Wampum

A friend who in involved in the Los Angeles Inter-Tribal institutions (remember, LA is the biggest Indian city in the US) writes:

Subject: Fw: BOYCOTT "Gun" videogame that kills Apaches

Subject: BOYCOTT "Gun" videogame that kills Apches
Boycott Gun Video Game. These stereotypes must stop! Our letters can and will make a difference! Please forward this to your distribution lists. Thank you.

Please, go to this site for the letter to Activision, a company that produces the game that makes reference to killing and scalping Apaches to advance in the game. http://www.boycottgun.com/

The real perp is Neversoft, located in Woodland Hills, west of Los Angeles. They've the Tony Hawk series (skateboard) games, and "Gun" is their major new product. They have shipped seven games in six years (Apocalypse, Spider-Man, and Tony Hawk series) for over 25 million units sold. They aim to make a "realistic" post-1865 western and their notion of western realism includes Indians. Here's one of their job descriptions.

Character Modelers

Responsibilities will include creating distinctive and memorable characters with a strict polygon budget. You will be responsible for finding (and making best use of) ideal reference material, creating effective and economical textures, applying them to your model, skinning your characters, using vertex weights and envelopes. Console experience, and proficiency with 3DSMax and Photoshop essential.

Of course skinning means putting a surface on a wireframe or polygon model, but to get "realistic scalping", the CM has to put a red skin on some subset of the model. So skinning doesn't mean what you think it does, only it does in fact mean what you think it does, when you realize that pigmented and hiristute caranial derma and unpigmented capillary compromised caranial subderma are both "skins", with no relationship to each other, except in the suspended disbelief of the "realism" experiencing consumer of the CM's work of art.

So how bad does it get, this "western realism"? Colton White, the main character in Gun, is a Civil War vet, and having "chose up" and served in a regular army unit with men (and women) from his town, people he mustered in with, he's "completely desensitized to violence". This is useful because the game is about violence, and to just get out of the first circle of hell level of the game, Mr. White(man) has to kill and take the hair of an "Apache Indian". The narrative of the game contains a loop in which Mr. White(man) has to (rinse & repeat) kill and take the hair of an "Apache Indian". There is even an accessory for the Mr. White(man) 2D action figure, a cranial cutting tool (scalping knife) which the narrative logic forces the doll playing "mature" child to acquire, along with other weapons systems.

You can read the self-congradulatory kool kid krap at here and here. But more importantly, you can read the letter put together by the people who produce Reach the Rez Radio for AIROS below, and you can click on this link and sign the petition http://www.boycottgun.com/.

Don't forget to tell Big Media Matt that its The Washington Team. That sports frachise has no other name. TWT. Yes. The vowel is "a" and that's what the players, owners, and fans are until they choose some name other than The Washington Team.

The Association for American Indian Development letter follows.

It has come to our attention that video game publisher, Activision, has released for Xbox 360, Xbox, Playstation , PS2 and PC, a new game set in the American West with some very disturbing racist and genocidal elements toward Native Americans. The game is called "Gun" and features a frontiersman hero named Colton White. One of his earliest tasks that the game player must complete before advancing to the next level is to slaughter, not once, but on an ongoing basis, Apache Indians. Not only slaughter (and this is the terminology used in the game) but to scalp (terminology also used in the game) them as well with a "scalping knife" that can be purchased as part of the many weapons offered to the hero of the game, Colton Whte.

Yes, we understand that this game is rated "M" for mature audiences, and yes, we understand that historically, this kind of violence occurred all too often. No one knows this better than this organization and Indigenous people from all tribes throughout the continents of North, Central and South America. In fact, the repercussions of such acts of genocide are why there is a desperate need for the Association for American Indian Development today. What is of the greatest concern and outrage is the outright, unabashed and implied righteousness of its genocidal nature toward Native Americans.

To create a game where one must slaughter members of a racial group in order to move forward promotes and condones the near genocide of Native Americans in this country. If a game were created that had its hero slaughter, say African Americans, Irish, Mexicans, or Jews, would there not be an outcry of extreme proportions? We're not talking about generic bandits or outlaws who could be any race - this is a game that specifies the slaughter of a living, breathing existing racial group of human beings. There is no indication of the complexities of the period, even as interviews with it's author, talk about how he was able to delve into the history of the period. Native people during this time were protecting their homeland, their way of life. Something that is instilled in good old American values.

What's next, the Civil War era game where "The Hero" must capture and lynch runaway slaves? Of course not. That would be wrong. But apparently, killing Indians is still fair game. And, even further, "The Hero" at one point, bemoans the fact that although he's killed so many Apaches, he's let so many get away?

We wonder if the authors of this script and game even took the time to think about the fact that real, existing Apache people can be adversely affected by this element of their "game?" This most definitely is not a "game" to those still suffering from the repercussions of this shameful chapter in American history. How many kids will (and although rated for mature players, young kids will still manage to get a copy of it) play this game and then carry what they've experienced into their interactions with real, live Apaches and other Native Americans? Yes, Native people still live here in America. They are not a lost or extinct people and they don't all live secluded on reservations. And, believe it or not, Indian kids play Xbox, too. And Activision (and scriptwriter Randall Jahnson) have just written a game that says killing all Apaches is the right thing to do and in the game you not only have to slaughter the Apache to advance in the game, but you can purchase a "scalping knife" to "scalp them all!" This is completely unacceptable and cannot be tolerated in a "civilized" society.

Let's be clear...contrary to popular belief and myth, the near genocide of Native Americans is a shameful chapter in American history and should not be condoned or trivialized in a game as if it were okay. Yes, the brutal slaying of America's indigenous people is historically accurate...it happened. But so did slavery, lynching and the Holocaust and we don't see games glamorizing it as if it were the right thing to do.

As if to make amends, "The Hero" switches sides later in the game and discovers a secret about his own indigenous heritage, but that does NOT make the preceding chapters any easier to accept. In fact, in the official guide to the game, it actually says that because "The Hero" rescues some Apaches held captive on a train, perhaps it cancels a karmic debt for his earlier actions. Are they serious? Obviously not. This is typical of a flippant comment about a very real, damaging and tragic aspect of American history, the aftermath of which is still very much in evidence today all across North America.

Why is it that still today, Americans think it's okay to talk, let alone spend millions of dollars to create video games about killing a bunch of Indians so casually? This is grossly insensitive and does not in any way acknowledge the brutality camouflaged as Manifest Destiny.

This is why the Association for American Indian Development asks you to join us in letting the publishers of this offensive game know that this will not be tolerated -- BOYCOTT "Gun" the video game, as well as other games published by Activision. We also encourage you to use your American right to voice you concern to Activision by writing them at:

Activision Incorporated
3100 Ocean Park Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405
(310) 255-2000