ROCKSTAR GAMES REBUFF ‘BLUE SKY IN GAMES’ CAMPAIGN – *EXCLUSIVE*
You heard it here first – Rockstar Games has no intention of making games with blue skies. Apparently they’re happy with brown cities full of junkies and whores.
A few weeks back while bored after Christmas, and with nothing on the telly I decided to write to Rockstar Games about their back catalogue. The email was perhaps a bit strong in its choice of language, but I didn’t really expect a reply anyway so I thought it might be fun to vent. The email went as follows:
From: Karl
Age: 27
Message:
As a long-time gamer, I have made purchase of many Rockstar Games products, starting with the original GTA for the Playstation (which was a shoddy port, sadly). I note with interest that Rockstar are keen on pushing an edgy, ‘adult’ image. But I feel your company has a lot to answer for. Not in a Jack Thompson, “videogames made my chid into a feral killer” kind of way. But the success of the GTA series has led to a lot of other companies following the money and now the market is saturated with crime games, rubbish free-roaming games (True Crime: Streets of LA, anyone?) and other assorted “adult” tat.
Is there any chance of Rockstar bucking the trend, and perhaps pushing out a cheery little happy game where nobody gets kerb-stomped? You could put it out on the PS Network and Xbox Live, and I bet that the media would be intrigued by such a volte-face. Or even on the App Store – you’d make a killing (no pun intended).
I find myself agreeing with this man’s ideas – http://www.ukresistance.co.uk/2005/11/blue-sky-in-games-campaign-launched.html It’s not about prudery. It’s not about censorship. I’m not against blowing “gangstas” away in games. I’m just one of many people sick of the deluge of games in this genre.
How about starting a reverse trend, Rockstar? Although I don’t think I will hold my breath.
However, about a week later I received this reply in my email inbox:
Hi Karl,
Thanks for your message. While we appreciate your point of view, we do stand by our catalog of titles as one that is indeed diverse and varied for many tastes. For every Grand Theft Auto title in our history, there is also a teen-appropriate Midnight Club racing game or a lighthearted title such as Bully or a Red Dead Redemption epic and dramatic western or even our occasional E-rated releases such as Table Tennis and the music-making title, Beaterator. We have always geared our releases to be cutting-edge, progressive entertainment and yes, many of those experiences are catered towards mature players – but hopefully you’ll stick with us and look forward to what we have lined up for 2011 and beyond including L.A. Noire, Max Payne 3 and more.
Cheers,
Rockstar Games
I would like to take the opportunity to reply to Rockstar Games by saying like fuck i will.
filed in ENEMIES, GENTLE STALKING, READERS DOING WEIRD STUFF on Jan.21, 2011
January 21st, 2011 on 1:07 pm
Man, and 6 years later games still are muddy brown. I’d have thought they’d changed a little in the meantime…
depressing.
January 21st, 2011 on 1:24 pm
Come on though, the sky was every colour in Red Dead Redemption, including Blue, sunset orange and doom storm black.
See?
January 21st, 2011 on 1:30 pm
…and it had whores and junkies…
But it was probably acceptable back then. So that’s OK.
And you shot LOADS of people.
It was RELLY pretty though, especially the sky.
January 21st, 2011 on 1:30 pm
Oh, and then they added zombies.
January 21st, 2011 on 1:50 pm
That’s ‘Mature’ as defined by Channel 5 and the likes, isn’t it?
January 21st, 2011 on 6:27 pm
Hear hear!
Don’t go too far Terrier, or Max Payne 3 might never see the light of day. Imagine that, if you dare.
January 21st, 2011 on 7:37 pm
‘Max Payne 3, L.A. Noire’
Good to see they at least bothered to read the email… :-/
Incidentally ever since they killed the webgame project rockstar, in my eyes Rockstar games are worse than cunts, true corporate money-pinching scum of the Earth on a par with Activision and EA.
January 21st, 2011 on 11:33 pm
Rockstar are a bit like Bowie; fantastic that they change it up with each major release, but fuck do they leave behind a lot of shit copycats.
January 22nd, 2011 on 5:39 pm
To be fair Rockstar did give us Vice City, which had plenty of blue skies, splashing waves and ’80s music. A gentle throwback to a simpler time when Sega were just starting to learn how to ruin a successful console launch with useless hardware add-ons.
January 24th, 2011 on 6:03 pm
Oh well, one month til Kirby’s Epic Yarn on the Wii is released. Happy faces, blue skies and knitting, Weeeeeeeeee!
January 25th, 2011 on 10:20 am
Sorry Terrier, but to use the hackneyed parlance of forums, your email seems to have had teh epic fail written all over it before you even hit send. Had you had one too many pre-Xmas shandys?
January 26th, 2011 on 4:21 pm
Pretty much.