UNICEF turning to shock tactics at game convention, WTF?!

[Borgholio]

c) the games next door literally did not try to sell incest, rape, mass murder and genocide as positive things.

Yeah it does seem hypocritical to be ok with realistic depictions of murder and genocide but be shocked by the real stuff.

[TronPaul]

And you would have a point if:
a) people paid 8 bucks for the benefit of attending this presentation
b) this was a feature-length movie
c) the games next door literally did not try to sell incest, rape, mass murder and genocide as positive things.

a) Conventions cost money for entry, and if you've traveled to the convention, you're also paying for the hotel. This one cost $40 for a one day pass.
b) How does that change anything?
c) Was "games next door" meant literally, or figuratively? I haven't found mention of what was in the next room. This reads like "video games are immoral, so that makes this ok".

If this sort of bait and switch tactic was used at one of the anime conventions I go to, I'd be annoyed as well. It isn't cheap to go out to these things. I'd walk out too if I got duped into a bait and switch panel. I'd be even more pissed if I ended up in a video of the stunt.

[AniThyng]

Yeah i suppose it is terrible that one of the victory condition in civilization is to conquer the world with a benevolent dictatorship. Sends the wrong message.

[salm]

I think it's not so much the fact it was a shock tactic, as in it was fully out of place, unexpected, and deceptive too. Imagine you went to the movies with your family to see what you thought was Episode 7, only it was a ploy by UNICEF to watch 15 minutes of human and animal torture. I'm sure people would be upset by being deceived in addition to the reaction to the images themselves.

Being fully out of place, unexpected and deceptive is a relevant part of shock tactics.
It´s not very shocking if you know what is comming after all.
Getting people upset is part of it as well. I wonder how many people were actually upset about getting decieved and how many people actually liked getting decieved after finding out what was really going on. And how many fucknuggets actually were in the audience who thought that this was going to be a cool game before the situation was cleared up. They don´t show audience members crackeling in glee about the tought of playing such a controversial game but perhaps they were just cut from the clip in order not to shame them publicly.

[Thanas]

a) Conventions cost money for entry, and if you've traveled to the convention, you're also paying for the hotel. This one cost $40 for a one day pass.

That makes it at worst 5$ per hour, so Unicef robbed them of 2.50. I give more to homeless people each week. Heck, it is less than the price of a coke in a good restaurant.

Again, boohooo.

b) How does that change anything?

Because it shows that the family analogy was pretty stupid?

c) Was "games next door" meant literally, or figuratively? I haven't found mention of what was in the next room. This reads like "video games are immoral, so that makes this ok".

It doesn't matter. I just got the recent steam newsletter and a trailer for the games within. At least two of the new releases are worse than anything unicef did in the video.

And yes, precisely because the vast majority of gamers got no problem with heinous acts (it is not as if I am some saint in that regard either, after all I am the Byzantine Despot of the world in most games), they can stand to watch a few minutes of how shitty the world is. Heck, this is even less of an inconvenience than if Unicef were to stage a "real" protest of the "city centre shut down while five hours of speech are given" variety.

If this sort of bait and switch tactic was used at one of the anime conventions I go to, I'd be annoyed as well. It isn't cheap to go out to these things. I'd walk out too if I got duped into a bait and switch panel. I'd be even more pissed if I ended up in a video of the stunt.

Again, boohoohoo. Judging from the internet chatter in multiplayer most gamers are completely unable to critically and morally reflect on their choices. The reasons panties are in a twist right now is simply because UNICEF asked them to morally reflect on something for a few minutes (and I suppose because it might lessen their enjoyment of the next new mass-murder-simulator the CoD team shits out). OH NOES. THE HORRORZ.

