EA’s Gibeau: “Controversy isn’t a bad thing”

EA’s Frank Gibeau has said that the company looks to court controversy when releasing new games, remarking that “we love Fox News!”

Speaking to Industry Gamers, Gibeau said: ”When you’re building new IPs and you’re building games and you’re looking at an entertainment audience, they see a lot of messages. Controversy isn’t a bad thing. I personally believe you should court controversy.”

“I loved it when Fox News did the lesbian aliens on Mass Effect,” said Gibeau. ”I love when they covered the Taliban; I loved it when they covered the Bulletstorm stuff. In each one of those cases, it was true to the game and we were trying to do something creatively. The fact that their point of view is different than ours and represented an audience out there is fine by me.”

“I felt we could stand up and defend what we did and be aggressive about it and be proud of it,” he said. He noted that “you shouldn’t do it in a gratuitous way” and only if “it matches the creativity of the game”.

One problem with this tactic, however, is that it can damage the public perception of videogames. San Andreas’ Hot Coffee mod certainly got Rockstar some publicity (even if it was unintentional) and no doubt resulted in the sales of that game increasing.

However, it also creates a potentially negative image of videogames, often playing to the perception that they’re all ultra-violent and feature hardcore sex. While some do, it’s not universal and it’s a shame seeing games companies playing on the old “videogames are for psychos” stereotype to sell their titles. The media often can’t be trusted to be “Fair and Balanced” and the majority of the time and reactionary opinions overrule many of the rational ones.

While controversy may sell games, it’s also potentially damaging to the medium overall.

via: GamesIndustry.biz