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R3PUBLIC0N
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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With regard to the terrorist level,
I haven't seen the video because I just got to work and this is the first I've heard of it.

Video games provide a unique medium to explore concepts. Putting the player in the hands of a villain who commits acts nearly universally considered evil forces a radically new perspective onto a person. Provoking thought is always a good thing.

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11 replies
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MSUHitman
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@R3PUBLIC0N: Supposedly you're playing as an undercover CIA operative trying to work into this Russian terrorist group. You are only required to shoot the security personnel, but you can shoot the civilians as your \"teammates\" if you want, or just stick with the priority targets.

Nothing that hasn't been seen on 24.

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MSUHitman
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@MSUHitman: meant to say as your \"teammates\" are doing.

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R3PUBLIC0N
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@MSUHitman: That completely changes the context. My assumption was that you were in the head of a religious fanatic or some such and you were actually doing your job by shooting civilians.

If they fix that ridiculous server nonsense and I buy the game, I'll play the level both ways and see how I feel afterward.

It's interesting to put folks in a role where you can murder innocent people with no consequences to your actions, even if there is no benefit to doing so.

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mythago
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@R3PUBLIC0N: \"Provoking thought\" is the last resort of the dumbfuck proposal. Okay, it's stupid, pointless and rude, but hey, it caused some random neurons to fire in your brain so it counts!

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Superawesomerad
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@mythago: I'm failing to see where you get that the level is stupid, pointless, or rude.

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Zerkaboid
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@R3PUBLIC0N: Well said. The developers have defended this portion of the game with a similar argument, adding that it will push the player to really hate the enemy later in the game.

Years ago there was a PS2 game called \"State of Emergency\" where the entire purpose of the game was to run around in crowbed buildings and streets and slaughter people. It ran into some controversy but eventually everyone remembered it's just a game, hopefully it won't hurt sales of Modern Warfare 2.

Also, you're able to skip the terrorist level, a nice touch for anyone who really feels it's inappropriate.

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Cyco
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Zerkaboid: Actually, your comment about State of Emergency is incorrect. It was a game about revolting against the government and creating as much property damage as possible, but killing citizens was not a goal and you were penalized health if you did.

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ElPresidente408
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@R3PUBLIC0N:
Exactly. One reason I'm sad Konami pulled Six Days in Fallujah. Too much political correctness. Because as we all know, 1 letter of criticism = 1 billion offended people

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menty666
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@R3PUBLIC0N: It makes me miss \"Postal\", where you went around town killing everyone.

Oh, guess what? That was years ago that I enjoyed playing the game and I haven't gone on a killing spree yet.

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R3PUBLIC0N
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@menty666: Postal taught me how to use a cat as a silencer, smoke crack, catch a urinary tract infection, and piss gasoline.

I am a reasonable and well balanced individual.

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Saites
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@R3PUBLIC0N: That was one of the best things I have ever read.

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ngoandy
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@menty666: I noticed you said yet.

Is that a hint?

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h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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I haven't seen the ad, so I'm only going off of the descriptions I've read on various websites. Having said that, I think Infinity Ward was shooting for \"edgy\" and overshot into \"offensive\". I'm not up in arms over it but it gets a massive eyeroll from me.
As an aside, I get so sick of people using \"pussy\" in a derogatory manner. Yeah, I know it's Feminism 101, but blah.

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h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Pink Puppet: Yep, and they reminded me why I rarely play multiplayer anything any more. I love gaming, and I'm a second generation FPS player, but I have a low tolerance for idiocy.

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jvanbrecht
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes: I have been playing FPS's since the original Doom came out for 16 player netbui that destroyed university networks :)

That said, I cannot stand the current crop of FPS console games.. It has introduced too many idiots to the games, and listening to the 12 years olds (I know, you can mute them) is just painful.

That and how the hell am I supposed to play and aim accurately with a freaking console controller.. I need a damn mouse and keyboard.. nothing fancy.