Meanwhile, developers like Paradox publish this gem of an expansion. And look at how it is marketed. I mean, control your destiny - seduce your relatives (and murder all of Europe). And that is just the expansion. In the original game you could do all kinds of fun stuff like kidnap 16 year girls and then force them to become your concubines, to be used and discarded at will. (Hey, the game even gave you correct modifiers like negative opinion of the rape victim, which clearly shows they thought really long and hard on the realism of it). Or there was the other fun option of locking children in your dungeon and torturing them on the rack, castrating, blinding and executing them etc...AND YOU COULD DO THAT TO BABIES AS WELL. The game would even play funny little execution sounds as well. HOOORAY.

How is this shit acceptable at gaming conventions (GAME OF THE YEAR, PEOPLE) but UNICEFS publicity stunt is not? Care to explain how UNICEF is so much worse than this?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

If they had actually bothered to present some kind of game - no matter how preachy - this would not have been a problem. Eye-roll worthy or maybe even annoying (in the same way that a bunch of Christians hosting a surprise "Hey check out our JESUS SIMULATOR game!" panel would be), but not really offensive or worth getting angry over.

Thus the offense and anger here stems from the lack of content and the deception tied into that lack of content. The content itself ("shocking" images, real-world issues, or whatever) is irrelevant, let's be clear about that. The convention-goers were lied to and subsequently manipulated. As mentioned, conventions often cost a non-trivial amount of money to attend, so it's not like this was some free show that did nothing other than waste a little time (which would be less of an issue). The con-goers were sold something under false pretenses, and didn't merely have their time wasted. If you pay money to go to a convention, it is not unreasonable to expect to get what you paid for, in this case, access to panels and demos for upcoming games. This was not an upcoming game - again, however lame or preachy the content for that game may or may not have been is irrelevant, and those are subjective considerations anyway - it was just a cheap shot ambush sprung on those who chose to attend the panel (which appears to have been ostensibly about an upcoming survival FPS).

To make a more accurate analogy, it would be like paying to attend a film festival expecting to see rough cut screenings of various films (which are all only screened at a predetermined time, so choose your 11:00 destination wisely), but when you attend the scheduled screening of "a Tarantino-esque pulp action thriller," it turns out to be some asshole with an antique slide projector showing photos of his time in Rwandan refugee camps, who then brings out a survivor from Rwanda to preach at you about how you're too busy watching indie films to help the people of Rwanda. It's not necessarily the moral high horsery of the content that's offensive (that's merely annoying), it's that you paid for serious content and got ambushed with someone's amateur guilt-trip shitshow instead. It's offensive not just in the deceptive, manipulative nature of it, but also in that this asshole might have actually had something interesting if he'd bothered to bring a film about Rwanda to this film festival. If our hypothetical manipulative asshole had actually made a film about Rwandan genocide, people would be a lot more willing to overlook the fact that he's selling it as "a Tarantino-esque pulp action thriller."

[Thanas]

If they had actually bothered to present some kind of game - no matter how preachy - this would not have been a problem. Eye-roll worthy or maybe even annoying (in the same way that a bunch of Christians hosting a surprise "Hey check out our JESUS SIMULATOR game!" panel would be), but not really offensive or worth getting angry over.

So wait, heinous shit in games is more worthy because they are games but a 30 minute presentation where everybody can leave at any time is somehow the great evil, with the great argument being "people expected games, so game=ok and notgame=bad"? Are you fucking kidding me?

[Vendetta]

It's worth pointing out that the other thing gamers have their panties bunched about is the "free speech" issue of whether Hatred will or will not be published on Steam.

Hatred, for the uninitiated, is a game in development which is basically Postal without the peurile humour made by shitwits with ties to the polish far right & borderline neo nazi movements, which explicitly glorifies violence against civilians (and has a suspiciously high proportion of minorities and women among the available targets).

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

So wait, heinous shit in games is more worthy because they are games but a 30 minute presentation where everybody can leave at any time is somehow the great evil, with the great argument being "people expected games, so game=ok and notgame=bad"? Are you fucking kidding me?

