Activision: Kobe Bryant Black Ops ad controversy is 'hypocritical'

@DrunkFux

I'm sorry, this comment is hilarious. This is the internet in a nutshell.

@Dustin F

I agree.

I think a lot of people like playing soldier, even the real soldiers. I hung out at the midnight release for Modern Warfare 2 in Norfolk, which happens to have an active military base, and plenty of soldiers/vets were in the store buying the game at midnight.

Why don't people understand it's entertainment, not depicting reality. Sure it might be controversial at times (the no russian level was way more so than this ad), but that's the point. We are paying for entertainment, playing to pretend.

@Dustin F

yea i love ESPN, watch it every day, but this is the same network that goes into a tizzy every time Brett Favre has a hang nail. that being said, they do have a tendency to overreact and the fact that it was Skip Bayless surprises me even less. he is one of the few ESPN analysts i just can't stand. he has this elitist attitude and always talks to everyone else like they are stupid if they don't bow to his views, kind of like Colin Cowherd but at least Colin makes a ton of great points regardless. i thought the ad was great.

@R Planteer

You know me Marge! I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and homosexuals fah-laming! (the last part works for your dp as well, which rocks might I add)

@LENSconcept

You should see the rest of it. Had to edit it because I dont think sex toys are allowed in your dp.

@R Planteer
DP?
I think that acronym means something different to me.

@glamajamma

ha! quite possible, but in this instance it stands for display pic.

@imadogg

Skip Bayless is an idiot. He bitches about everything and is right about almost nothing. I'm always amused by typing in skip bayless into facebook and seeing the groups. Personal favorite- "Skip Bayless should put his face in a wood chipper".

I laughed pretty hard when I realized the people shooting grenades were Kobe and Jimmy. Good job, Activision.

@imadogg

Indeed, Skip is my least liked ESPN talking head, though I suppose it's why he's usually relegated to the back corners of their programming.

@Lerkero if the ad was distasteful then so is the game because they were just standing in for their in game character...would rather they made what they did then have actors sit around and talk into a mic.

@Lerkero

First of all, how is this disrespectful when nobody is killed or shot in the ad? Second, if this is disrespectful, then I guess paintball shooting is disrespectful too.

@Lerkero

Don't mind me, just going to tell you what is and isn't tasteful then have a cry when people try to tell me how to think.

@Lerkero
I agree with you. Too bad people here interpret our own opinions as preaching. To everyone downvoting and bitching - I don't mind if you or anyone likes the ad. You can praise it up and down, It's no big deal to me. I have no problem with it existing, so why don't I have the right to simply not like it?

@MLS @Esposch
Glad to see there are some people who can read a comment and see more than just someone that doesn't conform to their opinion.

At no point did I object to the ad existing, I stated that Activision was smart for making it appealing to their market. Apparently having tastes that are not the same as others who see my comment apparently gets a downvote regardless of whether I stated my opinion rationally or not.

Also, apparently paintball can be compared with military violence and you can get upvoted? All this time I thought military conflict involved political leaders sending other soldiers off to kill people in other nations (cause they ain't defending us) when all this time they were just playing paintball. How silly of me.

@Lerkero
The point made by Probi - to the people that could understand it - was that Call of Duty: Black Ops is a video game interpretation of war. Your goal in this war game is to 'kill' the 'enemy' with no real consequence to either side except for time spent waiting between the next round.

Paintball is - both existentially and literally - a war game. You are on a battle field, you are shooting guns with rounds, and your objective (CTF not withstanding) is to 'kill' your 'enemies.'

Same exact objective, yet you seem to have different feelings on the two.

If this were an ad for PSP and showed Kobe firing his gun to end a round and then you see him take off his mask and is smiling, would there be an element of tastelessness? I don't believe so, simply because he is playing a /game/.

I honestly believe that the people that are upset by video games and/or the advertisements for video games have next to nothing going on in their lives.

I look at it like this: with everything else going on in the world, THIS is what you're upset about??

