Law & Order game pulled from shelves, image of murdered child to blame

angie harmon is still hot

Couldn't they have just rendered an anonymous boys face and make up a name? Did they actually think this would not get noticed?

Not that I care, but still.

To the developers:

You guys are tasteless and dumb as shit!

Uh, guys... The picture was of him being led away before he was killed.

The actual image: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Bulger_cctv.jpg

Yes, it WAS tasteless to have the image in the game.

However, Sky (that's a Murdoch/Fox company, my American friends) is the lowest, lowest form of journalism.

To FrankTheCrank:

Slip in a puddle of aids.

Anyone know if the TV crime dramas ever do that sort of thing? If so, that's one hell of a fucking double standard.

The bigger question is who gives a shit?

To the Developers: Do you not have any respect at all for yourself, does money mean that much to you that you would place the image of an innocent child who was killed moments later in your game.
How would you feel it that was your child?

@Space_Butler YOU SUCK BALLS!!!

Clearly pretty stupid of the developer to include something like this. Can't blame the family for complaining.

#2 "Did they actually think this would not get noticed?"

It went unnoticed for four years.

The kid who has been dead for 15 years...they have no right to demand anything. Dead people aren't entitled to anything. The world needs to lighten up...15 years. God, get on with your lives.

YouFaceTheTick shouldn't have the right to post on Joystiq.

Dead people are supposed to be dead!

Nice Scrubs quote Ryan :D

err I think anyone who doesn't see what's wrong with this has not heard or read the story. Check it out on Wiki. What the developers did was insensitive, let the kid rest in peace.

Hey, I have that game....

@rarehero, nice way to censor points of view. I read the wiki. Shrug. My family and friends prosecute for a living so there's nothing shocking in that wiki. You obviously feel differently but there's no need to demand that I be banned because I expressed a differing view.

Sorry if I offended you but honestly, learn to accept that people may not see things as you do.

12: The kid wasnt entitled to be murdered was he? And we may beable to get on with our lives but can he?

You idiot...

I begged them to include photos of my mutilated son in their game, but they refused. This makes me so angry.

It would be easier to repress the CD with the patch, then just mail out the new press to all five people that bought this game.

It was horrible enough for Legacy to make a mission in a game based on the Bulger atrocity that has caused pain to so many people. It is even worse that they put this in months after the murderers of Jamie were released with government protection. But NOTHING is as bad as some of the dumb shits that post on a gaming blog about how this is no big deal, and that people are overreacting. Go fuck yourselves.

I really don't know what's up with game developers lately and the need to put real life things into games that obviously could cause trouble. Be it a duplicate of a church in England or a picture of someone who was killed, it's stupid if it's not necessary.

If the game has a made up story, I really don't care if everything in it is made up. If you are inspired by a story of something that happened in real life, then change names, make pictures, maybe change the story a bit, don't just copy the real life story.

Now, obviously sometimes it's important for the games to copy real life. Like any game that is based on any historical event. If I play a WWII game, then I would expect all the history in it to be like it really happened. But that's History that you find in any library. And even then you have to ask yourself if it's ok to make this game. Obviously making a game based on the 9/11 tragedy right now would get you in trouble because a lot of people feel it's still too soon. So is it worth it?

To the guy saying it's been 15 years and people need to "get on with their lives": I'm not going to tell you exactly what I think of you since it would be a waste of time. However, I will say this, I don't think any amount of time would ever allow you to truly get past having your son killed.

I don't think you can ever get over having your son die in an accident, I would imagine it would be much worse to know your son didn't die in an accident and instead someone took him and killed him. And not only that, but he was most probably tortured before being killed.

"12. The kid who has been dead for 15 years...they have no right to demand anything. Dead people aren't entitled to anything. The world needs to lighten up...15 years. God, get on with your lives.

Posted at 8:37PM on Jun 21st 2007 by YouFaceTheTick"

Wow!, you're a momumental asshole! Let's see a member of your family die a horrific death and watch YOU get over it. Now, go die in a fire or something.

That picture is used in all the Law & Order games. It's the same office with the same pictures in each game.

