You have to simply love pointless bureaucratic bitching, don’t you? If you can’t remember the Advertising Standards Authority, they are a group based in London who pulls videogame adverts after receiving huge strings of up to twelve complaints a case. In the past they have banned Burnout, Kane & Lynch and Stranglehold adverts, and now they’ve gone after Condemned 2 commercials … commercials that aired when the game was out, back in April.
A staggering NINE complaints were received about the once long-forgotten ad, and so the ASA has heroically swooped down on Sega’s ad and slapped it with a ban:
The first ad… showed scenes of violence including a man punching another on the floor and blood splattering on the screen as a man was beaten with a club… The second ad… included the same violent scenes and on-screen text but also included further scenes… This time, as the characters fought, noises could be heard which seemed to express pain and the force of their exertions.
Once again I’d like to share my contempt for the sad, pathetic wankers who felt it necessary to call in. Frankly, if you even know the number for the ASA’s complaints department, there’s something a bit damaged in your brain. I can’t stand people who impose their tastes on other people and whine because they seem to have seen a bit of violence in a commercial that’s perfectly acceptable in movies and shows that air on the same channel.
Sega Europe, of course, argued the case, but was told that the ads broke TV Advertising Standards Code rules 6.1 (Offence), 6.2 (Violence and cruelty) and 6.4 (Personal distress). What this means, of course, is that Sega is now effectively barred from running a commercial that it likely hasn’t aired in a long time and had no intention of ever airing again. THUS, HUMANITY WAS SAVED!