@ytilanigiroon

It takes no real investment of time to be made upset by something. It takes me 5 minutes to write up this post, and it's driven by a goal to articulate, not push a moral agenda. It's a feeling. I don't know why you think just because something rubs me the wrong way, I'm spending all of my waking hours staging protests or pacing in anger. I don't like the ad. Deal. You know nothing about my personality or day to day life from that statement. It would be just as wrong of me to publicly assume you have a thoughtless dedication to the media you consume and spend all your hours blindly defending all things related to it.

I had a negative reaction to drunk-driving in GTAIV as well. It's just something that personally I wasn't cool with. I'm not gonna just bottle that up in a discussion in fear of some anonymous person's opinion of me. I like certain war games like TF2 and General Chaos. I take no issue with the core elements of these games. There isn't a slippery slope. Sometimes in games, there is one layer of realism too many, and things can suddenly become adverse to my enjoyment.

Concerning the ad: Running around a very Afghanistan-ish landscape with modern weaponry is a bit too relevant for me to considered "an enjoyable experience that I would like to partake in" - and then to do it with dopey grins on everyone's face makes me momentarily ashamed to have ever admitted to another rational adult that I play video games.

Kobe doesn't feel the same way (or at least, he was paid enough not to feel the same way). OK, whatever. That's cool. He doesn't have to excuse himself, but neither should I for not digging it.

@ytilanigiroon
I'll say it again. I think the ad is really good for its intended market.

I also think that the ad is distasteful because I do not like casual images of war. WAR being the key word there.

You chastise me by making a comparison between war and paintball. Is paintball a "war" game? You can use the word war to describe it, sure. But I am willing to bet that any child that plays with GI Joe toys and pretends to shoot other toys with them would not like the activity as much if the child knew what a real war entailed. Just as those people playing paintball might not be willing to participate in an actual war.

At the end of the advertisement when a message pops up and says "there's a soldier in all of us" is really what gets me. Its a nice phrase for the ad, but I do not agree with it. I have no intention of ever fighting in a war unless I had to defend my life and family from harm. I am not a soldier, I don't ever intend to be one, and I do not want to pretend to kill people with such blatant imagery. It makes war look "fun", and I don't like it.

As for the rest of my argument, MLS pretty much says it above. I don't spend my days looking for war imagery to criticize. The ad was too realistic for me to ignore. The same with GTA4. The game forces you to drive drunk (for 1 mission) and also work with people that obviously are bad people that shouldn't be helped. I felt ashamed that the game decided to go that route. I couldn't just ignore that because "it's just a game" because to ME it was distasteful.

@R Planteer

How the HELL is this comment on this page? I posted that on the Alan Wake page.

@R Planteer

Lol xD

OOoooookayyy Mr. Call of Duty is so short yet made me poop myself ;)

@YimYimYimi

You made my day.

Muahaha.

@YimYimYimi

I figured racism because he's black using a gun that says Mamba...

Whatever. I fought overseas myself and am pissed off more at the fact of ESPN thinking they have to fight for me... Idiots!

@Prboi Activision has balls alright in Bobby's mouth ha! annualize that! (yes I'm lame).

@Raspy

hey hey, easy now. don't you talk about my Lakers. when has someone won an NBA championship without a great supporting cast? just in the last decade, Lakers had a great team on the 3peat squad and this back2back squad, the Celts had a great team, the Spurs had great teams, Detroit had a great team. only one that kind of sticks out is Miami in '06 and they're squad wasn't bad by any measure.

@The Harbinger of Pie

they do have some baddass dodgeball tourneys

@The Harbinger of Pie

I love the Ocho!

@The Harbinger of Pie
" Welcome to ESPN8 the Ocho, bringing you the finest in seldom seen sports from around the world since 1999, If it's almost a sport We've got it here."

COTTON!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHltCzuwlOs

@MasterBrief

haha me too i thought, Black Mamba, and immediately could think how that might rub some people the wrong way.