The other day I called out God of War creator David Jaffe for a vlog in which he referred to Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin as "the perfect definition of a MILF." (see: God of War Designer David Jaffe Reduces Sarah Palin Candidacy to Lowest Common Denominator).

Apparently, Jaffe took notice - and took the heat. He has posted a new video which addresses the MILF issue:

There's this website out there, pretty good website in terms most of the content it covers. Pretty smart and I'm glad it's out there. But it was like... this accusatory tone of me being sexist or crass when I called Sarah Palin a MILF. I'm like, Oh my, god! ...Your Victorian sensibilities are very easily offended... I'm not sexist. I have two little girls. I respect and love women. I think we're all pretty much equal...

 

And I think that's just really f*cking nit picking and ultra-politically correct to the point of just being absurd to assume that because I look at a woman and I say the only thing I can see she's good for is f*cking... It's not sexist because I'm not saying that's what I see in all women when I look at all women. I'm saying when I look at her, that's the only redeeming quality I can find in her...

While I concur with Jaffe's position that there are more questions than answers about Sarah Palin, he and I will have to disagree on this one. Referring to Palin in public statements as a MILF reduces her - reduces any woman - to the level of a sex object.

I certainly don't think he's a bad guy - far from it. But Jaffe needs to realize that the level of candor which may be acceptable in a frat house or local pub doesn't play quite so well when delivered as public, on-the-Net-forever commentary. As the head of a respected game design studio, Jaffe has employees (some of whom may be women) who could be offended. He has key business relationships with corporate types who by nature are not eager to hand a ready-made issue to special-interest groups. Is that politically correct? To an extent, sure. But that's the nature of business today.

Beyond that, however, there's just something wrong about reducing a woman to the sum of her body parts.

David Jaffe, creative genius behind the God of War and Twisted Metal series, isn't one to keep silent, but sometimes he probably should.

Jaffe posted a stream-of-consciousness video to his blog on Saturday from his office. At 3:40 into the video he segues into a rant about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin:

The VP pick... I think she's, you know, kind of cute. She's the perfect definition of a MILF. Not to, you know, disparage her or anything. I'm not trying to sort of make it about that, but it's like that's what I see when I look at her. I didn't love Hillary but I looked at her and I saw experience and intelligence... you look at this woman and you see a MILF. That's what you see.

 

Her experience doesn't really seem to indicate that she would be all that great as a vice-president and certainly not a president. What are they thinking...

GP: Palin's lack of experience is certainly subject to discussion. Her attempted book banning, definitely. However the MILF comment is rather far beyond the pale, especially for someone of Jaffe's stature.

Famed Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto (#73) and Activision Blizzard Chairman Bobby Kotick (#72) are the only two video game luminaries to make the Vanity Fair 100, writes Newsweek's N'Gai Croal:

[Miyamoto & Kotick's] respective rankings...sandwiched between architect William McDonough and the aforementioned cybergossip Matt Drudge--are a full 40 spots below where [former CEO Larry] Probst and Electronic Arts placed just a few years ago. (For what it's worth, EA CEO John Riccitiello did not make the list, which may provide more incentive to close that deal with Take-Two.)

 

And this despite the videogame industry tracking to record revenues for the year. We're not sure what the solution is--it's difficult to picture Vanity Fair's silver-haired editor Graydon Carter raiding in WoW, rocking out with Guitar Hero or working out to Wii Fit--but videogame's top talents can't outrank on-their-last-legs performers like Robert De Niro (#59) and Mick Jagger (#61), something's rotten at [deal-making restaurant] Michael's.
 

GP: On the other hand, Sony's Howard Stringer (#39) and Bono (#36), who owns a piece of Pandemic (Mercenaries 2) are also on the list. True, games may not be their primary focus, but still...

At #2 is Rupert Murdoch who owns the game-hatin' Fox News.

We all know that Sony's handheld PSP is a great system that can do a lot of things, like surf the web and play games, music and video.

But marketing blog I Believe in Adv. reports that in Australia a specially-branded edition of the system was used to market Stella Artois beer.

Although it's not entirely clear from the I Believe in Adv. post, it does not appear that Sony was involved in the modification of 50 PSPs which were distributed to beer sales personnel. The PSP case was etched with a Stella Artois logo on the back side and the systems were packaged in black velvet drawstring bags which bore similar branding.

The idea was designed to motivate the sales force as well as provide it with data via the PSP's WiFi capabilities:

Foster’s was expecting a brochure, or a folder with loose-leaf pages. They gave them 50 customised Sony PlayStation PSPs instead... they also modified the operating systems and icon sets to reflect the brand. Then they installed the Stella Artois films and artwork, plus short presentations on the history of the brand.

