Fail of the Week Award - Activision vs. Fox News

Like a phoenix, the Fail of the Week Award is rising out of the ashes to bring to you another fail-rific recap of all things fail in the gaming industry.  This week's contenders are the "countless sequels, prequels, special editions, we want your money" Activision and the "we love to do reports on things we know absolutely nothing about like video games" Fox News.  Let's stand the competition side by side and get the full details in this week's Fail of the Week showdown.

Activision Fail

After announcing that the Guitar Hero franchise is done along with True Crime, Activision was slapped in the face by analysts who said they did it all themselves.  You can't blame analysts for saying that considering the amount of Guitar Hero games that was released since the original debuted in 2005.  Seriously Activision, do we really need different Guitar Hero's and expansions for a guitar game?  Get real.  All we needed is one great Guitar Hero game that is supported by even better DLC and then maybe a second Guitar Hero that introduces new features.

Moving on to one of the biggest series in video game history, Call of Duty.  Activision announced this week that another studio will be making Call of Duty content bringing the number of studios working on Call of Duty up to five.  Beachhead is the latest addition and will responsible for developing digital content that one analyst Michael Pachter is almost certain that Beachhead will be charging for a pay to play online Call of Duty game.  He is even estimating that there will also be charges for weapons used in the game.  If Activision makes good on those claims, it sounds like gamers will have another EA on their hands charging for every little penny that they can squeeze out of eager gamer's pockets.

Fox News Fail

Fox News decided to do another amazing and ground breaking study claiming that gamers who purchase and play Epic Games and People Can Fly's Bulletstorm, that they will go on a raping rampage and rape everything in sight.

According to Dr. Jerry Weichman, a clinical psychologist at the Hoag Neurosciences Institute in Southern California, claims that playing Bulletstorm will cause "significant damage" when speaking about how this game will effect younger gamers.

From this "study" are we as gamers to assume that every violence filled game we play will have us turning into sexual "hump everything in sight" humans that want to shoot aliens and make magic orbs fly out of our hands as we navigate through town in a drunken stupor?

And the winner is......

Fox News for their ridiculous "insight" into the world of violent video games.  We get it Fox News, you hate video games that will make soccer moms scream and stuffy business type dads say, "my precious child cannot see this!".

What Fox Nails fails to realize is that game developers and publishers are not responsible for what content younger children and teenagers see and play.  They are not the parents of todays youth and cannot be held responsible for little Johnny getting a peek of video game breasts and hearing "f*** you", the same as the stores that sell these video games to minors.  Can the employee at the cash register give all of the information to the parents standing in line with Johnny to try to let them know that the game they are about to purchase is violent, bloody, and graphic really be held responsible when the parent who is to busy texting on their cell phone or does not know anything about the game says, "we'll take it"?  What more do you want developers and publishers who abide by the ESRB ratings and store employees who can only sell "M" rated games to adults or with parents permission to do Fox News?

Fox News, because of your fail worthy "study" you have received the Fail of the Week Award.  Now excuse me, I must go do pleasurable things to the tree in my backyard, because your study is making me do so.