EA Games Boss: 'We Love Fox News' (snark)

[DainBramaged]

Whether it's Bulletstorm, Mass Effect or the Taliban in Medal of Honor, Electronic Arts' titles have drawn the ire of Fox News commentators, but perhaps that's actually by design. Getting national attention for a video game, even if negative, is a major win for a gaming company. Stirring the pot is a tactic that's paid off for many firms, and EA Games label head Frank Gibeau fully acknowledged to IndustryGamers that he likes controversy.

Epic Games President MIke Capps has already told us that the Fox News hubbub likely helped Bulletstorm, and when we chatted with Gibeau about the media exposure for People Can Fly's game, he was even more candid about EA's approach.

The first words out of Gibeau's mouth after we brought up Fox were, "We love Fox News. They’re bold... I’m serious." Gibeau then proceeded to explain how EA doesn't mind creating a bit of controversy around a title, especially if that new title is an IP no one's heard of yet.

"Look, when you’re building new IPs and you’re building games and you’re looking at an entertainment audience, they see a lot of messages. Controversy isn’t a bad thing. I personally believe you should court controversy," he said. "You should do it in a way that matches the creative integrity of the game. You shouldn’t do it in a gratuitous way, but if it matches the creativity of the game… I loved it when Fox News did the lesbian aliens on Mass Effect. I love when they covered the Taliban; I loved it when they covered the Bulletstorm stuff. In each one of those cases, it was true to the game and we were trying to do something creatively. The fact that their point of view is different than ours and represented an audience out there is fine by me. I felt we could stand up and defend what we did and be aggressive about it and be proud of it."


http://www.industrygamers.com/news/ea-games-boss-we-love-fox-news/