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BOYCOTT GUN!
FROM: Association for American Indian Development
Did they boycott any Turok? Or Civilization?
Linkzor
GUN Comes Under Fire
Ironically, Activision is now facing 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 Mystiques 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 Coltons father. 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 is killing 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 commentseven the Irish wont 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. 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 Hoodoos 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 Indians brothers, the Indians help Colton escape. Colton then protects an Indian village. The Blackfeet lead Colton to an attack on Hollisters 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 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. This comprise is more accepting than the boycott on Custers 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. Ultimately, the Association for American Indian Development simply wants to see the content corrected in respect of the Apache people.
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 venuesgame 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 Coltons gun in the 21st Century. Players choose avatars to represent them in the poker web site, only one of which looked remotely American Indiana 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: Strangers 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, Activisions decision to publish a racially stereotyped videogame represents a serious misstep in social responsibility. Like Custers 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.
BOYCOTT GUN!
FROM: Association for American Indian Development
RE: BOYCOTT "Gun" The Video Game
CALL TO ACTION: WE ARE DEMANDING OF ACTIVISION INCORPORATED, (THE PUBLISHERS OF "GUN") TO EDIT AND REMOVE ALL DEROGATORY, HARMFUL AND INACCURATE DEPICTIONS OF AMERICAN INDIANS FROM THE VIDEO GAME "GUN" INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE SLAUGHTERING OF THE "RENEGADE" APACHES, THE ATROCITY OF "INDIAN SCALPING" AND THE MIS-INFORMATION OF INDIAN TRADITIONS OF "KILLING" SACRED WHITE ANIMALS. WE ALSO DEMAND THAT UPON THE RE-RELEASE OF THE EDITED VERSION OF SAID VIDEO GAME, THAT ACTIVISION DO SO IN A MANNER THAT IS RESPONSIBLE TO THE GREAT APACHE PEOPLE AND IS CULTURALLY AND HISTORICALLY ACCURATE TO THE STRUGGLE AND PLIGHT OF ALL PEOPLE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ANCESTRY.
SIGN THE BOYCOTTGUN.COM PETITION: BY SIGNING THE BOYCOTT "GUN" PETITION YOU ARE EXPRESSING YOUR WISH THAT ACTIVISION EDIT AND REMOVE ALL DEROGATORY, HARMFUL AND INACCURATE DEPICTIONS OF AMERICAN INDIANS FROM THE VIDEO GAME "GUN" INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE SLAUGHTERING OF THE "RENEGADE" APACHES, THE ATROCITY OF "INDIAN SCALPING" AND THE MIS-INFORMATION OF AMERICAN INDIAN TRADITIONS OF "KILLING" SACRED WHITE ANIMALS. BY SIGNING THIS PETITION, YOU ALSO EXPRESS YOUR WISH THAT UPON RE-RELEASE OF SAID VIDEO GAME, THAT ACTIVISION INCORPORATED DO SO IN A MANNER THAT IS RESPONSIBLE TO THE GREAT APACHE PEOPLE AND IS CULTURALLY AND HISTORICALLY ACCURATE TO THE STRUGGLE AND PLIGHT OF ALL PEOPLE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ANCESTRY.
IF THE EDITING AND RE-RELEASING OF "GUN" THE VIDEO GAME IS NOT AN OPTION TO ACTIVISION INCORPORATED, I AM DEMANDING THE RECALL OF THIS DAMAGING, SOCIALLY HARMFUL AND INSENSITIVE VIDEO GAME AND FOR THE COMPLETE REMOVAL OF THIS ACTIVISION PRODUCT FROM ALL RETAIL LOCATIONS WORLDWIDE, INCLUDING THE WORLDWIDE WEB.
It has come to our attention that video game publisher, Activision, has released for Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation , PS2 and PC, a new game set in the American West with some very disturbing racist and genocidal elements toward Native Americans. The game is called "Gun" and features a frontiersman hero named Colton White. One of his earliest tasks that the game player must complete before advancing to the next level is to slaughter, not once, but on an ongoing basis, Apache Indians. Not only slaughter (and this is the terminology used in the game) but to scalp (terminology also used in the game) them as well with a "scalping knife" that can be purchased as part of the many weapons offered to the hero of the game, Colton White.
Yes, we understand that this game is rated "M" for mature audiences, and yes, we understand that historically, this kind of violence occurred all too often. No one knows this better than this organization and Indigenous people from all tribes throughout the continents of North, Central and South America. In fact, the repercussions of such acts of genocide are why there is a desperate need for the Association for American Indian Development today. What is of the greatest concern and outrage is the outright, unabashed and implied righteousness of its genocidal nature toward Native Americans.
To create a game where one must slaughter members of a racial group in order to move forward promotes and condones the near genocide of Native Americans in this country. If a game were created that had its hero slaughter, say African Americans, Irish, Mexicans, or Jews, would there not be an outcry of extreme proportions? We're not talking about generic bandits or outlaws who could be any race - this is a game that specifies the slaughter of a living, breathing existing racial group of human beings. There is no indication of the complexities of the period, even as interviews with it's author, talk about how he was able to delve into the history of the period. Native people during this time were protecting their homeland, their way of life. Something that is instilled in good old American values.
What's next, the Civil War era game where "The Hero" must capture and lynch runaway slaves? Of course not. That would be wrong. But apparently, killing Indians is still fair game. And, even further, "The Hero" at one point, bemoans the fact that although he's killed so many Apaches, he's let so many get away?
We wonder if the authors of this script and game even took the time to think about the fact that real, existing Apache people can be adversely affected by this element of their "game?" This most definitely is not a "game" to those still suffering from the repercussions of this shameful chapter in American history. How many kids will (and although rated for mature players, young kids will still manage to get a copy of it) play this game and then carry what they've experienced into their interactions with real, live Apaches and other Native Americans? Yes, Native people still live here in America. They are not a lost or extinct people and they don't all live secluded on reservations. And, believe it or not, Indian kids play Xbox, too. And Activision (and scriptwriter Randall Jahnson) have just written a game that says killing all Apaches is the right thing to do and in the game you not only have to slaughter the Apache to advance in the game, but you can purchase a "scalping knife" to "scalp them all!" This is completely unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in a "civilized" society.
Let's be clear...contrary to popular belief and myth, the near genocide of Native Americans is a shameful chapter in American history and should not be condoned or trivialized in a game as if it were okay. Yes, the brutal slaying of America's indigenous people is historically accurate...it happened. But so did slavery, lynching and the Holocaust and we don't see games glamorizing it as if it were the right thing to do.
As if to make amends, "The Hero" switches sides later in the game and discovers a secret about his own indigenous heritage, but that does NOT make the preceding chapters any easier to accept. In fact, in the official guide to the game, it actually says that because "The Hero" rescues some Apaches held captive on a train, perhaps it cancels a karmic debt for his earlier actions. Are they serious? Obviously not. This is typical of a flippant comment about a very real, damaging and tragic aspect of American history, the aftermath of which is still very much in evidence today all across North America.
Why is it that still today, Americans think it's okay to talk, let alone spend millions of dollars to create video games about killing a bunch of Indians so casually? This is grossly insensitive and does not in any way acknowledge the brutality camouflaged as Manifest Destiny.
This is why the Association for American Indian Development asks you to join us in letting the publishers of this offensive game know that this will not be tolerated -- BOYCOTT "Gun" the video game, as well as other games published by Activision. We also encourage you to use your American right to voice you concern to Activision by writing them at:
Activision Incorporated
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 255-2000
Did they boycott any Turok? Or Civilization?
after each episode as well. It is a guilty pleasure.