"Heinous shit"? Do you mean beating prostitutes to death in Liberty City in between bloody decapitations of Player 2? Thanas, you're normally a pretty cool guy, so I admit I'm not really sure why you started hanging out with Jack Thompson. This notion that a game's violent or otherwise objectionable content is in any way relevant to the topic at hand is so absurd as to be utterly unworthy of rebuttal.

All I'm doing here is arguing why the presentation in the OP's video could be considered objectionable, and why people might be mad enough about it to walk out. The idea that I think it's "the great evil," is, at best, putting words in my mouth. I think it is harmful to the long-term goals of charity and good will toward our fellow man, and while I may find their moral high horse annoying, the truly offensive part of this is that it was such a pitifully squandered opportunity to do good in the world. They could have achieved something with some meaning or import a la This War of Mine, but instead they pissed it away to take a lazy and nauseatingly pedestrian cheap shot - like an artist offered carte blanche to create a great work and maybe change the world, only to deliver a canvas with a crudely-scribbled dick on it at the grand unveiling. Sad.

[Joun_Lord]

heinous acts ,heinous shit in games

You have a point other then that shit ain't real. Thats the sort of thing that sits right beside killing zombies with an Ellen Page lookalike and saving the galaxy with red blue and green colors. Its fantasy.

People who might enjoy seeing something in fantasy may not enjoy seeing it in real life.

I might watch a movie where some dude gets shot, doesn't mean I'd be particularly thrilled to see it IRL. I behead people in Skyrim and kill poor defenseless mudcrabs, neither are something I'd like to do or see in the game of life. I nuked an entire town in Fallout 3 and enslaved people for piles of caps from soda, things that I'd never do (I'd expect to be paid in cash, I kid). Fantasy, not reality, different things. People can be terrible people in games and watch terrible things in movies without wanting to do or see such things.

Now of course this presentation wasn't really graphic at all and the fact it was upsetting to people shows they are either pretty childish or really, really fucking sheltered considering you see worse real shite on the news but still it is real and thus can be upsetting to people even if they are going to watch even worse but fake crap in the next room.

[TronPaul]

Any reasonable con-goer would walk out of a shitty panel they were duped into attending. The fact they talked this up as, "We thought up a video game so reprehensible, that even video gamers couldn't stomach it" is misleading and stupid.

I'm really very curious about what the panel's description was and how obvious the bait and switch was. What kind of description did they use to get people in the room?

[Thanas]

"Heinous shit"? Do you mean beating prostitutes to death in Liberty City in between bloody decapitations of Player 2?

No, I quoted what kind of stuff I think is pretty bad in the above post. Which you apparently chose to ignore. How is it that people get outraged over a presentation but not about the content in games?

This notion that a game's violent or otherwise objectionable content is in any way relevant to the topic at hand is so absurd as to be utterly unworthy of rebuttal.

On the contrary, gamers who willingly slaughter people without a moment's thought but are so offended by a UNICEF slideshow are the issue here.

I think it is harmful to the long-term goals of charity and good will toward our fellow man, and while I may find their moral high horse annoying, the truly offensive part of this is that it was such a pitifully squandered opportunity to do good in the world. They could have achieved something with some meaning or import a la This War of Mine, but instead they pissed it away to take a lazy and nauseatingly pedestrian cheap shot - like an artist offered carte blanche to create a great work and maybe change the world, only to deliver a canvas with a crudely-scribbled dick on it at the grand unveiling. Sad.

On the contrary. I think it is a great success that people have been confronted by it. Both games and presentations have their uses and this one was masterful. If people cannot stomach it, then they will maybe think twice next time they buy shit in games. If they are the kind of troglodytes who think "ARGH BARGH SO BAD NOT A GAME" then they are not the kind of people who will reflect on anything save achievements.

I might watch a movie where some dude gets shot, doesn't mean I'd be particularly thrilled to see it IRL. I behead people in Skyrim and kill poor defenseless mudcrabs, neither are something I'd like to do or see in the game of life. I nuked an entire town in Fallout 3 and enslaved people for piles of caps from soda, things that I'd never do (I'd expect to be paid in cash, I kid). Fantasy, not reality, different things. People can be terrible people in games and watch terrible things in movies without wanting to do or see such things.

