Thursday, November 20, 2008

Ugh.

[Visual description: cover of the Wii game, Rayman Raving Rabbids TV Party; cartoon bunny-like creatures with wide-open mouths, unmatched eyes, and a TV screen]

Finding items like this on the front page of Amazon makes me less enthusiastic about holiday shopping this season.

From the product description at Amazon.com:
The Rabbids have taken over almost every channel you can imagine, from music to movies - even TV ads. Help the Rabbids destroy all our daily viewing and drive Rayman crazy. In Story Mode, play through a week of television, with each day bringing new wacky challenges of skill and insane movements in a compilation of mini-games. With up to eight players in turn-based mode and four players simultaneously, get ready for you and all your friends to go insane.
Really, they need to use the word "insane" twice in four sentences? Crazy, wacky, raving, and rabid too... which all apparently mean screaming with wide open mouths and unfocused eyes, causing havoc, chaos, destruction? "Get ready for you and all your friends to go insane." Lovely.

10 comments:

william Peace said...

Penny, If you think this game is bad I shudder to think what you would say about the games my teenage son plays on his Xbox. All are violent and mind numbing. I detest them but know his ability to socialize with his peers would be compromised if I banned them from our house.

Penny L. Richards said...

Well, I don't know anything about this game, to be honest-- we don't have a Wii -- but I do find the relentless use of a term like "insane" in the marketing of a game for younger kids (bunnies, Rated E) remarkable. There was a game a few years ago called "Chromosomething," which involved creating a "mutant" with various recipes involving "chromosomes" -- another case of a game where the misuse of specific medical terminology that was a problem. (There was an outcry from several advocacy groups, and the game was withdrawn.)

Anonymous said...

We couldn't get the straitjacketed teddy bear withdrawn from the market so I suspect we can't get this one to change its marketing either. Often I wish people with psychiatric labels were heard when we speak out but most often we are told be less "sensitive" in these situations.

Anonymous said...

I didn't catch this until you pointed it out. (Although I haven't played any of the games featuring the Rabbids, I've seen them in ads and stuff.

Consider this a trackback: The Raving Rabbids and mental illness

william Peace said...

All these games are about as subtle as brick thrown through a window. The language used is the least offensive aspect of many games. Some are so violent and crass I do not allow them. The way women are portrayed is consistently horrible. Every parent I know objects to these games and yet plunk down $60 for them. I wish I knew how to change the industry so they would produce entertaining non violent gaming.

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