The above teaser is the first bit of media released for Nerjyzed Entertainment's upcoming Black College Football: The Xperience, and no, that's not a typo. I suppose the planned urbanization of the game's title is supposed to appeal to this thing's hypothetical Nubian demographic, but one gets the feeling that it's all a ruse to sucker in white teens whose grasp of irony prevents them from quite understanding why calling themselves T-Bone and Blackula is so damn hilarious.
I'd like to be optimistic and assume that Nerjyzed Entertainment -- a company whose corporate info page claims "Founded in 2003, Nerjyzed began with a four-member team of business professionals, entrepreneurs, game developers, designers, marketers, broadcasters and technologists with a proven track record in the entertainment, sports and video gaming arena. These founding members share the distinction of having graduated from Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU's)." -- is really making a worthy effort to expose the rich, storied history of black athletics to an audience outside of those already familiar with Bryant Gumbel's HBO specials, but the realistic side of me realizes that this game is going to be purchased almost exclusively by the same people who bought Juiced or took their Mulatto girlfriends to see Drumline much to the dismay of their Fundamentalist Christian parents.
These children lack any viable culture of their own, so they're forced to imitate other cultures in a vain attempt at connecting with some sort of shared history. While their efforts are tragic when viewed in that light, watching some stupid honky blast Jay-Z from his parent's Honda Civic is really just embarassing to anyone within earshot, and I'd like to sarcastically thank Nerjyzed for allowing them to continue their asinine modern-day facsimilie of the punk movement.
[Jayfresh, thanks for sending me a tip that pissed me off so damn much!]
I don't know how fundamentalist Christians got involved but I find it hilarious that a 4 member team is comprised of seven types of individuals, including technologists.
Doesn't this go against MLK Jr's dream of "one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to play football together."?
I'm in the camp of Just Really Stupid, Nex. I'm not allowed to say this game is racist because I'm a cracker, but... wow. Every single college pamphlet I've glossed over in my day simply spewed their concepts of diversity. To turn around and say "Yeah, we just have black folk now" is absurd.
I honestly hope this is either a joke or a publicity stunt. Either way it's in bad taste.
I guess I'm in the "who cares" camp. I guess there's one thing I don't really "get". There's PLENTY of media out there that's made to target one specific racial demographic. Movies, books, music, websites, films, shows, etc. This kind of stuff is nothing new. But when a game comes out people get bent out of shape about it?
That's the game they want to make, so who gives a shit?
"Nerjyzed began with a four-member team of business professionals, entrepreneurs, game developers, designers, marketers, broadcasters and technologists"
A four member team with 7 people? all individually reffered to in the plural? wow they must be special.
Hmm.... I'm actually interested to see how this game turns out, stupid subtitle notwithstanding. In fact, I actually have hope that this will finally be a game with black people in it who aren't complete stereotypes. Will it be more historically oriented or modern?
Basically, I agree with Nex, except I'll go ahead and be the optimist rather than come out and call this game the next 187 Ride or Die.
Somebody please alert the "Resident Evil 5 is racist" blog lady.
Im not seeing too much wrong with this. HBCU's do have a storied past, and the football games are a different experience. Ever watch the Bayou Classic? NBC shows this game every year, even though its almost always irrelevant to the national championship.
can we have White College Hockey: The Xperiance next? cause you know black people cant skate, and they hate ice... like white people cant catch and hate running...
I don't really care about Football games, but if this game happens to throw in some cheerleading dance competetions (Just Bring It) with some (Drumline) sequences and don't forget the after college job experience (Get Rich or Die Tryin') then this is the must-have game of the year!
Wow! This is idiotic and racist. Well, if they wanted to fit the sterotype better they should have made the game about pimpin women, not finishing school, being fake gangsters, selling drugs, thinking hiphop is cool or poppin hommies. Any culture that thinks poppin caps, selling drugs or disrespecting women is cool is retarded!
People are bringing up Michael Vick because _defenders_ of Vick keep saying dog fighting is a cultural thing that white people can't understand.
I will say that, while I do think this takes the idea of segregated entertainment (BET et al) to an extreme, I don't think it's absurd to make a game like this. These colleges are not conjured out of thin air -- there are really historic black colleges. They existed because racism and segregation kept black people from attending most other colleges.
Likewise, the fact that the black colleges play each other is not conjured out of thin air -- there are athletic conferences built around historically black colleges.
This is also not the first game aimed at black culture. You can play a game with rappers playing basketball. You can play a game with rappers wrestling each other.
I play subculture games too -- there's Simpsons crazy taxi, Simpsons GTA, Simpsons pinball machines ... the upcoming Simpsons game is evidently a parody of video games -- how well would it sell without the brand? And there's a Mario version of nearly everything.
If Simpsons fans and Nintendo fans can have their own gaming ghettos, I don't see why black people (or rednecks, or Christians) can't have their own gaming ghettos as well.
Could you imagine the minstrel-show-ass, purposefully ignorant and down right retarded GAMES would come out of a self-styled "BET" of games...or worse, if BET had its own gaming imprint: oh. god. noes. This is just some stupid shit in the same vein as "Faith Based" games.
From the studio that brought you Broke-ass Momma and Ballin: Story of a Baller 2... *shudders*
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