Then the same people should have the intelligence and compassion required to go "k, not what I expected, but lets think about the south sudan for a second here", no? No, they get upset because somebody DARED to not show a game at a games convention, something that is so miniscule in annoyance that it ranks somewhere between "wasted 30 minutes crapping out a bad taco" and "oh god look at the time."

Hey, what would have been more annoying? This presentation or a protest rally against CoD that would have blocked the ways to and into the convention center? Or are you one of those people who thinks demonstrations should be held without inconveniencing anybody, meaning they might just as well not exist?

BTW, even if the the poor widdle gamers who voluntarily sat through a presentation would have completely wasted their time (something that no gamer ever has done, no sirreee) , what UNICEF was trying to do is to get people talking about South Sudan. That is what they achieved admirably. The suffering in SS has been ignored by the western world lately. In that context, I cannot say how little I care about the feelings of privileged western kids voluntarily watching a presentation in comparison to raising awareness of mass suffering.

[Joun_Lord]

Then the same people should have the intelligence and compassion required to go "k, not what I expected, but lets think about the south sudan for a second here", no? No, they get upset because somebody DARED to not show a game at a games convention, something that is so miniscule in annoyance that it ranks somewhere between "wasted 30 minutes crapping out a bad taco" and "oh god look at the time."

Thats a different argument then they shouldn't be upset because they play worse shit but yes they have good reason to be upset about a bait and switch. They are there to see games not to here a lecture on bad shit happening in the world, even if its is a relatively minor annoyance. Would you be upset if you sat down to watch Star Wars Episode 7 or Jaw 19 next year and was instead treated to a showing of Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup? Probably and not just because that movie is bullshit, its because you went someplace and paid money to see one thing and got something else.

Hey, what would have been more annoying? This presentation or a protest rally against CoD that would have blocked the ways to and into the convention center? Or are you one of those people who thinks demonstrations should be held without inconveniencing anybody, meaning they might just as well not exist?

Any good demonstration inconveniences people. People are otherwise going to ignore them. Nobody is going to give a second glance at protestors sitting idly by quietly off to the side with signs. People will pay considerably more attention to people screaming, blocking paths, banging goddamn hippie drums, and other attention getting tactics.

BUTTTTT doesn't mean others shouldn't be allowed to be butt hurt about such things. It IS an inconvenience to them, its going to be a bit upsetting to have their path blocked, get screaming at, or have their ears raped by some dread locked white guy smacking around a drum like a Appalachian American smacking his sister wife.

BTW, even if the the poor widdle gamers who voluntarily sat through a presentation would have completely wasted their time (something that no gamer ever has done, no sirreee) , what UNICEF was trying to do is to get people talking about South Sudan. That is what they achieved admirably. The suffering in SS has been ignored by the western world lately. In that context, I cannot say how little I care about the feelings of privileged western kids voluntarily watching a presentation in comparison to raising awareness of mass suffering.

Are they really talking about South Sudan or are they talking about Unicefs little stunt?

[Ziggy Stardust]

Jesus Christ, the level of entitlement among the whining gamer community is frankly sickening. It was a half-hour presentation. It didn't detract from anybody's ability to enjoy the rest of the convention. Fuck, I've been to these conventions, and I've never been able to find enough to do there to take up the entire day anyway. UNICEF didn't steal anybody's money. They barely took up anybody's time. There was absolutely nothing about their act that prevented people from doing the stuff that they came to the convention for. The video wasn't even terribly shocking, and certainly wasn't graphically disturbing. Get the fuck over yourselves.

I could understand being annoyed by the deception, but there is a difference between being mildly annoyed and the unbelievable levels of butthurt impotence on display in this thread. "But but but DURP da gamers just wanted to think about games, not real life!" is one of the most pointlessly and knowingly idiotic arguments I've ever heard. I don't personally believe that "blissful ignorance" is a fundamental human right, or at least one that should be respected.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

No, I quoted what kind of stuff I think is pretty bad in the above post. Which you apparently chose to ignore. How is it that people get outraged over a presentation but not about the content in games?

