EA’s recent PR stunt at E3, in which they organized a protest outside the LA Convention Center and hand out pamphlets directing people to WeAreSavedGroup.org for their upcoming game Dante’s Inferno, was a stroke of genius. You can call it dumb, or cheap or dirty, but the fact remains that it got them a crap ton of press in both the gaming world and the mainstream, and it fooled a whole lot of people — whether they admit to be fooled or not. This would usually be what you call a successful PR move.
Not so much on all fronts. It would seem that even a fake group can offend — though, in this case, it offended those they stereotyped. Like Pavlovian dogs trained to raise their head if someone mocks an aspect of Christianity, some Christians were offended.
“‘It’s been clear for a while now that the entertainment industry views Christians on the whole as priggish, thin-skinned fun-killers,’ writes Margaret Cabaniss on her website.”
Sadly, she’s not alone in her ability to present an ironic statement about how Christians are actually hip and with-it when it comes to gaming. Catholic Video Gamers had a few choice words to say too, culminating in,
“So instead of engaging in a shamelessly anti-Christian stunt to promote your poor excuse of a product, maybe you ought to work on making this game, you know, something better than a blatant God of War rip-off and make it, ya know, something worthwhile?”
Newsflash, people: we’re talking about a game that’s already made. So your admonishment to pour the effort spent hating Christians back into making the game is moot.