Gun manufacturers making video game themed guns and gun merchandise

MaeZe

Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jun 6, 2016
Messages
12,772
Reaction score
6,476
Location
Ralph's side of the island.
The Intercept: EVEN AS A STUDENT MOVEMENT RISES, GUN MANUFACTURERS ARE TARGETING YOUNG PEOPLE
For years, gun manufacturers and industry-supported associations have focused their energy on transforming young Americans into the next generation of shooters. Using the appeal of a real-word version of the video game-style experience, the industry is pursuing young people to bolster revenue amid slumping sales. While the industry soars under Democratic governance — for fear that imminent regulations will make purchases more difficult — gun sales have been down since President Donald Trump’s election....

With the aid of advertising that draws on a video game aesthetic, gun companies and their allies, including the National Rifle Association, have increasingly shifted their efforts to target young, first-time gun buyers....

At the Bank of America Leveraged Finance Conference in November, the CFO of one of the largest companies involved in gun accessories and ammunition was explicit about the video-game appeal to young gun enthusiasts. “It has become a recreational shooting market, partly driven by the Xbox generation coming of age,” said Stephen Nolan, of Vista Outdoor. “And two trends which bode very well to the market long term: significant influx of younger shooters and significant influx of female shooters into the market.” Younger shooters, he explained, look to buy paper targets of zombies or vampires, and are more interested in buying high volumes of ammunition....

Companies hawk zombie-themed gun apparel and other youth oriented gun accessories on social media. Vista Outdoors sponsors shooting events for Boy Scout troops. In 2012, EA Games partnered with a gun companies such as Magpul, McMillan, and others to sell guns and other items featured in the the game “Medal of Honor: Warfighter” to consumers.

There's also a magazine called Junior Shooters.

I saw this discussed on Democracy Now this morning: As Students Demand Gun Control, Arms Manufacturers Continue Targeting “Next Generation of Shooters”
Well, to speak more about firearms, gun manufacturers and the unprecedented youth movement for gun control, we’re joined now by The Intercept’s investigative reporter Lee Fang, his new piece headlined “Even as a Student Movement Rises, Gun Manufacturers Are Targeting Young People.”

Lee, welcome back to Democracy Now! How are gun manufacturers targeting young people?

LEE FANG: Hi, Amy. Thanks for having me.

You know, we took a look at investor reports from gun manufacturers and other gun industry companies, and there’s a number of reasons why, but gun executives say they’re making a new push to target younger generations, teenagers, millennials, mainly because gun sales have been plummeting over the last year. That’s partially because, with a Republican president and Republicans in power in Congress, there has been little fear of gun control. And what the gun industry has done historically is that they’ve used the potential for gun control to spur panic buying, often using third parties like the NRA to kind of whip up hysteria. And without that kind of fear of gun control, there’s been less gun sales, so they’re attempting to grow their market.

Also, there’s new analysis from the gun industry showing that young people are not buying guns like older generations for hunting. They’re mostly kind of emulating video game culture. You know, they’re going to gun stores, buying targets of vampires and zombies, and going to the gun range and buying really sophisticated weapons, lots of ammunition. This is really, as one gun industry executive said, the Xbox generation that they’re trying to target. So, even as there’s a new youth-led student movement calling for gun control, this is coming at a time when the gun industry is hoping to grow their market share by selling more guns to young people.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Lee, could you also talk about the Koch brothers and guns and the network that the Koch brothers have built up to fund campaigns, both advocacy campaigns and political campaigns?

LEE FANG: Well, you know, the interesting thing here with the Koch brothers and guns is that I don’t believe that the Koch brothers have a strong interest in gun control or no gun control. But they do understand that this is an issue that whips up the conservative base, that Republican voters are very likely to vote on gun issues. So, you know, historically, we’ve seen the Koch brothers use their undisclosed money organizations to fund the NRA. That’s because the NRA will go out and engage in election efforts to activate Republican base voters to get them to the polls. So, you know, when you see television advertisements from the NRA, that money does come from NRA members, from gun companies, but it also can come from groups like the Koch brothers, that are hoping to use them as kind of an identity group to activate their base voters. ...


AMY GOODMAN: Lee, as you write about the efforts by gun manufacturers to market to young people, through magazines like Junior Shooters, we’re showing some of the magazine—the covers of the magazine, for our viewers, which show young people holding rifles and handguns, with cover lines like “Glocks Are for Girls” and “Meet Spud: Fast Draw at Age 11.” Other companies, including gun manufacturer Hogue, Inc., sell things like green glow-in-the-dark handguns and shotguns and accessories, marketed to kids so they can, quote, “hunt zombies in style,” what you referred to earlier. Explain the whole push to go to younger and younger people....