I'd respectfully ask you to read what I wrote again, then. I don't think you understood it.

On the contrary, gamers who willingly slaughter people without a moment's thought but are so offended by a UNICEF slideshow are the issue here.

I can't speak for other gamers, only myself, but (to reiterate, for the 3rd time now) the offense is from 1) Deceptive, manipulative tactics, and 2) The lazy lack of vision employed with those tactics. The content which a video game might have is utterly irrelevant, in the same way that the content a street vendor hot dog has is irrelevant to a discussion about events in a football stadium. The only relevance video games have here is that happened to be the particular medium being crashed, thus my objection to their lack of effort in creating something relevant to the medium. Replace "video game" with "movie," "book," "magazine," or "16th century oil painting," the argument is the same.

On the contrary. I think it is a great success that people have been confronted by it. Both games and presentations have their uses and this one was masterful. If people cannot stomach it, then they will maybe think twice next time they buy shit in games. If they are the kind of troglodytes who think "ARGH BARGH SO BAD NOT A GAME" then they are not the kind of people who will reflect on anything save achievements.

Well, I think I laid out my position in a pretty straightforward and plainly-stated manner. I'm a little disappointed.

I could understand being annoyed by the deception, but there is a difference between being mildly annoyed and the unbelievable levels of butthurt impotence on display in this thread. "But but but DURP da gamers just wanted to think about games, not real life!" is one of the most pointlessly and knowingly idiotic arguments I've ever heard. I don't personally believe that "blissful ignorance" is a fundamental human right, or at least one that should be respected.

And who exactly are you referring to? I have arguably been the most vocal opponent to the stunt in this thread, so I assume that's directed at me. If not, all right, though I don't know who you're talking about since no one has particularly flown off the handle here, as far as I can tell.

[Civil War Man]

Entitlement on the part of the gamer community or not, I think it was a bad PR move on the part of UNICEF, because it was practically designed to alienate the people they are preaching to. The people walking out of that presentation are not doing it so they can hit up the ATM and withdraw some cash to make a donation, and you can pretty much guarantee that there's close to no chance of them ever donating anything to the organization in the future. They might have guilt-tripped some people into donating, but they're also going to lose a lot of potential donations.

Bro-Cap has a point in that they probably would have been better received if they had actually been developing a game, because while the vast majority of gaming is all about escapism and power fantasies, there is definitely a market for games that undermine that mindset. If there wasn't, games like This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts, or Spec Ops: The Line wouldn't exist. It may not be a big market, but it exists. Hell, Spec Ops was, if anything, more confrontational than that presentation, but you rarely meet anyone who has played it who has anything bad to say about its story. UNICEF probably would have gotten more traction if they had worked with a game studio to produce a game that shows the harsh realities of life in these countries and arranged for the profits from the game to go towards efforts to fix those problems (or even have the entire cost of the game go towards those efforts, if the studio wants to be able to file the development expenses as a charitable donation).

[Irbis]

I can see why people would be irate aboot this. Its a gaming convention, not a shit sucks convention. Its a place to have fun and view games, not to be depressed about how the world sucks.

If that was in any way true, Warhammer and Starcraft wouldn't be so hugely popular

This War of Mine pushes it in terms of morality preaching, but ultimately gets a pass because it's actually a fun game. It presents different conditions, you can build and upgrade, and you can take action to succeed and risk failure. That it comes packaged with a "war is bad, m'kay?" morality skin doesn't really detract from the underlying game, and thus the game is an effective one both in being fun to play and at least to some degree in delivering its message.

No. It's not.

Both Papers Please and This War of Mine are pretty repetitive, bland and short games. What they do have, though, is atmosphere. It's easy to relate to nameless refugees searching for food or trying to cross border because it could well be us. We're willing to ignore tedium because clerk looking at papers or scavenger looking at homes one by one do repetitive stuff in real life. It fits perfectly within suspension of disbelief, so well you stopped noticing it.

