http://fighting.joystiq.com/2006/02/01/association-for-american-indian-deve
lopment-calls-for-gun-boycot/

Association for American Indian Development calls for Gun boycott [Update
1]

Posted Feb 1st 2006 11:00AM by James Ransom-Wiley
Filed under: Culture

The Association for American Indian Development has drawn up a petition to
boycott Activision's free-roaming Wild West title, Gun. The organization is
outraged at the game's depiction of the Apache people, including "the
slaughtering of the 'Renegade' Apaches, the atrocity of 'Indian Scalping'
and the mis-information of Indian traditions of 'killing' sacred white
animals." The petition requests that Activision remove all "derogatory,
harmful, and inaccurate depictions of American Indians" from Gun and
reissue the game. In the event that Activision is unwilling to do so, the
petition demands a recall.

Should the games industry—and the entire entertainment industry—be held to
certain ethical standards? What should be done about games (and media) that
exploit and perpetuate negative stereotypes associated with racial/ethnic
groups? Should we consider that the education system does a poor job of
teaching the opposite?

Commenters: keep it clean and relevant!

http://www.gamergod.com/article.php?article_id=3563&category_id=55


GUN Misfires
By Beth Dillon on 2006-01-31 22:17:41

Custer’s Revenge hit retail shelves during the advent of console videogames
in the 1980’s. In the Atari 2600 videogame, the player takes the role of a
pixilated, naked General George Armstrong Custer, the historic military
officer who devastated American Indian communities prior to his death in a
battle at Little Big Horn in 1876. The object of the game is to dodge
Indian arrows as you make your way to the other side of the screen, where
an Indian woman is already tied to a pole. The game ends in one of two
ways. You either lose by getting shot by arrows, or you rape the Indian
woman and win.

Despite its boxy graphics, Custer’s Revenge was graphic and delivered clear
messages of racism and sexism. Protestors gathered in an effort to have
Custer’s Revenge permanently removed from retail shelves. “Kristen Reilly,
a leading member of Women Against Pornography, organized the protesters,
with help from the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the American
Indian Community House” (Gonzalez). When the boycott and protests started,
organizations targeted Atari 2600. However, Atari 2600 was not in control
of games developed for their console at that point in time. Mystique was
the developer responsible for the content. As Tom Moriarty reported in the
October 1983 issue of Videogaming and Computergaming Illustrated, “Atari
filed a lawsuit against AMI/Mystique for ‘wrongful association’ of Custer's
Revenge to the Atari 2600” (Gonzalez).

As described on ClassicGaming.com’s history of Custer’s Revenge, a group of
Atari programmers who felt they were not properly credited for their work
left the company and started Activision. “Activision opened the door for
other companies to develop games for the Atari 2600. Prior to Activision's
formation, Atari developed all the games themselves. But after the
foundation (and success) of Activision, other companies started to join the
fray. Atari didn't plan for this kind of occurrence, had no way of
preventing games from being released, and had no licensing system. Hundreds
of companies churned out games of vastly varying quality” (Fragmaster).
GUN Comes Under Fire

Ironically, Activision now faces a boycott for reasons very similar to
those facing Atari. Neversoft Entertainment developed the game GUN with
screenwriter Randall Jahnson and published it through Activision to the
platforms Xbox 360, Xbox, PlayStation 2, GameCube, and PC. Although
Activision can argue that they are detached from the development process in
the same way that Atari was for Mystique’s X-rated products, Activision
certainly played an active role as a publisher in the distribution of GUN.

GUN puts the player in a raw, violent Wild West setting. In the second
opening scene labeled with the date “1542,” Indians, presumably from the
Apache tribe, are portrayed with monstrous, animalistic expressions as they
slaughter missionary travelers. A defenseless missionary with a large cross
falls in submission, and the Indians ruthlessly murder him. The scene ends
with blood splattering over the large cross.

The game begins in 1880 as the player takes on the role of Colton White,
who is traveling the Missouri river with his father Ned. Suspiciously,
Colton wears a recognizably Indian choker. During a raid by “white men
turned savages” on the Morning Star steamboat, Ned confesses to Colton that
he is not Colton’s father, and Colton must leave Ned behind to survive.
Colton is later told that everyone on the steamboat was scalped by the
“bloody savages.”

