This is too much Infinity Ward. Probably not the top news story on most people’s radar at the moment but something that i found both thought-provoking and very in-appropriate. A new promotional video for what appears to be a very badass game, Modern Warfare 2, was released recently featuring anti-grenade spam enthusiast and Philadelphia Phillys’ pitcher, Cole Hamel fully-rendered using the in-game engine. In the “PSA”, Hamel explains to viewers how it is “not cool” to throw random grenades in multiplayer i.e. grenade spamming. He later explains that these tactics are for “pussies” and is then completely covered in what else? Random grenades. At this point in the commercial I gave a good laugh, it was funny and very similar to things I have said in game; because nothing is worse than dying by random grenades plopping right next to you out of nowhere. Unfortunately my laughter was quickly stifled when you come to find out that the previous commercial was brought to you by “Fight Against Grenade Spam.” Notice anything about that Acronym? yes it spells F.A.G.S and that is not cool. Now I am not about to get self-righteous about this issue because I have misused this word in the past, especially while playing online games, so I have no real right to belittle a company for doing the same. The reason that I find this commercial so completely ridiculous however and why the company creating it, Infinity Ward, should be embarrassed is because the acronym is so damn unnecessary. The commercial is already funny to begin with, it has some foul language, haha, it has some trash talking, giggles, it didn’t need a homophobic slander at the end to get laughs. Secondly, this isn’t a cheap home-made movie created by pre-teens on their parents mac; this is a fully developed company releasing a commercial for their highly anticipated new game and what they come up with to push its name is “F.A.G.S?” it just doesn’t seem, in anyway, an intelligent move. Now, im not going to go any further into putting Infinity Ward down because enough people are already doing that. But what im really going to ask is this, does using the word “fags” mean that a person is homophobic, or for that matter does the word “fag” mean that the person using it is putting someone down because they believe they are homosexual? This is a hard question to ask and in the end it should just be removed from our vocabulary all together but the point im getting at is, just because you call someone that word in a video game doesn’t necessarily mean you are using hate words or putting down the homosexual community. the only reason I say this is from my own personal experience. When I have played multiplayer games in the past I have used this word to describe a player who was exploiting certain aspects of the game to gain “cheap” points. Now when I used this word I was not directing it towards the player in terms of you anger me because you are homosexual, rather their playing was irritating and therefore they are “that word” (apology for the “word” use, i just don’t like writing it). In my eyes the word “fag” and the homosexual community are entirely different. this argument is something that can only be thought of on a personal level but one that should be thought of. does the person using the word push the stereotype or is the people making the negative connotation making it wrong? Im not on either side of this issue and would like to see this issue and the word at the center of it just fade away. Overall the commercial was tacky and using that word is continuing a negative stereotype for homosexuals and just as much gamers and should be stopped as soon as possible but in the end I have a hard time believing that every person using this word is doing so to belittle any one type of people.

post script: I am not trying to promote this video, I completely agree with what has been said about it and reading the articles and watching the video has actually made me look at myself and realize that what I was saying could be taken in a very negative way.