The "game" in this stunt, however, is a blatant example of someone spending 5 minutes sprinkling an "Africa sucks" story with gaming terminology over top of it. They couldn't even be arsed to at least put effort into it with "real" gameplay footage; it's just a bunch of concept scribbles slapped together in a shitty Powerpoint.

Sigh.

That is UN small organization. Do you know how expensive the E3 demos are? Good presentation easily goes into millions of dollars. Where exactly someone who is cash strapped to even do statutory work is going to find budget for anything more than stuff looking cheap? They're not fucking Greenpeace that can afford to piss money away down the closest drain on nothing all day long, they do something useful on shoestring budget thanks to imbecile Republithugs constantly cutting UN funding

People who say "they should just make a game" might as well question why they won't make next Hollywood blockbuster in a week.

It's clear the people at UNICEF involved have no understanding of the video game medium, nor did they ever have any intention of seriously trying to use the platform to express UNICEF's ideals - they just saw an opportunity for a cheap shot and took it. Imagine buying a Thanksgiving turkey and sitting down with your family to eat it, only to discover upon carving the turkey that it's made of plaster: inside is a note saying "What's wrong? Why aren't you eating this? It's all the homeless have to eat this Thanksgiving," then meticulously signed by a roster of the city's homeless people.

Here, have latest example of game made pro bono in charitative cause. Let me guess, you would say it's "plaster turkey" and the authors "have no understanding of the video game medium" because it isn't fucking E3 AAA title? And has no gunplay or even exciting action whatsoever?

I try to give canned food to holiday homeless charities every year, so you can fuck off if this is your response.

Ah, yeah, classic "I have got mine, fuck everyone else, what do you want, I thrown them a can of spam last year!"

Entitlement on the part of the gamer community or not, I think it was a bad PR move on the part of UNICEF, because it was practically designed to alienate the people they are preaching to. The people walking out of that presentation are not doing it so they can hit up the ATM and withdraw some cash to make a donation, and you can pretty much guarantee that there's close to no chance of them ever donating anything to the organization in the future. They might have guilt-tripped some people into donating, but they're also going to lose a lot of potential donations.

Boohoo, as if they were ever going to donate anyway. Now maybe at least some of them will spare 10 minutes to research the topic and won't drown it out entirely like they would otherwise do.

[Welf]

c) the games next door literally did not try to sell incest, rape, mass murder and genocide as positive things.

Yeah it does seem hypocritical to be ok with realistic depictions of murder and genocide but be shocked by the real stuff.

Actually it's not. In a realistic depiction of murder no actual living human dies. In genocide actual living human die. That's a decisive difference.

[General Zod]

So if a pro-life group manages to lure a bunch of pro-choice women into a presentation about how abortion is bad using a false pretense that would be fine? I mean they're "only" inconveniencing them.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

No. It's not.

Yeah. It is.

I enjoy This War of Mine. I like games like that. If you didn't like it, well, sorry.

That is UN small organization. Do you know how expensive the E3 demos are? Good presentation easily goes into millions of dollars. Where exactly someone who is cash strapped to even do statutory work is going to find budget for anything more than stuff looking cheap? They're not fucking Greenpeace that can afford to piss money away down the closest drain on nothing all day long, they do something useful on shoestring budget thanks to imbecile Republithugs constantly cutting UN funding

People who say "they should just make a game" might as well question why they won't make next Hollywood blockbuster in a week.

>implying all games must be made on multi-million dollar budgets

I never said they should hire EA to make Destiny: Sudan Edition, nor has anyone said they needed to put on a rock concert at the largest and most infamous game industry convention on Earth. Or, in movie analogy terms, I never said they should "make next[sic] Hollywood blockbuster in a week," I said (verbatim) that they should bring a film to a film festival. If that's a 20 minute movie filmed on a camcorder because that's all you can afford to do, then that's one thing. But don't pretend I or anyone else in this thread has seriously suggested that UNICEF must make a multi-million dollar AAA title in order to participate in the video game world.

