Burnout Dominator advertisement causes controversy

by Andrew Yoon { Jun 27th 2007 at 4:00PM }

Are people becoming increasingly fearful of the media? It appears so, as an advertisement for Burnout Dominator was deemed too "violent" for the common public to view. In EA's ad for its PS2/PSP racer, an image of a burning car can be seen, with a tag line: "Inner peace through outer violence."

The Advertising Standards Authority commented that "we considered that the images of a car that seemed to have crashed at high speed and a burning tyre, together with a reference to violence, could be seen to condone a violent lifestyle, anti-social behaviour or dangerous driving. We concluded that the ad was irresponsible."

Excuse me? There are far more grotesque and irresponsible advertisements in the media -- why focus on this one? While we understand the effects of advertising are intended to be influential, we highly doubt people will start driving like a Burnout maniac in real life due to this image.

[Via Next-Gen]

Tags: ad, advertisement, advertising standards authority, AdvertisingStandardsAuthority, burnout, burnout dominator, BurnoutDominator, ea

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

zoen151 @ Jun 27th 2007 5:08PM

They just thought this game was TOO good.

PSP-Rising @ Jun 27th 2007 5:22PM

Must a Nitendo VP on that counsil, anything that is not Mario or Pokemon is irresponsible :)

GRT @ Jun 27th 2007 5:48PM

Looks like a suicide commercial to me...

clankman @ Jun 27th 2007 6:15PM

This is ridiculous. I honestly don't see how this ad is much worse than the Ratchet: SM commercial where the guys were going to shrink themselves to go look at girls. That ad ran perfectly fine too.

Marlo @ Jun 28th 2007 7:50AM

Haha, "tyre"? If they wrote a response and it included this spelling error, I'm not sure they're the person to be making decisions

tenmohican @ Jun 27th 2007 8:08PM

Who put these morons in charge of the content quality of commercials?

Maybe oversensitive much? Ive seen bigger boobs, nastier voilence, and much more coarse language on typical television. Oftentimes it is generally appreciated, (the manshow).

rocco @ Jun 28th 2007 11:58AM

why do i have an odd feeling that jack thompson had something to do with this???

Anthony @ Jun 27th 2007 9:31PM

uhhh. a burning tire, and a screwed up car. oooooh! so violent. but god of war commercials and some weird ninga commercial have blood spilling everywhere.

but of course a car "blown-up" in a corner, and a burning "tyre" are soooooooo much worse.

What they would say on that council thingy,

" god of war advertisments are incorperating taking giant blades, melting them to your wrists, and swinging them at anything that moves, clearly demonstrates nothing"
"and ningas slicing peoples heads off are like goldfish and a pebble. harmless."

These people are insane, and not to get anyone mad, but i do like god of war, i just used it as a example. so dont think i was putting it down.

eh.

Anthony @ Jun 29th 2007 7:58AM

that sucks

Anthony @ Jun 27th 2007 9:32PM

that ad is wicked cool. can someone post a high res verion so it can be my desktop wallpaper cause i cant find one.

Anthony @ Jun 27th 2007 9:35PM

that ad is cool. can som1 post a link to a high res one cus i want one for my desktop backround

Lord Rinja @ Jun 28th 2007 9:08AM

Once again, the goverment infringes on the first amendment. What happened to freedom of speech? I guess its UnAmerican to speak your mind or rebel in any way, shape or form... Oh yeah, thats right, thats what our country was built on to begin with. What is this, the 1950s all over again? I'm sick of all of the paranoia. It's a freakin game. No, it does not rot the minds of kids, it will not make you jump off a cliff and your kids will not go postal on their school because of it. The goverment and mainstream media needs to stop blaming all of their problems on video games and start telling the parents to take care of their own kids. After all, a nine year old gets money from mommy and daddy to buy games. If you don't want your kid playing violent games, read the ratings and reviews. Other than that, shut up and stop ruining everyones fun.

merc25 @ Jun 28th 2007 12:12PM

People this is about the UK, not the US(you know the British). "Tyre" is the British-English spelling of the word(there are many differences between American-English and British-English). There is no first amendment in the UK.

Andrew, next time you are writing about a foreign news story, could you indicate the country that is being effected. I know your link says the country of origin, but some people don't click on the source links.