Previous Post
Next Post

Screen Shot 2015-12-15 at 4.37.26 PM

A TTAG reader found this in the Nov 2015 issue of Game Informer in an article about the game Mafia 3.

Previous Post
Next Post

45 COMMENTS

  1. It amazes me that there are enough readers of a magazine in the video game world to still justify printing it.

    • Gaming numbers have only gone up every year. You’ll also find better “journalism” in a gaming magazine than a firearms one.

      • To clarify, I meant that video gamers would still choose a paid for print magazine over the zillions of free subscriptions/blogs/channels online that offer the same content quicker.

        • The retail chain, GameStop, owns Game Informer.Membership with GameStop get you reduced prices on used games and equipment, plus a subscription to Game Informer.
          The screen shot looks like a game review. They’re reporting various aspects of a game. The complaint should directed at the game developer.
          I have a daughter who used to work for GameStop.

        • Ah ha that makes sense. I play so few games these days and never any on the consoles so I guess I never was offered a membership lol. Much like the NRA then, if I had to pay for it past my membership I wouldn’t get any of their magazines.

        • Yup. I used to work for gamestop and we had to peddle that garbage. Fortunately, their business model is failing and I don’t think anyone looks to GameInformer as a good source of info on anything, even video games.

        • It is indeed a lot like the gun press. They are there to sell you guns, even if the gun is crappy. That is why TTAG is great and it is why independent game reviews are so important. You can’t trust some guy like Ted Nugent trying to sell you a piece of junk from Century any more than you can trust the opinion of a gaming mag on a new release. They are all just trying to separate fools from their money, you have to be an informed consumer.

      • The shenanigans exposed by #gamergate would suggest otherwise. Not many people from Remington are likely banging Mike the Gun Guy over at Huffpo.

    • Game Informer subscriptions are shoved down the throats of every game stop customer. You
      Can’t leave that shop without be asked to subscribe at least a dozen times.

  2. Meh. Don’t rely on video game publications to teach you accurate history. Sounds like an unnecessary jab as part of a dumb explanation to justify a game mechanic that’s probably necessary to get to the “fun bits” of gameplay, but otherwise totally inconsistent with reality.

    I don’t read that and think, “how dare they?!” I read that and think, “dumb premises and backstory = par for the course; video games really need more good writing.”

    • That’s not a game mechanic, they put it in parenthesis because it’s not necessary or relevant information to any game mechanic. This is put in there by a couple of progressive programmers from silicon valley who are the typical hipster type.

      The NRA is the new favorite whipping boy of the anti’s and the more we see in various forms of media this outright propaganda, the more gullible minds are going to believe it. It’s our job to stand up and call bullshit when we see it.

      • Thankfully the reference to the NRA is so out of place and silly that I think most people will see through it. The antis are mostly idiots and their shrill tone is not convincing to the average person, even if they don’t know much about the NRA. The truth is that most people who play games with guns also support gun ownership.

    • I thought we thoroughly debunked the Southern Reconstruction/racist NRA myth way back when Michael Moore made Fahrenheit 911…. People are still throwing around that garbage “fact”.

  3. Game Informer is one of the only print gaming publications left, and even that’s just because GameStop gives out free subscriptions like candy. It’s rare to see them try to dip their toes into sociopolitical matters they don’t have the tiniest understanding of, but when they do, it makes me glad to see that they’re dying off.

    • This. A few years ago, I was at a Game Stop (which is now closed — I wonder if it was because they refused to serve black people there?) and had to refuse a free subscription to Game Informer at least three times, with increasing levels of rudeness before the (white) sales person let it go.

  4. Whoa. They still have video game magazines?
    Given the both wrong and unnecessary commentary about the NRA I’m guessing the “author” is setting up for a job with CNN or MSNBC or Salon or the HuffPo when Game Informer finally folds up shop.

  5. In what way is that little jab at the NRA applicable or relevant? it has little to nothing to do with a fictional universe in which the game is set.

  6. It isn’t really that far off people. The NRA isn’t perfect. In the twenties and thirties Karl Frederick was NRA president, he pushed for licensed concealed carry and ownership but only for those people percieved as “suitable”. There was a lot of rhetoric about immigrants, especially Italian, and violence in the ghettos.

    So, save your indignation because the article isn’t that far off.