Here, have latest example of game made pro bono in charitative cause. Let me guess, you would say it's "plaster turkey" and the authors "have no understanding of the video game medium" because it isn't fucking E3 AAA title? And has no gunplay or even exciting action whatsoever?

Well I'd love to respond but you seem to have both my response and my taste in video games already planned out for me, so I wouldn't want to rain on your triumphant straw effigy parade.

Ah, yeah, classic "I have got mine, fuck everyone else, what do you want, I thrown them a can of spam last year!"

No, I don't have mine, but thanks for your heartfelt concern. I still try to give what I can for those worse off than me, though. Not that that's in any way relevant to this thread, but I guess someone had to come shit it up eventually.

While I clearly don't agree with most of those who object to the objection to the stunt - it's an argument which ultimately boils down to an appeal to emotion - at least folks like Thanas try to offer something substantive in their objection-to-objection. You, Irbis, are just a useless fucknugget who shits up - almost to a thread - everything you post in. Have you ever posted anything substantive? Serious question. Certainly, all you've done here is locate an easy target (in attacking a position which nominally occupies the moral high ground, I quite knowingly went into something that makes me pretty easy to counter-attack), projected your personal stereotype of what a first-world gamer looks like (hint: you forgot to call me "bro," bro), and then proceeded to unload a stream of inane, vacuous, and superbly useless offal.

[Jub]

The comparison to merchandising is just wrong on so many levels that it is not even worth addressing.

It's literally the exact same thing. They are using shock tactics to raise awareness for an event, group, or product using similar methods to how the first paranormal activity movie was advertised. (For those that don't remember that movie's advertising consisted of allowing a audience to screen the movie blind and then showing reaction shots to the audience.) This is literally the exact same thing that Unicef just did to advertise.

As for the other stuff: Oh boohooohooo. Poor gamers were inconvenineced for at most half an hour.

The issue is that they were likely filmed and used in promotional material against there will and were defrauded into being there at all. If I did the same thing to make a pitch about time shares people would be all for at least slapping me with a criminal mischief charge.

Tell you what: Every protest has nothing to do with what normal people just going about their business want to do in said time.

Yes, but in most cases you aren't tricked into attending your protest and they have to get specific permissions to do anything that would inconvenience large numbers of people. If Unicef wanted to set up a booth outside, or even hand out fliers to people waiting in line to get in, I'd be all for that. This crosses the line because of the false pretenses that they used to get people into the presentation.

And given how some games these days are explicitly marketed these days as nothing but creepy wish-fulfillment I would think most gamers could do with a bit of their time "wasted" on real life issues.

You equate some games and all gamers as if a large subset of gamers are creeps and play nothing but sick games involving rape and murder. Go take your straw man ideal of what gamers are and fuck off.

-----

EDIT: Also, as others have said no matter how horrible the things depicted in a fictional book, video game, or movie, they aren't real and enjoying them has no effect on the real world. Just because you don't enjoy certain methods of escapism doesn't mean anybody else has to stop enjoying it. On the flip side, not enjoying being ambushed by a short sighted advertising campaign doesn't make you a bad person. These people were targeted, literally at random and the presenter and organization had no way of knowing any given persons level of social involvement or contribution to charitable causes.

Yet just because people attending and people who are annoyed that it happened at all are commenting you're now attempting to paint us as horrible people. Fuck off with this moral high ground bullshit.

[salm]

So if a pro-life group manages to lure a bunch of pro-choice women into a presentation about how abortion is bad using a false pretense that would be fine? I mean they're "only" inconveniencing them.

Why not? You can still hate them because of the idiotic message they convey while having no problem with the means of conveying it.

