Hypocritical tabloid criticizes MadWorld promotional stunt

5:40 PM on 03.20.2009   |   Jim Sterling

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British comic-masquerading-as-newspaper The Sun -- which last month encouraged underage gaming and teenage pregnancy by promoting a 13-year-old father's Saint's Row 2 session -- has called a MadWorld promotional stunt "sick," claiming that the public is outraged over the decision to place monochrome severed arms around London. Sega of course says it received no complaints, prompting me to believe that The Sun has yet again invented controversy out of thin air.

"An ultra-violent computer game for the family-friendly Nintendo Wii goes on sale tomorrow," whines The Sun, unaware that The Wii has never been called The Nintendo Wii, "amid a sick publicity stunt that saw blood-soaked severed arms placed in cities across the UK."

The Sun, freely available to all ages despite it contents including softcore pornography and a lurid erotic fiction page called "Dear Deirdre," has the gall to spotlight both MadWorld and Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars, preparing to froth its readers up into a storm of predictable outrage.

It is easy of course for a tabloid to criticize videogames and present them as "sick" when they themselves have no accountability. The fact that The Sun can advertise Saint's Row 2 to teenagers and then whine about MadWorld without its readers noting the hypocrisy says a lot for the intelligence of the average Sun fan, I think.

[Thanks, Teddy]