    The NRA also pushed to keep guns out of the hands of freed slaves after the civil war. NRA was formed 6 years after. Gun control has a very obvious and insidious history of racism.

    The NRA took full credit for the gun control act of 1968, which among other things banned the saturday night special. Pretend all you want that race had nothing to do with that legislation. My critical faculties won’t allow it. I’m not one to ‘play’ the race card, however, racism existed and it still does exist, obviously nothing like it was in 1968 though. Sometimes pointing out legislation, policies, or actions as racist is called for and justified.

    I’m an NRA member but I don’t pretend that the organization never did anything wrong or never promoted gun control in a racial manner. They most certainly did. Gun control all over the world is often rooted in racism. The NRA made that mistake once. Owning up to it is nothing to be ashamed of.

    • “The NRA also pushed to keep guns out of the hands of freed slaves after the civil war. NRA was formed 6 years after.”

      Could you give me a citation for that? Of any sort? I assume you mean six years after the Civil War, correct?

    • “The NRA also pushed to keep guns out of the hands of freed slaves after the civil war. NRA was formed 6 years after. Gun control has a very obvious and insidious history of racism.”

      Uh, no. I don’t know where you are getting your information, but it is dead wrong. The NRA was originally formed by two former Union generals to teach rifle marksmanship for future wars. It wasn’t until 1934 with the passage of the NFA that the NRA started to inform its members of firearm related bills. Then it wasn’t until 1975 that the NRA started direct political lobbying for and against legislation. The NRA wasn’t about keeping guns out of the hands of minorities, it fact it was hardly political at all until 1975 when the NRA rank and file forced the leadership to confront the gun grabbers.

    • The NRA actually was who helped blacks get guns to fight off the Klan during the Jim Crow days. Yes, it is true that the NRA supported gun control back in the old days more often, and that is why the membership basically revolted and kicked out the leadership and replaced it with people who wouldn’t “compromise” (i.e. keep giving up more and more of our rights).

  7. Whether or not 2maik7 is right (and I wouldn’t be surprised if he is spot on), note that the jab implicitly (and correctly) judges that keeping guns out of the hands of minorities is a bad thing.

    That particular slant on the issue is actually a good sign, since most “grabbers” want to keep guns away from minorities.

  8. Why in the world would anyone BUY a magazine about video games when there more free stuff to read about that hobby than one could read in a lifetime?

    Hopefully, this game goes the way of the dinosaur it is.

  9. OFWG here-color me shocked that game magazines exist. Then again I do have a 41 year old son who a hyper -nerd gamer and I should have guessed. I haven’t bought any sort of dead tree publication in at least 3 years(newspapers included). And when I see this tripe -good riddance…

  10. Except for the NRA reference, it’s just the way I remember Boston’s now defunct “combat zone.” Should be some references to the working girls.

  11. I’m just glad they said out loud that Gun Control Is Racist.

    And I’m pretty sure my state’s racist policy of requiring permission from the cops before being allowed to purchase a handgun (every time you purchase a handgun) was enacted in 1927 without a word of objection from the NRA, the same NRA which would, decades later, pat itself on the back for supporting the passage of the 1934 National Firearms Act.

    The law was relaxed recently, but for over 80 years we had to go to law enforcement, purchase a permit to purchase which would expire a few days later, then after we had to take the gun to the po-pos for inspection and registration. All to give cops the power to make sure the ‘wrong people’ didn’t obtain concealable weapons, coincidentally soon after Henry Ford and others started hiring lots of people, including dark skinned people from places like Louisiana and Mississippi.

  12. You guys do realize that they’re talking about a fictional game, right? I haven’t played Mafia 3 yet, but it’s totally possible that in the game universe the NRA blocked minorities from buying guns.

    • I highly doubt that was their intent. Seeing that minorities were blocked from legally buying firearms in real history, it seems like they had to go out of their way to twist that into their narrative.

      It’s like if their gaming universe had the Northern Union states heavily reliant on a agricultural slave holding plantation economy during the Civil War (or War of Secession). Highly illogical to make it the North instead of the South unless you had a half-ass narrative to push.

  13. I guess gamers can look at the pictures in a magazine and read the one syllable words, why would they want to? They already get thier news from MSN

Comments are closed.