[Thanas]

I can't speak for other gamers, only myself, but (to reiterate, for the 3rd time now) the offense is from 1) Deceptive, manipulative tactics, and 2) The lazy lack of vision employed with those tactics. The content which a video game might have is utterly irrelevant, in the same way that the content a street vendor hot dog has is irrelevant to a discussion about events in a football stadium. The only relevance video games have here is that happened to be the particular medium being crashed, thus my objection to their lack of effort in creating something relevant to the medium. Replace "video game" with "movie," "book," "magazine," or "16th century oil painting," the argument is the same.

Oh yes, because unicef can just shit out a game. Right.

Well, I think I laid out my position in a pretty straightforward and plainly-stated manner. I'm a little disappointed.

You're not the only one.

And who exactly are you referring to? I have arguably been the most vocal opponent to the stunt in this thread, so I assume that's directed at me. If not, all right, though I don't know who you're talking about since no one has particularly flown off the handle here, as far as I can tell.

I think your reaction pretty much fits perfectly what Ziggy is saying.

The comparison to merchandising is just wrong on so many levels that it is not even worth addressing.

It's literally the exact same thing.

No, it fucking is not. One is commercial activity, the other is not. You can sue for false advertising. You cannot sue because somebody inconvenienced you with political activity unless it is on a scale which this does not match.

The issue is that they were likely filmed and used in promotional material against there will and were defrauded into being there at all. If I did the same thing to make a pitch about time shares people would be all for at least slapping me with a criminal mischief charge.

No, they would not. Everybody who goes to a convention knows that they are filmed and used in promotional material. Heck, entire convention trailers feature shots of awed crowds.

Yes, but in most cases you aren't tricked into attending your protest

How is this any different than any other shitty game presentation which does not deliver something as advertised? Oh wait, this is nothing but the lame "but they didn't show an actual game" thing dressed up in green this time. To which I say: If your objection rests on the fact that UNICEF didn't just waste hundreds of thousands of dollars to create a fake game, then you should really check your fucking privilege right now.

(And I think the same people who bitch about it in this thread would bitch even more if Unicef had just wasted that much money on a PR stunt).

and they have to get specific permissions to do anything that would inconvenience large numbers of people.

There were what, thirty or so people? Maybe a hundred at best? The local homeless guy inconveniences more people when he blocks access to the market every wednesday. Get a grip.

If Unicef wanted to set up a booth outside, or even hand out fliers to people waiting in line to get in, I'd be all for that. This crosses the line because of the false pretenses that they used to get people into the presentation.

File under "whiny butthurt impotence".

You equate some games and all gamers as if a large subset of gamers are creeps and play nothing but sick games involving rape and murder. Go take your straw man ideal of what gamers are and fuck off.

Wow, it is almost as if you fail at reading or context.

EDIT: Also, as others have said no matter how horrible the things depicted in a fictional book, video game, or movie, they aren't real and enjoying them has no effect on the real world. Just because you don't enjoy certain methods of escapism doesn't mean anybody else has to stop enjoying it. On the flip side, not enjoying being ambushed by a short sighted advertising campaign doesn't make you a bad person.

Correct. It doesn't. But whining for days after the fact at how your fucking feelings were hurt about it makes you a) a giant whimp and b) look really bad when compared to the shit going on in South Sudan.

Seriously.

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I guess we'll just have to disagree then. I'm sorry we couldn't see eye to eye.

[Civil War Man]

Boohoo, as if they were ever going to donate anyway. Now maybe at least some of them will spare 10 minutes to research the topic and won't drown it out entirely like they would otherwise do.

Congrats on missing my point. The goal of a presentation like that should be to find people who would otherwise not contribute and change their minds. Instead, most people who were there will now probably be even less likely to ever donate, because they'll remember UNICEF as an organization that pretended they were making a video game as part of a stunt to try to guilt people into giving them money. They spent the time and money needed to set up a fake panel at a gaming convention, and I can't see anything gained out of it outside of maybe a small handful of guilt-induced donations and a chance for people who donate to feel superior to the people who walked out.