E3: Protesters target Dante's Inferno game [Updated]
[Updated June 4, 12:15 p.m.: It turns out the protest wasn't a protest, but actually a publicity stunt. Read more about it here.]
It isn't all playing games and doing business at E3 this year.
A small group of 13 protesters had attendees gawking by one of the entrances to the Los Angeles Convention Center. The object of their ire? Electronic Arts' upcoming video game based on the literary classic "Dante's Inferno," which is on display at the show.
The protesters, who came from a church in Ventura County, held signs with slogans such as "trade in your playstation for a praystation" and "EA = anti-Christ" as they marched and handed out a homemade brochure that warns, "a video game hero does not have the authority to save and damn... ONLY GOD CAN JUDGE. and he will not judge the sinners who play this game kindly."
Matthew Francis, one of the protesters, said he and his fellow church members were particularly upset that Dante's Inferno features a character who fights his way out of Hell and uses a cross as a weapon against demons.
"We think this game should never come out," he said, before asking a reporter to convey his message to executives at Electronic Arts inside the show, where non-industry professionals are not allowed.
-- Ben Fritz
Photo: Tony Pierce / Los Angeles Times
More E3 photos
If you think these people were somehow not a marketing ploy set up by Electronic Arts, you were had.
Posted by: Mark | June 03, 2009 at 04:30 PM
LMAO GET A LIFE!
Posted by: Are You Kidding me | June 03, 2009 at 04:39 PM
Great. More publicity. Now more people will know about Dante's Inferno! EA's game will surely sell more copies of this game for sure! Thanks batshit religious people! =D
Posted by: OKei | June 03, 2009 at 04:57 PM
Wow. I guess they'll be even more inclined to protest when Diablo 3 is released in the next year or two!
BTW, good luck with getting this one, or any other game, banned. If millions of Hindu's weren't able to stop the game that disrespects their beliefs, how are this handful of protestors going to stop the Dante game.
In fact all they're doing is drawing more attention to the game. I hadn't even heard of it until this article. Are you sure they're not being paid by EA to drum up attention?
Posted by: Stropp | June 03, 2009 at 09:51 PM
I AM THE SHADOW THE RISES FROM THE OBSCURE REALMS
I AM , I AM
Posted by: ANTIchrist | June 06, 2009 at 04:53 PM
When i heard people were protesting i thought it was fans of the poem protesting it.
I hope that the game will capture the horrors of the poem, if it does it will be the scariest game ever.
Posted by: casey | October 17, 2009 at 06:10 PM