April 9, 2008 -
Better late than never?That could be the operative phrase at the UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which, according to the Guardian, has just sanctioned an ad campaign for Eidos' Kane & Lynch.
The game, which garnered unimpressive reviews, launched on November 13th of last year - which makes the ASA's order that no K&L ads be reprinted or rebroadcast a bit pointless.
The ASA said that it had received 26 complaints and that the poster at left was "graphic and too shocking to be seen in an untargeted medium". From the Guardian:
The ad was used a double-page spread in Future Publishing's computer game magazine Edge, while a second version appeared in the magazine Total Film...
Ruling on the Kane & Lynch poster... the ASA said it was "likely to be seen as condoning and glorifying real violence", and was also irresponsible and "likely to cause serious or widespread offence".
From the ASA's report, as cited by the Guardian:
We noted that the demographic profile of the magazines that carried the ads was predominantly adult males and that only a small number of children were likely to have seen the ads.
We considered, however, that the graphic and shocking image, which would be seen as condoning and glorifying real violence, was likely to cause distress to some readers and was unsuitable for children to see. We therefore concluded that the placement of the ads was irresponsible.
Comments
Hey, don't knock Rosie - big girls rock! VIVA LA BBW!
*Runs*
Sometime I find that Western world is more commie than the real communist.
It's sad, it really is, but you have understand that these large companies place these ads in sections that will get to a younger audience while trying to attempt to look like they aren't. They do it on purpose. My kids will grow up playing video games because they love them, and I love them, but I don't think that subjecting 12 year old to the same type of violence and advertising as and 18 year old is good practice.
They didn't ban anyone from selling/playing the game, they simply restricted something that they saw to be a potential hazard to a younger audience. I"m not saying it's an awesome move, an all inclusive move, or even a move that will actually accomplish something but what they did was legal, and completely within their jurisdiction to do so.
They didn't base their decision entirely on the magazine add alone and that is the key to remember. There were giant posters hanging in outside windows of game stores in public (at the mall) where thousands of children walk by a day. I'm sure that the magazine add was the smallest on their list of reasons to ban all advertisements.
It completely saddens me that we have to rely on an outside body to enforce these types of "ethics", if you will, because business no longer hold the courage or self decency to say "I'm not going to sell it" just because it makes them money. Just like with nearly everything else in the world, principle is lost.
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hmmm Ok so a quick google found circulation averages of around 31k for Edge and 85k Total Film per month…so 120000 adverts in circulation generated 26 complaints. 0.021% or to put it another way 99.979 people had no issue whatsoever.
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You forget, every complaint written is representative of 99 other people that didn't write. So, each complaint = 100 people. Thus, 2600 complaints. That almost half of the users. The thought that so many people were offended just scare the chickens out of me. What has the world come to where people can get scared by a poster?
its the ultimate Nanny state.
you can't walk down the street without someone telling you what to do because its just "better" or "healthier".
Fucking hate this place.
Lets just Censor everything. Ban everything wrap people in cotton wool and then everyone will be disensitized.
Like what the governments doing.
B$stards.
During a quick search I found a couple for Play.com that got upheld (i.e. pulled) all because someone misunderstood one of their adverts and wasn't getting a DVD as cheap as he thought they would.
Just as long as they don;t get involved in video game classification otherwise nothing would ever get released here.
True, but man that game just sucked. Also side note GTA IV soon *dances the saftey dance* Yep I'm doing the safety dance, I'm acting like world governments doing that WAY to late.