Hey, are you Tom W. Chick the actor? Are you the same person?

cheerio,
George Brof

I don't see why this is in poor taste.

Indeed mocking Christians who want to ban every video game not portraying wholesome Christian values, is rather brave in my opinion.

As a theologist and tract-writer, what's your take on Dante's Inferno Mr. Chick?

are you you?

Hollywood has pulled that stunt a few times for movies w/ quasi-religious references and trying to get fundamentalists, real or fake, to take the bait to get publicity.

I was intrigued yesterday though when I received an E-Mail fr EA Games advertising an expansion pack for Spore that used "WTF" in the subject line. Spore is a game I only play w/ my kids, so it makes me wonder who they think they are marketing to. In fact after the debacle of Sim City Societies, I question their whole marketing department altogether.

Krasny, I don't think it's brave at all. Evangelical Christian zeal is an easy target. At best, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. At worst, it's like making fun of retarded kids. It's cheap, easy, lowbrow, and potentially offensive to Christians (as is a lot of authentic Evangelical Christian zeal!).

Mr. Brof, I don't know that I would say I'm Tom W. Chick the actor so much as I'm a guy who's done a bunch of different things with his life. :) But, yes, among those things were a few very minor blink-and-you-miss-me television roles.

Obonicus, first of all, my father writes those tracts, not me. But I think you can glean my opinion of Dante's Inferno by reading between the lines. :) But to be more explicit, it seems to me like a crass God of War knockoff. Not to say that it won't be good, however. That remains to be seen. There's no reason a knock-off can't also be a good game.

Nice use of emoticons Tom Chick.

I do think they took a bold step making a video game out of an epic poem. I know how hard it is. I never did get Maya Angelou's I know why the caged bird sings: The Video Game off the ground.....

"Krasny, I don't think it's brave at all. Evangelical Christian zeal is an easy target. At best, it's like shooting fish in a barrel. At worst, it's like making fun of retarded kids. It's cheap, easy, lowbrow, and potentially offensive to Christians (as is a lot of authentic Evangelical Christian zeal!)."

I still don't see why it's in poor taste. These aren't retarded kids EA are mocking, these are misanthropic adults who uncritically follow a retarded religion.

I agree that this publicity stunt could be offensive to Christians, but so is much of the video game industry's output. I am tired of their faux moral outrage having such disproportionate influence on video games, and as such find anybody, even EA, mocking them to be a welcome relief.

I don't think Christians or followers of any other religion should be given special treatment.

Whu-what??

I just killed an hour searching Google, jackchick dot com, and Wikipedia trying to figure out if Jack Chick really had a kid (never mind one who's on TV and plays videogames...)

this really is poor taste. It is rather pathetic of EA to do something i am offended. Using religion as a ploy to gain press for there game is pathetic. The game looked awsome with out having to have phony religious zelots protesting it. I wanted to buy this game but now that they pulled this i won't ever buy any thing from EA again!

I think it's great. We should get all these religious nut jobs so worked up that their heads explode. Of course that's just my opinion. Religion has caused more death and destruction in this world than everything else combined.

I'm confused as to how so many people feel paying a bunch of people to pose as a stereotype of a people group is "great" or a "welcome relief." It'd be the same as hiring actors to pose as violent Muslim extremists burning effigies, African Americans that skip child support to buy spinning rims, Berkley students that have no understanding of the real world, or Indians that only run convenience stores and drive taxis. When marketed as a parody it can run the gamut from clever to innocent to offensive, but when passed off as real it's nothing more than perpetuating negative stigma

All this does is drive people farther apart ideologically. Christians get upset they're negatively portrayed, people in Kransy's camp talk about how great it is that a "retarded religion" is getting trashed, and both sides just lose respect for each other.

I don't mind what EA did since Christians deserve to be mocked for being ridiculous; but the US is not the country that bans controversial video games and we do have the First Amendment. The banning happens in Germany, Australia, Brazil and plenty of the Islamic countries, and I am sure a few more places.

Is it true, the US Christians, and Rednecks are easy and safe targets, and EA or Hollywood doesn't have the BALLS to stereotype Islam, Mexicans, Scientology, and Gays and all of the other PC protected groups. EA should grow a pair, then I will be impressed.

I agree all religions should be mocked.

Mocking Islam is problematic, since anyone who mocks "the religion of peace" ends up on the pointy end of a fatwa.

Mocking Judaism is problematic because people who do so tend to get labelled as anti-Semites.

Both Islam and Judaism are a mockable as fundamentalist Christianity.

So yeah, video game publishers and Hollywood should grow some rocks.