I’ve always prided myself on not being a confrontational man, but if I could rip the heart out of anyone in the world, it would probably be whoever wrote the Dante’s Inferno ad campaign. If, when you heard that EA had staged fake religious protests against the game to increase awareness, and you did not rend the closest keyboard in two, I envy both your restraint and the fact that you have one more keyboard than I.

I have a tendency to call out to the world that games are, and forever will be an art form. But, the EA marketing department seems to be in constant war with the minds of people who don’t want gaming to be viewed as childish and trite.

I have made attempts to tell people around me how simultaneously awesome EA developers can be, and how terrible EA advertising can be, but nobody attempts to understand how two parts of a company can be independent of one another.

I played Dead Space 2, and I actually liked it. It wasn’t really a horror game, because I’ve seen the Saw movies and gore no longer shakes me like it did when I was 5. I must have some kind of strong stomach, if everyone else finds it so terrifying. But it didn’t need to be a horror game, because I could still chop off limbs with laser saws and pin giant monsters to walls. Honestly, that game didn’t need to say anything on the box that didn’t include the phrase “Laser Saw”. But then they released the “Your Mom Is Gonna Hate It” campaign, and the game couldn’t be respected anymore.

I really tried to tell people how much fun that Dead Space 2 could be, but everyone pulled up that ad campaign where they show footage to old ladies whose monocles would drop if someone used the word ‘underwear’ in mixed company.

EA can really make a game. Sorry, EA developers can really make a game; I can’t hate their development core because Bioware is still under the EA licence, which thus takes any hate I might have against them away.

There are times when ties must be cut off, and this happens to be one of them. Many parts of EA are not perfect, and marketing is so far from perfect I can’t come up with an analogy.