The first training session prior to the steamboat attack involves primarily
killing wolves and an angry grizzly bear, and the second focuses on
shooting at wild elk and buffalo. At the end of the second training
session, Colton White is ambushed by white men for wearing an “Alhambra
token,” which Colton later uses to get information from Jenny at the Dodge
City Alhambra Saloon. All the while, even though Colton kills white men to
defend Jenny, the emphasis remains on the “fugitive band of Apaches on a
rampage” between Dodge City and Empire City.

Colton is sent to clear the bridge of the Apaches who are trying to destroy
it, because it has been built on their land. The man handling the
development of the bridge makes other racist comments—“even the Irish won’t
work” and the “China men” are stalled in work. When Colton kills Apaches,
they die more dramatically than do white men. Their screams are louder. Few
use guns, and most use arrows or tomahawks. Colton uses a Scalping Knife to
scalp them for graphic effects as there is no benefit to scalping enemies
other than experiencing the violence itself. A series of massacres of the
Apache people follows as Colton escorts Jenny to Empire City.

Colton travels to Hoodoo’s casino to fight against the Indian “resistance.”
The game direction turns when Hoodoo turns on Colton and puts him in jail.
When Colton saves Indians on a train, it “cancels a karmic debt.” Later on,
Colton helps an Indian who is cruelly beaten on a steamboat, but for his
own benefit. If he saves the Indian’s brothers, the Indians help Colton
escape. Colton then protects an Indian village. The Blackfeet lead Colton
to an attack on Hollister’s Fort.

Side quests involve killing sacred white animals for an Indian hunter for
$5 to $20 each. Eventually, the content routes back to the second opening
scene of the game. Part of the initial cross is found by killing the
Reverend Reeds. The second half of the cross must be found through Many
Wounds. Soapy, whom Colton earlier saved from hanging, helps Colton as
well. “I've seen the other half of this cross. The Apache Chief has it. If
I can put the pieces together, then I can beat Magruder at his own game.”
Magruder has been searching for Quivira, a Lost City. During the process of
getting the second part of the cross and finding Magruder, it turns out
that Colton is also Indian, which supposedly makes his past acts of
violence acceptable.

Although the violence is historically accurate, the content glorifies the
experience of slaughtering Indians and attempts to make it permissible by
having a main character with hidden indigenous heritage.

In reaction to the content of GUN, the Association for American Indian
Development has started a boycott against Activision. They have requested
that certain explicit violence and stereotyping be removed from the game.
Ultimately, the Association for American Indian Development simply wants to
see the content corrected in respect of the Apache people.This comprise is
more accepting than the boycott on Custer’s Revenge, which called for the
game to be removed from all retail outlets. Ironically, years later, it is
available through many web sites for free.

Advertisements gloss over the monstrous or violent depictions of the Apache
in GUN. Screenshots are carefully selected. GUN received a great deal of
marketing through television and the typical videogame venues—game
magazines and game web sites. However, it was also given additional
marketing that few games receive.

An Alternate Reality Game (ARG) was created to market GUN. ARGs are cross
media games, primarily used to advertise upcoming videogames. The GUN ARG
featured a Wild West themed poker web site with strange phone calls related
to the story of Colton’s gun in the 21st Century. Players choose avatars to
represent themselves in the poker web site, only one of which looked
remotely American Indian—a woman wearing Western clothing. The ARG failed
to take the opportunity to represent the current conditions of the Apache
and Blackfeet and instead relied on the simplicity of the ongoing story of
the gun. However, this culpability does not fall on the writers and
designers in the ARG, but again on Activision, which should have been
responsible for providing game content information.

American Indian content can be used successfully in videogames. Red Dead
Revolver, developed by Rockstar Games, also casts a half-breed as its main
character but uses fictional tribe names, represents American Indians as
more than one-sided, and portrays other races working collaboratively.
Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath by Electronic Arts offers a creative analogy of
the American Indian colonization experience. The overtones are made clear
during a final serene scene at the end featuring a quote from Chief
Standing Bear.

Even though the historical period portrayed in GUN was fraught with racism,
Activision’s decision to publish a racially stereotyped videogame
represents a serious misstep in social responsibility. Like Custer’s
Revenge, GUN provokes wonder. In this case, the industry has unfortunately
bought into the popular misconception that games are frivolous because they
are made for fun.

For more information about the boycott against GUN, visit
http://www.boycottgun.com.