🚀 go-pugleaf

To the Editors of CGW:

So I sit down for lunch with a nice turkey sandwich, some fruit salad, and
a cup o' coffee and start paging through the new CGW (October 95) that
just arrived in the mail.

On page 185 is an ad for a game called "Expect No Mercy," from a company
called Microforum. (I've previously heard of neither the game nor the
company.)

The ad features a full-color, photorealistic image of a severed human
forearm, complete with dripping blood, trailing veins, shredded flesh, and
protruding bone. 

I've played many bloody computer games. I've seen most of Clive Barker's
movies. I've seen more than my fair share of real blood, too much of it my
own, as well. 

But this ad should not have been accepted for publication. It's the wrong
magazine. It's the wrong audience. If this image appeared in a movie, the
movie would automatically be rated R or worse, yet there's no warning on
the magazine's cover.

The advertiser clearly intended to make the image look as realistic as
possible. And that's exactly what's wrong with it. We can all make the
distinction between fantasy and reality -- and we NEED to make that
distinction in the course of pursuing our hobby. 

We can play Wolfenstein 3D all day without confusing the Nazi guards with
real people. Would it be acceptable for Apogee to dress up a real corpse,
someone who died of a shotgun blast to the midriff, in an SS uniform and
use a photo of it in an ad for the game?  Since digital imaging can do
anything, it no longer matters whether an image comes from a real source
or not; it only matters how real it *looks.*

I assume this arm is not a real arm... I have to assume that. But I cannot
tell by looking at the ad that it's not real. And it therefore crosses a
line that I did not volunteer to cross when I subscribed to CGW.

During this summer's flap over ads for pornographic software in CGW, we
were assured that an overzealous advertising department had been reined
in, and we would soon see the disappearance of the objectionable material.

What I want to learn now is whether CGW's editorial staff and its
publisher consider this Microforum ad to be similarly objectionable. Is
its appearance a not-to-be-repeated aberration? Or is the realistic
depiction of himan mutilation acceptable where ads for pornography were
not?

Even more important is this question: is anyone routinely looking at the
ads being submitted to your magazine for publication, and judging their
acceptability?  It's up to you whether you choose to have no fixed
standards, but your readers deserve to know that's the case. And if you do
have such standards, you must... you MUST... begin adhering to them.

Thank you.

------------------------------------------------------------
|---RichC----------------------------Interfacing is easy---|
|---rdclark@aol.com-------Compatibility takes a lifetime---|
------------------------------------------------------------