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Trai_Dep
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@jvanbrecht: Although, I have to say. Several days ago I was playing Team Fortress 2, non-console. And a pre-pubertal kid joined. With headset. Uh-oh, right?
He was SO awesome. Polite. Called out the right things. Played thinking of team, not individual (this is the crux of the game). Enthusiasm dripping off of every single word. Didn't chatter. And at the end, he shouted out what a good time he had, wished both sides a good time, and thanked everyone for an awesome time.

*SOB*
Makes me wish I had a kid, that one did. Or a dozen. Every so often, you get a boy playing that reaffirms your faith in humanity.

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proskills
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Trai_Dep: There definitely are some kids out there who are not annoying and homophobic. However, a vast majority of them think it's cool to be a douchebag.

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Covertghost
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@jvanbrecht: I'm the same way.


The demographic really shifted once counter-strike went main stream and the FPS' started showing up on consoles.

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DPGumby
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes: Maybe you should watch the video before making a judgment.

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h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@DPGumby: I can't find it anywhere. I am interested in seeing it, but it has been removed from YouTube and a cursory search for it yielded nothing. Do you have a link?

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h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@DPGumby: Never mind, I was able to find it. My judgment remains the same. Yeah, I \"get\" what they're trying to do, I just think it's lame.

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DPGumby
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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I thought it was pretty funny and I hate grenade spam in FPS games.

This game is going to sell well - no mater what they do. I think they are just looking for some more free publicity before the release. They succeeded.

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jvanbrecht
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@DPGumby: I'm with you on the grenade spam.. in fact.. I hate random weapon drop FPS games.. I prefer the more skill required rail gun only modes... although in Doom (the original) CTF with no team dmg.. using the rocket launcher was fun for high jumps..

Or the grappling hook and shotgun approach.. that pissed people off :)

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Coles_Law
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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As pointed out elsewhere, much of this controversy could have been avoided if they had thrown an 'R' word in to make the acronym FRAGS. It looks like they made the video targeting a small core group of gamers, but it spread to the larger community where many took offense. Well, any publicity is good publicity...

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strathmeyer
November 13, 2009 4:35 PM
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@Coles_Law: I find your comment offensive to core gamers.

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mac-phisto
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Coles_Law: yeah, or fashion the acronym around NOOB.

anyway, someone should've seen this coming.

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glorpy
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Coles_Law: Yup. The core concept of the ad, based on description alone, is awesome. The problem is simply the choice of acronyms. Yes, the f-word is used extensively in online communities. That doesn't mean it's appropriate.

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Pink Puppet
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes: Why, hello almost-me! I've been a gamer since I grew old enough to realize that gnawing on an Atari joystick in a futile effort for sustenance was meaningless, and FPS ended up being one of my favorite genres.

But multiplayer? Keep that away from me!

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mac-phisto
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Pink Puppet, h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes, jvanbrecht: wow. listen to the old farts. some of us forget to change their adult diapers this morning?

=P

geez, you guys sound so old.

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h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Pink Puppet: I was lucky in that my dad got me started on gaming really young. He brought home a copy of Wolfenstein 3D and I was done for. I treated the Apogee catalog like it was the Bible when I was little. Somewhere at my dad's house he has a great letter from one of my teachers expressing concern because \"I heard Tracie talking about killing Nazis. This is very disconcerting to me, and I thought you should be aware.\"

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CaptainSemantics
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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The last thing we need is caffeinated teenagers seeing another reason to use a derogatory term for gays. I'm not saying that all video game players are this way (as I have been known to enjoy a game or two), but you have to admit that a lot of hardcore gamers love to throw around that f-word as if it means nothing while playing Halo or whatever the kids are playing nowadays.

It just seems that someone made an ad that was intended for a small amount of people, forgot about this thing called \"the internet,\" and got called out on the ad. They kinda did the right thing by pulling the ad, but the *most correct* answer would have been not using that derogatory term.

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MostlyHarmless
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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I think it was pretty well handled. Though SOMEONE needs to come out with a colorful term that rolls of the tongue and conveys a similar sentiment without being derogatory to gay people.

