‘Dante’s Inferno’ Video Game Offends Both Nannies And Decency

Video game publisher Electronic Arts has been on an increasingly ill-considered run of publicity for its upcoming adventure game “Dante’s Inferno”, which is very loosely based on the “Inferno” section of Dante Alighieri’s epic poem “The Divine Comedy“. Its latest affront is the revelation that the game features an Achievement — a recognition of completion of certain in-game accomplishments — for the slaughter of unbaptized infants, called “Bad Nanny”.

This news has drawn the ire of the International Nanny Association, which has released a statement that in part says “INA is opposed to video games that promote and encourage players to “kill” babies, even in fantasy play. It is our opinion that this type of play may promote violence towards children.” The statement goes on to say that the Achievement sullies the good name of nannies everywhere, and that members of the INA should write to the Entertainment Software Ratings Board to register their complaints.

Now, I have been a supporter of video games in the past, and will continue to provide a perspective that hopefully leavens some of the sensationalism that sometimes unjustfully surrounds one of my hobbies of choice. The INA has every right to complain about this issue, but they’ve chosen the wrong target. The ESRB has no jurisdiction over the actual content of any game; they merely report on what they see to help parents evaluate potential purchases. The real offender here is EA themselves.

Those of us who have been following this game for a while have watched as Electronic Arts has purposefully drummed up controversy by intentionally placing incendiary information into the hands of those most likely to be outraged by it. This is merely the latest example. This is proven by the fact that there is no way that the INA could have possibly known about this Achievement if knowledge of it had not been sent to them by an “anonymous tipster”. The game isn’t even on shelves yet; no one has played it. And it’s not the sort of back-of-the-box selling point you’d see even once it became available. This sounds to me like EA alerting the INA to this to provoke an angry response, and therefore keep the name of the game alive in the minds of the public to ensure as much of a launch day success as possible.

It’s filthy marketeering at its worst, and does nothing to dispel the already-existing public perception of video games as malicious and amoral degenerate pursuits designed to appeal to only the most noxious of human urges. This hurts the industry, and it does so from the inside. Not to mention the fact that rewarding the player for the wholesale killing of babies is tasteless at best, and deeply misanthropic at worst. If this Achievement still exists at the launch of the game, then EA deserves whatever retribution comes to them.