It’s easy to be cynical, but that zombie torso thing from today has, if nothing else, let gamers know that there’s a game coming out soon involving zombies. However, many saw the trinket as being in rather bad taste, if not sexist and exploitational.
TheSixthAxis described the collector’s edition ‘bonus’ as “gross” and went to considerable lengths to mask the game in question, but plenty of other sites lapped up the press release and this afternoon it was one of the most talked about items in the industry.
Deep Silver’s PR company has, either way, apologised.
“We deeply apologize for any offense caused,” it said on Twitter. “Like many gaming companies, Deep Silver has many offices in different countries, which is why sometimes different versions of Collector’s Editions come into being for North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia.”
“For the limited run of the Zombie Bait Edition for Europe and Australia, a decision was made to include a gruesome statue of a zombie torso, which was cut up like many of our fans had done to the undead enemies in the original [game]. We sincerely regret this choice.”
One could speculate that the torso never actually existed, and all this was a carefully structured PR campaign to gain column inches – which worked. After all, it seemed to have more of an effect than this from the end of last year.
Carl
Nothing to apologise for. Boobs exist.
Paranoimia
Yeah, but zombies don’t, I think that’s what people were complaining about. ;-p
Death_In_Flamez
Precisely. Nothing to apologise for in my books. People take stuff way too seriously.
SH Number 7/Mini-Lipscombe
Am I a bad person to have thought this wasn’t that bad, I assume the boobs were showing? I wouldn’t want a statue like that my but I wouldn’t of minded it myself if it was covered up.
Starman
It was covered up, wearing a bikini top. The hacked off arms & head were the disturbing and distasteful aspect.
SH Number 7/Mini-Lipscombe
@Starman Thanks, but yeah I looked it up myself now to show my girlfriend, I don’t see how it was disrespectful or distasteful, the legs weren’t chopped off, it was a bust not a full scale statue, also the arms aren’t usually on a bust either so they just “zombied” that up, so there for the only thing was that the head was missing, and in which case it’s a bust about a zombie game, is it disrespectful and distasteful that we kill female zombies by chopping their heads off?
SH Number 7/Mini-Lipscombe
Just spoke to my girlfriend about it and she doesn’t see it as sexist, she thinks it’s stupid and that Dead Island was a franchise that was above that (what with the artsy original video).
KeRaSh
These days it’s the guys that freak out about stuff like this, while girls just shrug it off.
To me this statue looks more like a display for boob jobs that went horribly wrong.
3shirts
My objection to it, as I said on that article, is precisely this. I’m not offended by it, I am just annoyed that developers keep undermining gaming like this for cheap publicity. It means that people who don’t play games see this in the mainstream media and it continues their view that gaming is for sexually repressed violence loving social pariahs.
Genuinely great games that don’t do this rarely enter the mainstream media so us gamers are constantly having to defend our hobby
Starman
Its definitely a rare collectors edition now.
bmg_123
Did we all fall for their trickery? Should we have even reacted? Perhaps instead left this subjectively ‘tacky’ bust to those who thought it to be harmless, and kept our opinion to ourselves? Did we as a community blow this mole hill into a mountain? I’m not sure what my point is here…
xdarkmagician
I couldn’t care less, or more about the statue, but if you’re going to have the balls to put it out there at least have the balls to see it through
Secondly, I got the impression that the author masked the identity as a joke or humor, but if TSA “went to considerable lengths to mask the game in question” that’s not right. if you intentionally censored the games name because you didn’t wanted to advertise the game you should have never of ran the story in the first place.
KeRaSh
Yeah, it’s a half assed way to show protest while still baiting clicks.
bunimomike
Worst sex doll ever!
gazzagb
I just think people need to lighten up about it. It wasn’t offensive in any way (since when were boobs offensive) and it’s at 18+ game, so does it matter that it’s gory?
LethalX08
Really starting to F’ing detest people in general. This is on the same level as FHM/Nuts, they aren’t a problem, neither is this.
If this is still the CE of EU i may buy it & play the LOZ chest music while raising it above my head in my local Game :).
DirtyHabit
Storm in a tea cup TBH. Don’t really know why people got so het up about it.
What is interesting is that this will be forgotten about by this time next week, but everyone is aware of the game now. Sex sells, like it or not its a fact of life.
Just on here yesterday, the Metal Gear, (one of the biggest franchises in gaming) article got 2 comments, Yet this got 61, Some were negative, some positive, most took it for what it was. Regardless of whether we like or agree with it we are all now fully aware of this game. Job done, the PR department will be getting a pat on the back this morning.