@CaptainSemantics: Caffeinated teenagers already have more than enough reasons to be all bitchy about ANYTHING. So I dont think one more ad is going to really fan the flames. Also whats wrong with dropping the F bomb every now and then? It makes gameplay fun. And it naturally comes with the adrenaline.

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Pink Puppet
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@MostlyHarmless: For some reason, and I lament this greatly, accusing one's foes of \"ass-haberdashery\" never quite caught on.

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CaptainSemantics
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@MostlyHarmless: Methinks we're not talking about the same f-word. I'm not talking about my favorite curseword of all time f-bomb, I'm talking about the word they practically use in the ad.

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yungjerry703
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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i find it more offensive when people call Dallas Cowboy's QB Tony Homo. They did not refer to the 'nade spamers as fags they referred to the group against 'nade spamers as fags. i thought it was a pretty funny commercial. not that there is anything wrong with that.

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torgonius
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Maaaaaaaah! That loser on the TV said that because I just randomly huck grenades into groups of people in a game, that I'm a cigarette!


A cigarette Maaaaaah! He called your precious little snowflake a cigarette! Call the lawyers! WAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

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Rey
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@torgonius: Nice intentional obfuscation, numbnuts.

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ngoandy
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Has there ever been a WW2 game where you play as the Nazis? Is the terrorist level just randomly shooting civilians or is there a point?

The Grand Theft Auto series has you play as a bad guy.

You can be evil in the Fallout series.

There is the Postal series where you randomly kill people.

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3 replies
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Malicious A
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@ngoandy:
exactly. nobody complains about Rockstar making an ENTIRE FUCKING SERIES about killing civilians and cops and doing drugs and stealing cars, yet someone makes 1 level about a terrorist shooting civilians and everyone is up in arms.

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Covertghost
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@ngoandy: I've noticed most WW2 games don't want you to sympathize at all with the antagonists.


I think it's because they don't really want people to realize that there was a human element to the opposition as well...

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JCWhitless
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Covertghost: Call of Duty: World At War

In the multiplayer mode you can fight for the fuhrer.

\"Zey zend there hounds, butz thvey twu will vind only deaf\"

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Smashville
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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\"Philadelphia Phillipes\"?


Somebody wrote their own name in there.

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Ronin-Democrat
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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I denounce and reject them for homophobic comments in commercial but say ignore civilian deaths by terrorists IN GAME!!!!!!!!.

terrorists
legitimate military forces
police
governments agents
kill civilians whether purposely or by accident

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jayphat
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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As someone who was egerly awaiting this title, this is far from the worst thing I.W. has done to \"promote\" this game. Never mind the game add that has a homophobic title to it. Nevermind the opening scene where you play as a CIA operative who has to mow down civilians(hello, we've done worse in GTA). The biggest controversy so far has been the removal of the ability to use dedicated servers for MW2 in place of a peer-2-peer set-up managed solely buy Infiniti Ward. On top of that, when uproar arose, they blamed \"modders and tuners\" for the \"minority voice\" of this, then revealed a ton of new features for the game that were MADE by the modding community.


Hardcore 360 gamers will be lining up for this on Nov 10, not PC users.

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mac-phisto
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@jayphat: give it a month & i'm sure the community will have pirate servers up & running w/ a patch to connect to them.

& sorry if this comment posts twice. gnomes may/may not have eaten the first one...

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Covertghost
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Eh, if you're on Xbox Live playing an FPS for more than 5 minutes, you'll be called a \"fag\" a few times.

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mythago
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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\"Lining up\"? Gee, I dunno. Left 4 Dead 2, Assassin's Creed and Dragon Age are all coming out in the near future. My gaming budget doesn't have to go to a game developed by a pack of immature pencil-dicks.

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subtlefrog
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@mythago: so...you're not going to buy any games, then?

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Shadowfire
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Uhm... Film Actors Guild, anyone? I fail to see the problem.