 

And because PSPs are wi-fi capable, Foster’s can load up new material quicker than new pages can be printed for a loose-leaf folder. Foster’s analysis has shown that every sales representative who was given a PSP met all their sales targets for the relevant quarter. Anecdotal feedback also confirmed that without exception, the PSP was regarded as the best sales presenter ever received. As a result, Foster’s is now reviewing further rollout of the tool.

Forget about LaDainian Tomlinson. Longtime NFL watchers still maintain that Jim Brown is the best running back to ever play the game.

And now Brown is suing EA and Sony over what he says is the inclusion of his likeness in EA's best-selling Madden series. According to a report on Bloomberg

Brown, who left the National Football League to become an actor and starred in the movies "The Dirty Dozen'' and "Any Given Sunday..." [alleges that] the character, part of the "Real Old School Teams and Players'' series, is a muscular, African-American running back wearing the number 32 jersey who is featured in the game's "All [Cleveland] Browns Team,'' Brown said in a complaint filed yesterday in state court in New York.

 

Brown, who was number 32 for the Cleveland Browns, said in the complaint that he "never signed away any rights that would allow his likeness to be used...''  Brown said in the complaint that, when he played football, "the NFL had league wide policy that players shall have no lawyers or agents when negotiating compensation. Video games were not invented yet and no union to obtain rights from existed.''

Active NFL players are covered - and receive compensation - under licensing agreements with the NFL Players Association. Some retired players have received funds as well, but the numbers are typically smaller than for active players.

Via: GameDaily

A few weeks back GamePolitics covered the so-called PlayStation War raging in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The issue revolves around Congo's supply of the mineral coltan, used in PlayStation 2's and many other consumer electronic devices.

In the latest development, a press release issued by the Panafrican Press Association charges that U.S. presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama just doesn't get it when it comes to the relationship between coltan and the ongoing conflict in Congo. Claiming that Obama has mistakenly portrayed the strife as ethnic, the PPA writes:

Statements... attributed to Obama, explains in part why there is such silence around the tragic situation in the Congo. The conflict is unfortunately and wrongly presented as ethnic bloodletting. The ethnic rationale... plays into long-held stereotypes that Africans are interminably trapped in "tribal bloodletting," hence, nothing can be done...

 

The central reason for the nearly six million dead in the Congo since 1996 is not "ethnic strife" but rather the scramble for Congo's enormous treasure trove of diamonds, gold, copper, cobalt, coltan, tin, timber and more...

 

Beneficiaries of Congo's resource war include foreign corporations and consumers... Coltan is a key mineral that drives the conflict in the Congo and is found in our cell phones, laptop computers, digital cameras, video game consoles and many other devices. Congo has anywhere from 64% - 80% of the world's reserve of coltan.
 

GP: We were surprised to learn that conservative Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) is taking an active interest in the Congo coltan situation. Indeed, however, Brownback and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) introduced the Conflict Coltan and Casserite Act in the Senate on May 23rd. Of the legislative proposal, Brownback said:

We are witnessing a grave humanitarian crisis in Congo, and we must act now to put an end to the death and suffering. Everyday, Americans use products that have been manufactured using inhumanely mined minerals. The legislation introduced by Senator Durbin and I will bring accountability and transparency to the supply chain of minerals used in the manufacturing of many electronic devices.

Sen. Durbin added:

Without knowing it, tens of millions of people in the United States may be putting money in the pockets of some of the worst human rights violators in the world, simply by using a cell phone or laptop computer. We ought to do all we can to make sure that the products we use and the minerals we import, in no way support those who violate human rights abroad.

It’s not always easy to predict which video games are going to upset people. 

One of the games that debuted at last week’s E3 was Sony and Titan Studios’ upcoming PSN title Fat Princess, a cartoony, capture-the-flag game in which the object is to rescue your princess from the enemy’s dungeon.  The hook is that the enemy is plumping up your princess with cake, making her more and more difficult to haul back.

It’s cute.  It’s colorful.  It’s surprisingly bloody. And, from many reports, it’s a lot of fun. But, according to Joystiq, at least two feminist bloggers have taken issue with the fat part of Fat Princess.

Shakesville’s Melissa McEwan says in an open letter to Sony:

[Fat Princess]  looks and sounds just adorable—but the only thing I can't figure out is why anyone would want to rescue a fat princess in the first place, since everyone knows that fat girls are unlovable human garbage at whom any sensible bloke would sooner hurl invective than cast a longing glance... I'm positively thrilled to see such unyielding dedication to creating a new generation of fat-hating, heteronormative assholes.