But anyways, it was just a bad call for the artist to find that image and put it in there. It was probably the first hit he found searching for something to use. It could have been anyone.

Would have been much easier and nicer to try and stage a picture like this than use real life source material.Just shows some artists are lazy.

Law & Order bases 90% of their episodes on real cases. They did the same thing in the games, did anyone NOT expect them to do the "ripped from the headlines" thing?

Let's see who/what had episodes based on them in the last year:
Walter Reed victims (Over Here)
Michael Devlin (Captive)
OJ Simpson (Murder Book)
Ted Haggard (Church)
Madonna (Charity Case)
Daniel Smith (Remains of the Day)
Amish schoolgirl tragedy (Deadlock)
Joe Francis/Girls Gone Wild (Release)
Mel Gibson (In Vino Veritas)
Interceptor body armor package scandal (Profiteer)
Dateline (Public Service Homicide)
Dr. Nicolas Bartha (Home Sweet)
Rachelle Waterman (Avatar)
Kevin Federline (Fame)
Ann Coulter (Talking Points)

Maybe they didn't care because they knew no one would buy the game.

That's a great misleading title. The images isn't literally of a dead 2yr old child. It's an image from a security camera of the murderers holding James' hand while abducting him from a shopping center.

If this thread were any more PC it'd be supported by PETA and Calpirg. It's a GAME about a bad TV show that always takes their storylines from real events. Shocking...and it only took 4 years for anyone to find the objectionable material. Prior to this announcement most people 1. didn't know the game existed, 2. Even if they knew of the game they had no idea 1 shot of it contained a real-life pic. Essentially, people are calling attention to something that is a non-issue.

I guess what's pissing me off is the hypocrisy of it all. You're lambasting a game for using an image of a kid, while on NBC/Fox/ABC/CNN they're exploiting the deaths of people constantly. Right now another pregnant white woman has disappeared and just like Laci Peterson the media is on it and they'll exploit it until the inevitable conclusion (it's almost a guarantee that the baby's daddy killed her - that's who kills pregnant women almost every time).

We've got Nancy Grace and her cadre of muckrakers exploiting the dead on TV during the family's immediate time of pain and mourning It's done without their permission and it's done for one reason: money.

And it doesn't stop at the news. Star 80 is nothin g more than a snuff film about Dorothy Stratten - playmate of the year in 1980. The film was made BECAUSE Dorothy was gunned down by her boyfriend. They exploited the woman's death in feature length film format with Eric Roberts and Mariel Hemingway as the stars.

So pardon me if I'm not freaking out over the use of 1 picture, in the background of a murder victim from over a decade ago. The reality is that the media will devour these kinds of stories as they're happening. In this instance it's not nearly as egregious or even in your face.

Locally a little girl disappeared and sure enough it turned out a freak neighbor had abducted her, molested her, slaughtered her and left her to be eaten by animals. The media fed on that poor girl's death and her family for MONTHS.

@Dan

Wow, Ann Coulter was in one? Please tell me they found her broken and discarded in a drainage ditch, bound in black trashbags and electrical tape...

Basically, whoever had to design the room behind the cutscenes with that man in it, decided to put a bulletin board in, and put some black and white police-looking photos on it. They checked google image search, picked a random good one, and put it on. Clearly he didn't know what the image was. He just took the risk that nobody would notice whatever it was.

Is that so wrong? Developers all over probably take this same risk over and over. Should one guy from such a small company get so much bullcrap for this? Surely others deserve more hate.

What you'll find is that the parents have every right to complain, their son was brutally murdered. The worst thing is the circumstances around the case focused on computer games and movies as the reasons why the kids killed Jamie Bulger. Thats the reason i think its insensitive to have the image. It could almost be seen as Ironic or maybe a "fuck-you" if i felt that the developers realised what they had.

But i do think it was wrong to have the image included and those who haven't lost a child can not offer a negetive opinion because they can't understand what the parents feel.

I know News programs and current affiars completely mess up a proper ruling on whats right and wrong and quickly cash in on murders and stuff, but thats simply because the government has given them the right to because of fear. It sucks and is a headache, but all i know is that the circus that surrounded the case at the time is enough for to believe that the picture in a computer was a very bad move.