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TVarmy
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Why did they have to use that acronym? It's otherwise a good campaign. Players hate grenade spam, so it's a good idea for an ad. TF2 fought it so much that they removed it from all but one classes, and the one class that still has grenades has considerable weaknesses.

They could have called it NO-GIBS (Gibs is short for Giblets, the body parts that fall after a grenade in a video game), or something clever like that.

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grimdeath9740
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Wow, IW scores another point of dumbassery for the what could/should have be one of the biggest game releases this year. Honestly all they had to do was put out a modern warfare game with a big 2 on it and it would sell like hotcakes.

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dangerp
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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For those of you that are wanting to see the ad, here you go:

Personally, I don't see the big deal. I see it as a satire of the gaming community, and one that the audience (the gaming community) would understand. I don't see any homophobic undertones here.

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Sandaasu
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@dangerp: I'm a gay man, and I laughed. If you throw random grenades at people, you're a \"pussy.\" If you don't like people doing so, you're one of the \"FAGS.\" Everyone's one of the things that the teenage boys who play FPS games call each other all the time, which is pretty much how they see the world based upon what they have to say.

Probably not going to buy the game in any case. I've got enough on my plate already.

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subtlefrog
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@dangerp: Wow. That's not anywhere near as bad as everyone was making it out to be. The ad was funny.

Yeah, the acronym could have been better, but it doesn't completely lend itself to people screaming the F-word at each other in-game, as I imagined it would.

Thanks for posting.

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Michael Belisle
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@dangerp: It's higher-order homophobia. Not the kind where they come out and say it, but the kind where you have to read between the lines to see that the letters line up to spell \"FAGS\".

Also never mind that, if you use logic properly, someone opposed to grenade spam (not someone who spams with grenades) is a part of FAGS.

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zentex
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@dangerp: that was IT? Oh jesus...the internets is now sensitive.

We must coddle the internet and stroke its hair so it wont cry.

I liked the video, and I'm still giving them a wad of cash in 8 days.

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subtlefrog
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Activision announced some time ago that they'd be pulling out all the stops on the media blitz for CoD MW2. Game companies do not do this for games that will not sell well. Whether or not they knew what they were doing with this ad, MW2 is going to be one of the better selling games of 2009.

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Pink Puppet
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@h3llc4t, breaker of office dress codes: Yes! My dad was a huge gamer, too. I might not have been the brightest child in elementary school, but I could kill Nazis like you wouldn't believe.

@mac-phisto: Hey, I'm cool. I'm just shaking my cane at all those gosh-darned kids.

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Doug Nelson
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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Just an idle suggestion, but wouldn't the dilution of an epithet caused by using it in for non-traditional meanings be a good thing? It's worked for a couple of terms due to rap.


I have to also wonder if there's aren't gay clans that react to being called the name by agreeing and then killing said offender? The best thing that could happen (in a gaming context) would be if the term turned into a compliment.

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Sandaasu
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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@Doug Nelson: I do this all the time. It's fun! Sometimes really pisses them off too, which I get a kick out of.

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silver-bolt
November 13, 2009 4:34 PM
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The article is wrong. You're unfit for online play and deserved to be called a homophobic insults if you complain about the 'nades, not if you spam them.

But realistically, everyone who plays online is called a fag. It gets used more than \"hey you\".

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celeb8
November 13, 2009 4:35 PM
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None of this offends me. I'm probably the demographic they're marketing to with this ad. My gay friends think it was funny, but then again they use the FA* word regularly too.


So, uh... Oh well? I thought it was funny.

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uclajd
November 18, 2009 4:52 PM
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Oh boo hoo, definitely another example of, \"It's OK if we victims use the word, just not you.\" Gays call each other fag all the time.

See the recent South Park, \"The F Word,\" on the subject:

[www.southparkstudios.com]

If you want true equality, be able to laugh at yourself like everyone else.

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NeoFau
November 25, 2009 6:01 PM
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I lol'd at the ad XD

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