LEE FANG:... There’s been partnerships even with video game companies. Electronic Arts, several years ago, had a partnership with several gun companies, where, you know, for a first-person shooter, players could play the game and then go be directly connected to a marketplace where they could buy weapons from the game directly from the manufacturers. So there’s a multitude of marketing efforts that are geared towards young people. And, you know, I think if Congress is looking towards enacting gun control, the marketing efforts might be a part of that larger national conversation....
You can watch the interview online to see images of the guns, accessories and the magazine covers.
 

kneedeepinthedoomed

Super Member
Registered
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
178
Reaction score
26
Location
Germany
Website
spawnhost.wordpress.com
As a game maker, I'm just ashamed of this. Although I was always into games that didn't include realistic guns, and my own game doesn't include them either. It is true that videogame companies are partnering with gun manufacturers; this is pretty widespread, if simply because the videogame studios need licenses to depict realistic models in their shooter games.

The game industry does a lot of shady, dirty, immoral things to get at young people's money, such as use lootboxes designed with the help of psychologists, and principles taken from the gambling world, to get teenagers addicted and spend their mother's credit card on jack shit. It is only fitting that they would take money to help sell game-themed guns. A lot of people in the big game companies have no morals whatsoever. Their only interest is money.

Games aren't really the reason for school shootings or in any way worse than action movies, ie. you can't blame all the evil in the world on games - but a lot of game industry execs will do anything for money. This is basic game industry knowledge. So partnering with gun makers wouldn't exactly keep them up at night. They don't bat an eyelash. Ethics really aren't a big thing in the game industry, and the gun industry is thus a natural partner.

The American game industry needs a lot more pressure than it's currently getting. Their greed and irresponsibility knows no bounds. They could and should be pressured to stop any collaboration with gun makers such as granting the rights to custom weapon skins or whatever it is, and to stop portraying real world gun models in their games.

Coming up with sci-fi or fantasy weapons for games isn't exactly hard. There don't need to be real-looking AKs and ARs in there.

It's a dirty business and I hope it will be stopped.
 

Brightdreamer

Just Another Lazy Perfectionist
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Apr 22, 2012
Messages
12,975
Reaction score
4,507
Location
USA
Website
brightdreamersbookreviews.blogspot.com
Disgusting, though I'm not surprised EA had a hand in this kind of junk.

So many of our problems seem to boil down to pathological greed and utter lack of concern for humanity.
 

Kaiser-Kun

!
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jan 12, 2009
Messages
6,944
Reaction score
1,915
Age
39
Location
Mexico
Well, the rest of the world plays the same videogames. They also have gun control laws that ensure such events remain an escapist fantasy.
 

Albedo

Alex
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 17, 2007
Messages
7,363
Reaction score
2,924
Location
A dimension of pure BEES
Well, the rest of the world plays the same videogames. They also have gun control laws that ensure such events remain an escapist fantasy.
This. The problem is, and will remain, the US's utterly toxic gun culture. I like shooting games. If I wanted, I could go and get a license and buy a real gun. Maybe not something with a thousand round magazine and UV laser sights that can aerosolize a buck at 500 m, but I could still own a gun without too much effort. It just doesn't appeal at all. It's a niche interest here, not a massive mainstream consumer fest. Having sensible gun laws creates a sensible gun culture. Morally insane gun laws create a morally insane gun culture.
 

frimble3

Heckuva good sport
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 7, 2006
Messages
11,574
Reaction score
6,396
Location
west coast, canada
And pink handguns to appeal to a woman's feminininininty and girlyness.

Maybe this is why comparatively few women go on shooting-sprees or commit mass shootings? It's just too damn embarrassing to pull out a pink gun. The potential victims would snicker and ask if it was real.

And, that's another reason to stop the 'making guns look fun' - as the line between toys and guns blurs, there will be more cases of people shot because someone thought their 'toy' was real, or because someone thought their real gun was a toy.
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,079
Reaction score
10,775
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
It's a niche interest here, not a massive mainstream consumer fest. Having sensible gun laws creates a sensible gun culture. Morally insane gun laws create a morally insane gun culture.

I think this is an excellent point, one that people on both sides of the argument overlook here. When something is legally restricted people's attitudes about it do change. Maybe not all at once, but over time. For example, drunk driving was once normalized and socially acceptable. When MADD first started campaigning for tougher drunk driving laws, some people shook their heads. People drink and drive, and laws aren't going to be consistently enforceable enough to change that.