Meanwhile, Feminist Gamers’ Mighty Ponygirl offers her take:

Honestly, the “core game mechanics” are brilliant, and if I didn’t care one whit about the objectification of women or fat-bashing, I would think this was the best thing since… well, Team Fortress 2…

 

Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry.

 

Oh, but that’s not as “cute” as cake and fat chicks. Right.

For his part, Titan Studios' art director, James Green, said in an email to Joystiq:

Does it make it better or worse that the concept artist (who designed the look, characters, everything) is a girl?

-Reporting from San Diego, GP Correspondent Andrew Eisen prefers ice cream...
 

As I did yesterday for the Xbox and EA press conferences, I will be live-blogging Nintendo and Sony today via Twitter.

Nintendo starts at 9AM. Sony is at 11:30 (Pacific Time).

If you have a Twitter account (they're simple & free to get), simply follow GamePolitics for my updates during the events.

The PlayStation 2's requirement for a rare metal in its manufacturing process helped fuel a bloody, decade-long conflict in Africa's Democratic Republic of Congo, according to an investigative report on Toward Freedom.

The site alleges that demand for coltan by Sony and other personal electronics manufacturers led Rwandan troops and Western companies to exploit the people and mineral resources of Congo, with children often forced to work in mines.

Oona King, a former member of the British Parliament, told Toward Freedom:

Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms. 

So, what is coltan? From the report:

After it is refined, coltan becomes a bluish-gray powder called tantalum... [which] has one significant use: to satisfy the West’s insatiable appetite for personal technology. Tantalum is used to make cell phones, laptops and other electronics made, for example, by SONY, a multi-billion dollar multinational based in Japan that manufactures the iconic PlayStation...

Researcher David Barouski commented:

[The] PlayStation 2 launch... was a big part of the huge increase in demand for coltan...  SONY and other companies like it, have the benefit of plausible deniability because the coltan ore trades hands so many times from when it is mined to when SONY gets a processed product, that a company often has no idea where the original coltan ore came from, and frankly don’t care to know. But statistical analysis shows it to be nearly inconceivable that SONY made all its PlayStations without using Congolese coltan.

A Sony rep told Toward Freedom that the company now takes steps to ensure that it does not use coltan illegally obtained from Congo in its manufacturing processes.

Sales of new console systems have slowed, according to a report in the San Jose Mercury-News.

While 25 million Wii's, PlayStation 3's and Xbox 360's have been sold in the U.S. over the past 30 months, it seems that most of the buyers are upgrading from older systems or adding a second, or even third, game system. Console-less homes are mostly remaining that way. Said David Klein of Los Angeles-based research firm Centris:

We're looking at very slow growth.

What does this mean for the game biz? It's not good news, writes reporter Mike Antonucci:

The implications for the game industry, whose challenges include rising development costs, are sweeping. An expansion of the game audience offers continued revenue growth, or at least a hedge against a spending slowdown by existing fans...

 

[But]  ...word-of-mouth enthusiasm [for this generation of consoles] may not be translating into much real expansion...

As reported by Silicon Valley Insider, Take-Two Interactive execs claimed in a conference call this week that they have potential suitors other than EA. Forbes speculates that, if such suitors really exist, they might be Activision or Ubisoft.

GP: Personally, I wonder if it might make some sense for Sony to go after Take-Two. That would make the GTA series a permanent PS3 exclusive, supercharge system sales, and they could sell off the rest.

Meanwhile, GameSpot reports that Evan Wilson, financial analyst with Pacific Crest Securities, told investors that once you get past Rockstar, there's not much to like about T2:

Rockstar has supported this organization for too long and it is right to spend every dollar that it can get from Take-Two for keeping the business alive. Unfortunately, management appears to be doing the same thing without it being nearly as deserved.

 

At the same time as its cost structure is deteriorating, management is telling investors that it is the most efficient organization in the business. That simply is not true. Management talks about having a lean sales, marketing, and corporate infrastructure behind its development talent. We disagree with this as well.

Wilson also dinged Take-Two for missing release schedules and recommended that investors take EA's buyout offer before it disappears:

If it appears that virtually every major game has been delayed, you would be correct.

 

It is starting to appear that the company is back to where it started. After the success of Grand Theft Auto [IV], it will be looking at a bloated cost infrastructure relative to its revenue opportunity, which will likely be further muted by game delays and underperformance.

 

We believe that the risk of EA dropping its bid for [Take-Two] is greater than the reward of EA coming back with a modestly higher bid, and we continue to recommend that investors take profits. EA's $25.74 offer is more than fair, in our view.