I've been watching these guys since someone posted their piracy episode here. I don't recommend it in general for everyone but I thought this one might be of wider interest:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/extra-credits/2794-An-Open-Letter-to-EA-Marketing

So what do you think, is EA slitting their own throat going for puerile appeal to boost sales or is that the approach that earns the most money? Even back in the C64 days box art was full of semi nude women, so it's not new, really.

I think they actually may be holding games back a bit as an artform, I think that's valid.

I think he's overestimating the impact the Dante's Inferno marketing stunts had on gaming as a legitimate hobby. I, and I imagine most other gamers, had completely forgotten about both the game and the marketing ploys.

What he says about the Medal of Honor controversy was odd as well. He blames EA for not standing up to the military, then acts as though them caving in and calling the Taliban Op4 lowered the amount of sales that they got, which makes no sense. He criticizes EA from both sides, suggesting that they were in the wrong both for caving and for not caving enough.

The Dead Space 2 was a satirical ad that involved actors paid to act as horrified mothers. It was funny, and it's pretty obvious the marketing was geared toward people in their 20s who realize that the "playing games because they're objectionable" concept is laughable. Look at the age of the "mothers". These aren't the mid 30s or early 40s mothers of teenagers, but the late 40s, early 50s mothers of 18+ year olds. From comments on reddit, it was pretty obvious most gamers realized that it was satire and that it was actually pretty funny.

I normally like Extra Credits and am by no means a huge fan of EA (I actually haven't played any of the games above), but this episode was disappointing.

As for gaming being an art. It isn't. Certain games are pieces of art, like certain movies are. However, most games, like most depictions in any medium, only fit the loosest definitions of what art is. Call of Duty, Fable, Medal of Honor, and most other games on the market today aren't art; they're mainstream games designed to appeal to wide audiences, and that's fine! It's like movies such as the Expendables and all the other mainstream movies out there. Most comics aren't art, although they contain it. It's better to judge each individual segment of a medium than to cast a blanket over all pieces and call them art. Because if you do that, some person will look in, play Call of Duty, reject it as art, and completely disregard games as a medium that contains art.

EA was going to remove the Taliban name in the final product anyways. They intentionally slipped that Taliban label only for a moment to enjoy the free ride of short-term controversy it would give to the game. Was fun and useful to build hype while it lasted. That was their strategy. He does mention that, referring to lost money due to offended soldiers and their families. I can't wait for the 6 days in Fallujah game, in which you're able to drag dead US soldiers across the streets.

That is actually a really good point, I never thought of it that way. overall though I think they were getting somewhere with what they were saying. I mean hiring a bunch of fake protesters for Dante's Inferno is just stupid, Yes, Most of us have forgotten about it by now but looking back on it I don't really know what they were thinking. It may bring some hype for your game but brings along many negative affects as well.

The other ads though like Dead Space 2, you could tell they weren't being that serious just by the commentators voice in the video, but other people didn't see it that way. I actually found it funny.

If it ever gets released! They don't have any publisher and apparently the games been done for a while.

The Dantes Inferno thing really made me angry. Way to offend and make everyone uncomfortable. EA is trash. Activision however, isn't any better. I actually enjoy the games EA puts out.

I really enjoyed the episode, and I don't think the EC team is overestimating the problem at all. They're not calling EA out because of any single marketing campaign. They're calling them out on a now well-established pattern of behavior, namely, the deliberate manufacture (and general falsification) of controversy: DI pretended to be important enough to non-gamers to be religiously offensive, MOH flirted with and then abandoned moderate accuracy in depicting current events, and DS2 supposedly shocks middle-aged women.

The real problem is the cumulative effect that the repeated use of such tactics has on the broader social and political context in which games are developed and played. It doesn't really matter that not all games are art because the artistic merit of a creative work is 1) always subject to debate and 2) not the only measure of its value. It matters very much, however, that a major game publisher consistently and deliberately promotes an image of "mature" games as NOTHING BUT juvenile fantasies. EC is criticizing EA for aggressively undermining the credibility of gaming by and for rational, responsible, thinking adults who understand that difficult or disturbing content can still have positive worth. The literary version of Dante's Inferno is a perfect example.

When enough people believe that games have no value at all, that an entire medium of communication has no POTENTIAL to be artistically or politically or socially constructive and therefore no RIGHT to any sort of free speech protection, then you end up with a situation that makes it very easy to censor or even ban games outright. As EC pointed out, the US Army's refusal to allow MOH to be sold in stores located on its bases is one example of this problem. The irony of EA's marketing strategy is that it created a controversy that cost it direct physical access to an important sales demographic for the fps genre--US soldiers--and simultaneously prevented the rest of the gaming community from rallying in defense of the company's freedom of expression.

EA is certainly not solely responsible for the current legal and social status of gaming and the games industry in the United States or anywhere else in the world, but it is big enough and visible enough to take a leading role in shaping public opinion. It is therefore not unreasonable of EC to suggest that EA could be a much better corporate citizen and that there may even be a perfectly profit-motivated reason for doing so. It's possible to be both edgy and smart.

You just shared that far more eloquently than I could. Thanks for taking the time:)

Agreed, that was an excellent post.

That was a very thoughtful and well written post.