2K Football Game Has O.J. Simpson - and a Knife

Wasn't O.J. Innocent?

@ BearDogg-X

I have little doubt he'll be pulled. If I'm wrong I'll eat crow, but the WWE severed ties so quickly with the Benoit issue and discontinued all merchandise relating to him in a matter of a couple days. Maybe there'll be a hot coffee version of Benoit hidden somewhere in the coding at best, but I don't see it possible that he'll be a playable character, considering WWE's addressing of the matter.

As I understand it, Mascots are assigned to Teams in the US? If that's the case, then surely the Assassins mascot will make that stabbing motion regardless of who scores the point?

To be honest, most game trailers are taken from a huge collection of catured video footage, and are chosen for how 'effective' they look, not how 'accurately' they define the gameplay, there's every possiblity that the video was put together by someone who had no idea who was who on the pitch, but just used the scenes that made the game look interesting and fun.

You take issue with Simpson?

Screw that; this is awesome; I'm gonna be the assassins and hire every football star ever accused of a crime!

@Carbonatedgravy

Why take issue with that? He played NFL football, and was pretty popular; therefore including him in a game using the likenesses of other retired NFL players makes perfect sense. What he did or did not do after that has nothing to do with this game.

The only thing at all offensive I see about this is that some idiot purposefully showed O. J. on this particular team, with that particular mascot, for the sole purpose of causing a stir. That is what riles me, not the fact that he's in the game.

great.... now ever madden game that has a spike touchdown or any football game people will think "omg his stabbing someone"

What wrong with putting OJ Simpson, hes a famous Football star so he should given credit. As for murdering his wife and her partner well thats a different story.
Well whatever, didn't Jeffery Archer write (in what i call High detail) all the murders his inmates committed in his books? Why wasn't that critisised?

I think this is more of a case of "We can do this, then we can do this, and putting them together we can imply this". As opposed to having the OJ Simpson player himself able to do that move, which would be a more controversial link. Instead, it's a move associated with a Team, which may or may not have OJ Simpson on it, right?

A similar controversy would be "I made a Jack Thompson wrestler in a Create-A-Wrestler design". It's not really Jack Thompson. It's throwing together pieces and saying "Hey! That LOOKS LIKE Jack Thompson!", as opposed to having a ready made character named Jack Thompson.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

I would almost agree with Dorkmaster Flek that it was not intentional since you draft players to any team, but the trailer in question was produced and released by Take Two themselves.

Since the game is not yet released, this was not generated by some random mischievous player.

And I watched the trailer, I would say it was not in poor taste. Not any more poor taste than a comedian profiting from an OJ joke, or a Michael Jackson molestation joke, or a Vick dog fighting joke. Video games are under way too much scrutiny lately. Back off people.

START THE FREE HYPE MACHINE!!!!!
GET THAT THING ROLLING

Brokenscope hit the nail on the head - nothing says free advertising like riling up the easily-offended denizens of the internet, prompting the less easily-offended to ridicule them, causing a big uproar of debate over something that isn't even remotely worth it. We've seen this happen dozens of times before, no one should be surprised by now.

ESRB re-rating the game to AO in 3-2-1

This is Take-Two here we're talking about. They're aggressively pursuiting a policy of terrorizing politicians.

Speaking of terrorizing, they need to be detained.

Alright, its 100% official. 1/4 of the US Population is retarded. Especially after reading that Thestreet.com article.

That woman had no idea what she was talking about. And besides, why the hell should ANYONE take offense to that other then the FAMILIES of the victims? Who the hell do people think they are saying "Oh, its has OJ in it and he MIGHT have killed people that I have never met in my life, nor do I think about in my daily routines. I'm never haunted by the situation like the people who know the victims. But I'm offended by it anyways".

Grow up people.

And thats besides the point that O.J. isn't even assigned to that team! You can make your OWN teams! Hell, thats what I'm going to do...I'm going to make the Sin-cinati Serial Killers. It will have O.J. and create-a-player Dahmer, Gacey, Ramierez, Speck, Josef Mengele, and whomever else I can think of.

It's always humorous when people who don't understand an issue and personally attack those who disagree with them use the "grow up" argument. Very Jack Thompson like.

[...] [Via GamePolitics] [...]

I mean, durring christmas, do you sit there and say "man, I wish Nicole Brown was alive and eating with her family"?

Or were the victims of this crime on your mind before this was released? Or is it only now, after watching this video, do you have a problem with it? If its the latter, then yes, my point stands. Its stupid and you should grow up. Because the only reason WHY your offended by is, is because you CAN be offended by it.

And bringing crap like this up only brings back the haunting memories of those times back to the family members, the TRUE people who would/could be offended.

Now, 13 years later, some guy puts up a video of a video game with O.J. on it and people bring it to the lime light. Why? I have no clue...because they can. Or because they have found a way to profit off of it (like thestreet.com). Other then that, bringing this up does NOTHING but cause people to be "offended" when they REALLY aren't offended. And causes further pain to the families.

THAT is why I think its stupid and people should Grow up. If that makes me Jack Thompson, fine, so be it. But I stick by my words.

...Sorry for the double post but I just realized something. I really don't care enough to potentially continue arguing over this. I've pulled myself into an argument based on a moral disagreement so minute almost to the point of insignificance that dragging this out any further is actually silly. I still wouldn't have added O.J. Simpson to the game myself, but that's it. If anyone disagrees, fine. I don't care.

Critics...wow. Seriously? I would be upset if they didn't put OJ on the game. It's supposed to be all the pro football players from the past (not sure how far it goes though) so why the hell not?

And the whole thing with the assassin thing is kinda funny. Sure its coincidental, but given the fact that EA has the rights over the NFL, 2k had to find another way to get football teams out there and mascots to support, right?

Is this what we're coming to? Petty squandering over team mascots in a videogame? How is this even news? My god people need to get over themselves. Entitlement to an absence of humor is simply too far.

Didn't they do similar stuff in Duke Nukem 3d?

That was what.... almost a decade ago and no one cared

Personally, I think even if 2k intentionally forced OJ to be on that team (Which I'm not saying is the case) they wouldn't be any worse than OJ for cashing in on the controversy with his book... So what if I did it... Hmph.

Even if he didn't kill those people, that is still in bad taste. That would be like... Alfred Packer writing a book called "So what if I ate them?" Instead he chose to live out his undeserved freedom as a rancher in obscurity, until the FDA almost named a restaurant after him, unaware of his cannibalistic past. I'm pretty sure I just lost my point somewhere in the mazed corridors of that paragraph, so I'll just drop it and go to sleep.