlightcenter.com, hardly subterfuge on a 'all i want for xmas is a psp' level.

[...] GamePolitics brings us a story about a game publishing company turning the anti-videogame hype on its head and using it to sell games. The makers of the game “Red Light Center” issued a faux press release that warned of all of the bad (and therefore intriguing to many people) features in their game, such as simulated drug use. This reminds me of the advertising for a summer horror movie a year or two ago that claimed that several people who went to the preview screenings of the movie had to be taken to the hospital. No such thing as bad publicity, huh? Especially when you’re on the fringe and suffering from no publicity, like Red Light Center is. [...]