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The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK has banned a TV ad forEidos' Kane & Lynch: Dead Men after receiving 26 complaints, manyof which were alarmed at the depiction of violence towards women.
The ASA found that the ads were irresponsible and likely to causeserious or widespread offence, with a poster and TV advertisement bothbreaching responsible advertising and TV Advertising Standards codes.
A promotional campaign for a violent computer game must never be shown again,after the advertising watchdog decided to uphold complaints from worriedparents.
Advertisements for Kane & Lynch were accompanied by the claim thatthe game is “grittier and nastier . . . than anything you’ve seen before,the violence . . . visceral, brutal and very, very real”. The rulingyesterday by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) comes after thereport last month by Tanya Byron, the psychologist and television parentingguru, who proposed cigarette-style health warnings on video games to protectchildren from unsuitable material.
Kane & Lynch is made by Eidos, the producer of the successful TombRaider series, and carries an 18-rating. Posters for the game depicted agagged woman in tears. A scarred man wearing surgical gloves pulled her headback by her hair while a second man behind them held his finger on thetrigger of a rifle.
Those who complained to the ASA said they found the graphic depiction ofviolence towards women in the advertisements, seen on posters, on televisionand in magazines, distressing. They complained that the ads condonedviolence towards women and would have been seen by children.
Quote:
The firm said it had dropped the posters as soon as complaints were receivedand that the advertisements were only placed in adult male life-stylemagazines and specialist publications. Both Five and Channel 4, whichscreened the adverts, apologised for any offence caused.
Julian Brazier, the Conservative MP for Canterbury, said: “This is one moreexample of the ASA showing leadership and cracking down on the glamorisingof violence when the BBFC is dragging its feet and the Video AppealsCommittee has failed completely.”
The ASA ruled that the poster and magazine ads breached decency andresponsible advertising codes while the TV ad broke guidelines on harm,offence, violence and cruelty.
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