Adgadget: Goat of war
By Ariel Waldman 
posted May 25th 2007 4:42PM
posted May 25th 2007 4:42PM
If you frequented any gaming sites in the last few weeks, chances are you saw more pixilated pictures of flesh than you would have in a commercial for Girls Gone Wild. Unfortunately, not all the skin was of the girl variety – most of the pixilated flesh belonged to a freshly slaughtered goat that made an appearance at an event held in Greece to promote the recent launch of the game God of War II.
Among the festivities back in March, guests were
The event seemed all in Fear Factor-style fun until a few shutters snapped and a picture was published in the Official Playstation Magazine (OPM), showing the goat, gore, and topless girl to top it off. A month after the event took place, a British tabloid, Mail on Sunday, broke the "Sony slaughter" news in all-caps, as only a tabloid can. Reportedly, Sony recalled 80,000 copies of the OPM that were headed to newsstands. Unfortunately, the pre-pixilated OPM had already been mailed out to subscribers.
Admittedly, the contributor of the article that appeared in OPM was not in attendance of the event and used an invite with "exaggerated" explanations of the gathering to write from literally. A spokesperson for the event claimed "this is not a true representation of the event, but nevertheless we realize the imagery and the inaccurate description of the event would cause offense and have thus taken action to stop it from circulating." The spokesperson went on to explain Sony is conducting an internal inquiry to learn from the event and ensure it doesn't happen again. While results of the internal inquiry have yet to surface, don't be surprised if the press event for God of War III features a petting zoo.
As the news spread, people looked to PETA for their reaction, thinking surely they'd cook Sony's proverbial goose. Surprisingly, PETA's reaction was "meh" at most, expressing their disappointment in Sony but pointing to the public as being self-governing on finding the picture offensive. If anything, PETA proved their "console-cred" on their blog, stating that they usually side with gamers against anti-videogame mogul Jack Thompson, who most recently condemned Wendy's for releasing Nintendo Wii toys.
To many, the most offensive part of the God of War II debacle was Sony's lame idea that boobs and gore at a party equal excitement, a concept that should have been recalled before its gory birth. While Sony has to explain its poor decision, PETA ends up the intelligent one for not lumping all gamers into one category. In an industry where salaciousness sells, a company has to make more than a half-assed attempt at Fear Factor if it wants to take its brand to decapitated goat shock standards.
Ariel Waldman is a Digital Insights Analyst for applied technologies at VML, an interactive agency. Her blog can be read at http://shakewellbeforeuse.com. Views expressed in Adgadget are her own.
Go to google and search for:
god of war OPM goat
first link in, click on the link partway into the article (reported)
That will bring up one of the more 'adventurous' pictures. I'd post the link, but they blurred it for a reason. I'll let you do a little leg work.
I love boobs as much as the next guy. But engadget isn't the place to look at them.
Deja-vu. Didn't we cover this GoW fiasco before?
The only thing missing this month is an article about the Queen of England.
"To many, the most offensive part of the God of War II debacle was Sony's lame idea that boobs and gore at a party equal excitement"
Gore doesn't but boobs...
The writers cannot think of anything intelligent to talk about so it's off to fluffland. It's been happening way too much in the last year. Soon, it will be time to leave this place and go to a place I can find some intelligent gaming industry commentary.
Cal
Utterly agree. Millions of animals are killed daily for food, and people are offended by a single dead goat?
To me, the most offensive part of this whole God of War II debacle is how upset so many people in North America are about a party that was never meant to cater to their sensibilities.
Sony threw a party in Greece, for a game set in ancient Greece, and used ancient Greece as the theme for the party. If the Greeks aren't offended, who are we to complain?
Man i was under the impression, if I watched the video, there would be topless women! What a jip! LoL!!!
I dont see what is so offensive about the slaughter of a goat. I slaughter a goat every full moon in order to appease Raknor the Pain Beast, and my neighbors dont seem to mind.
I still wait patiently for Choat of War. *grabs iriver S7*
(http://www.engadget.com/2006/12/12/irivers-s7-previewed-long-live-the-choat/)
Sure, animals are slaughtered for food. This one wasn't. It was just killed for show. There's a reason movies put "No animals were harmed during the making of this movie." Because some people find taking life for no purpose other than 'it looks cool' pretty distasteful. Even the slaughter of a goat at a religious ritual would be more tasteful than this. If you're going to kill something, you should be able to put forth a solid argument for why it had to die.
"Other people kill things for food, but we didn't" is not a solid argument.
Well then, what's your excuse for eating meat? We can exist perfectly well without, and there's nothing natural about the way animals are farmed for the most part.
I justify it with 'it tastes nice', but your argument needs to be a lot better than that…
Uh, who says I eat meat?
sony has already spoken about this, and explained that 80% of the claims about what happened are infact false. yes there was a dead goat at the event, but that was it. no live decapitation, no eating food from out of it's stomach.
What's going on here? I am agreeing with PETA and I like Sony?
mmmmm ... booooobies
But the goat-thing is pretty sick and twisted.
Oh, and why does the video say "exclusive to PlayStation 2"?
Do you also eat the entrails from the goat fresh and have topless chicks around serving you drinks?
If they really wanted to make it authentic they should have sodomizing young boys. There is a reasons we have given up that shit. It was, hell IS, barbaric. And sorry the whole "its no different then what happens to a cow" debate isn't even remotely accurate. That is food. This is a stunt.
Sony, for future reference:
Boobs = good
Dead goat = WTF STOP THAT
Alright?
what the hell? did we just get a link to a sony commercial? cos if that was the intent, it was quite the kick ass thematic party. i'm still not sure what the big deal is and why there is supposedly a story here that's worth journalistic merit. i mean it's not like i was ever a reporter or nothing. this story really is retarded.
I eat it because I can, and because I've grown up eating it, as did my father, and my fathers father and so on. I'm not gonna change my life and stop eating meat, just because it comes from another animal.
It is really not worth the hastle of constantly checking food to see if its "vegetarian safe", I would rather just slaughter an animal with my own hands and eat it.
And seeing a goat that was slaughtered for a reason other then food, whats the big deal? Stop being pansys, buck up and get over it. You are wasting your life worrying about something so insignificant, as do many other people in this pathetic society.
is it just me, or does that girl not seem to be topless? if you look at the pixelated portion, there's obviously a red bikini or something there.
yelohbird; I thought the same thing until i noticed it was the same color the girl have around her eyes, which gives me the idea that she only had a painted bra.. and that's kinda topless.
...and yet here you are worrying about how much time other people spend worrying about "insignificant things'. Is that not a waste of time?
I'm not worrying or wasting my time, I'm clearly stating a point on something that caught my eye whilst browsing the website.
Also, killing animals (or anything) just to see it dead is one of the signs of psychotic behavior.
Here's an image with the boobs unpixeled: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=451414&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
And to you, Engadget; Leave the boobs alone next time!!!