In response to the Resident Evil 5 debate

In response to the debate around the Resident Evil 5 trailer, I'd say that to me, this is a basic issue of denotation/connotation. I do believe in artistic freedom, and thus in principle there should be nothing wrong with a zombie game set in Africa. As T Kanji has said, no one would have had the same kind of problem with the trailer if it had been exactly the same tone, but set in New York, with either a mixed or predominantly white population of zombies. So whilst there is no problem denotatively, connotations are culturally and personally dependant. So connotatively, it comes across as hugely insensitive to most people. Albert poses the argument that perhaps no-one working on the game realised the historical connotations. To begin with, I rejected this possibility, as from my understanding, it’s a large franchise with many people working on it. I did not believe for a second that it was possible that no-one involved with the making of that trailer specifically realised the connotations of the imagery. After coming to this conclusion, I did a bit of research. I did find it kind of interesting to learn that Capcom is a Japanese company, and to hear what the game's producer Jun Takeuchi had to say on the issue.

“Certainly the most important thing we have learned is that different countries do see the same things in different ways. I think it's very important as we go along and start other projects to learn from other countries and learn from other companies who are working in the video game and entertainment sectors, learn from their experiences, and not have the same problems again. You know, we have had the reverse problem with some games in Japan as well. But we're in the business of making entertainment. We're not out to make anything to deliberately shock anyone, so I think we can take a couple of lessons away from this experience.”

Link to the full interview

So, I’d say it’s possible that they did not realise how their trailer would come across. It’s also possible that this is simply a public explanation in response to objections. As joshua-dean implied, there is a difference in harmful intent, insensitivity and ignorance, although none of these are ultimately a good excuse. Regardless of the producer and his statements, they would almost definitely have had marketing teams based in other markets, who should have seen the issue. Or they need to hire more informed researchers. Or perhaps they figured that their perceived target market would not be offended by this. I also found it quite interesting reading comments in various places discussing the trailer, and to see that many of the games’ fans who were discussing it did not see the connotations. I would be curious to know how badly the actual game itself comes across, whether it is less offensive in context, or not.