Except, over time, as the laws grew tougher, the number of people who drink and drive went down. What has changed the most is attitudes about it. Designated drivers and tipsy taxis are normal things in downtown bar scenes and in college towns, and three martini lunches are a quaint concept today. People still do drink, but getting stinking drunk is no longer as cool or amusing as it once was (in mainstream culture).

The changes in attitudes about smoking are even more dramatic, perhaps because it is a habit that affects those around you. As someone who was a kid in the 70s, I remember how almost everyone's parents smoked (until quitting became the thing). My childhood memories are filtered through a haze of smoke. Smoking is still legal, but laws have restricted who can purchase tobacco and where one can smoke to the point that it's become pretty socially unacceptable in most circles.

Something similar could happen with guns. Yes, they're part of mainstream US culture in a way, perhaps, they aren't in most other countries, but smoking and drinking have been part of mainstream culture too, and changes are occurring. We haven't eliminated smoking or drunk driving, and alcoholism remains a problem, but we've put a big dent in them in the US.

Something similar could happen with guns and certain kinds of gun ownership here.

Honestly, I think that's what some people are most afraid of--not of all guns becoming illegal, but of gun culture becoming something that is less celebrated or admired (and certain patterns of gun use or ownership--such as treating them like toys or cool accessories--becoming something that is thought of as strange and unhealthy).
 
Last edited:

JimmyB27

Hoopy frood
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Dec 29, 2005
Messages
5,623
Reaction score
925
Age
42
Location
In the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable e
Website
destinydeceived.wordpress.com
Coming up with sci-fi or fantasy weapons for games isn't exactly hard. There don't need to be real-looking AKs and ARs in there.

Why in the world not? Most (all?) gamers, whatever the Jack Thompsons of the world think, are perfectly capable of distinguishing between real life and fantasy no matter how realistic the action on screen.

Although there was that one time I tried to parkour up the Colosseum in Rome after playing too much Assassin's Creed:Brotherhood.
 

Kjbartolotta

Potentially has/is dog
Super Member
Registered
Joined
May 15, 2014
Messages
4,197
Reaction score
1,049
Location
Los Angeles
Why in the world not? Most (all?) gamers, whatever the Jack Thompsons of the world think, are perfectly capable of distinguishing between real life and fantasy no matter how realistic the action on screen.

The "can't tell reality from fantasy" card is always the sorriest one in the hand, people who play it seem to have no conception of either. It's either a serious limitation or an obvious con, but people who say this always have a strategy to turn their words into dollars.

But, tbh, I've tried to double-jump up the sides of buildings too on occasion. So who knows :p
 

jennontheisland

the world is at my command
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Jul 17, 2006
Messages
7,270
Reaction score
2,125
Location
down by the bay
Coming up with sci-fi or fantasy weapons for games isn't exactly hard. There don't need to be real-looking AKs and ARs in there.
Even if there were real looking guns players would just buy "skins" for the guns to make them match their armour (i love hassling my kid for his microtransactions for new outfits to play dress up in his games).

I'm actually kinda surprised gun makers hadn't thought to sell dress up skins for real life guns.
 

BenPanced

THE BLUEBERRY QUEEN OF HADES (he/him)
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Nov 5, 2006
Messages
17,864
Reaction score
4,637
Location
dunking doughnuts at Dunkin' Donuts
And pink handguns to appeal to a woman's feminininininty and girlyness.

Maybe this is why comparatively few women go on shooting-sprees or commit mass shootings? It's just too damn embarrassing to pull out a pink gun. The potential victims would snicker and ask if it was real.

Plus it'd be too easy to spot from across a crowded room.
 

Roxxsmom

Beastly Fido
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
Joined
Oct 24, 2011
Messages
23,079
Reaction score
10,775
Location
Where faults collide
Website
doggedlywriting.blogspot.com
And pink handguns to appeal to a woman's feminininininty and girlyness.

The women I've known who are into shooting would be as insulted at the concept of a pink, glittery line of "girl" guns as women in general were by the infamous "bic for her" pens.

These strategies make me think of the advertising campaigns in the mid 20th century to encourage women to smoke, and the "Joe Camel" and similar campaigns in the later 20th century to try to get kids to think smoking was cool again. In spite of the first Amendment, they managed to ban smoking ads on television and completely banned cigarette ads and products aimed at kids. They could do the same thing with guns, which also pose a public health risk.

Even if one interprets the second Amendment as pertaining to individual rights to bear arms, and not in the context of a militia, none of the constitutional rights is absolute and in all circumstances. There are limits of free speech, otherwise the government couldn't pass laws against doctors asking their patients if there are guns in the house, and it wouldn't be illegal to yell fire in a public space.