EA has once again given in, most likely to the minority; this time around on Bulletstorm’s skill names.
After the Medal of Honor Taliban incident EA have made the decision to censor some of Bulletstorm’s sexual innuendoes. The changes will come next week via a patch, so there isn’t long to see the original titles.
One of the resourceful minds behind the Bulletstorm skill titles, Steve Wordsmith, issued the following statement on the matter:
After getting countless complaints about the sexual nature in Bulletstorm, we finally had to do something about it. I personally had no idea how dirty people’s minds really were. It’s quite sad to see your work get changed like this, but after all the negative attention about this game, EA pretty much forced us to make the words more kid friendly. I’m baffled. I spent some quality time coming up with words that fit the action on screen. How can people associate words like “topless,” “rear entry,” or “gag reflex” as something dirty? These words have very clear intent on the happenings on the screen.
Topless for example, happens when you successfully cut an enemy in half. What else was I supposed to put there that would be precise to the player? If you look at the bottom half of the dead enemy, you can clearly see he’s missing his top half, ergo the term topless. Rear entry is talking about shooting a guy in the back. The terminology seemed to be basic knowledge to me. People have both a front side, and a back side, which can also be called the rear.
The one that annoys me the most is gag reflex. You must have a really sick mind to think gag reflex is sexual. Ever take a bite of food to big and start choking? Ever throw up before? You can thank your gag reflex for that. Honestly, to even think that any of these things have a sexual nature, you got to have a really dirty mind to begin with. Sadly it looks like people who won’t even play this game have the dirtiest minds, and EA has forced us to change the names into something more kid friendly.
Next week some of the innuendos will be replaced by less inappropriate titles. A few of the changes include: ‘Topless’ which will be changed to ‘Pull Yourself Together’, ‘Gag Reflex’ will become ‘Choke on That!’ and ‘Double Penetration’ will be turned into ‘Two Guns, One Dead Body’.
Were these changes necessary? Or has EA wrongly backed down? Comment below what you think.
EA backs down on Bulletstorm's innuendos,