Gun and video game companies are promoting

From the N.Y. Times:

"As Electronic Arts prepared to market Medal of Honor Warfighter, the latest version of its top-selling video game released in October, it created a Web site that promoted the manufacturers of the guns, knives and combat-style gear depicted in the game.

Among the video game giant’s marketing partners on the Web site were the McMillan Group, the maker of a high-powered sniper’s rifle, andMagpul, which sells high-capacity magazines and other accessories for assault-style weapons.

Links on the Medal of Honor site allowed visitors to click through on the Web sites of the game’s partners and peruse their catalogs.

“It was almost like a virtual showroom for guns,” said Ryan Smith, who contributes to the Gameological Society, an online gaming magazine. After Mr. Smith and other gaming enthusiasts criticized the site, Electronic Arts disabled the links, saying it had been unaware of them.

The video game industry was drawn into the national debate about gun violence last week when the National Rifle Association accused producers of violent games and movies of helping to incite the type of mass shooting that recently left 20 children and six adults dead at a school in Newtown, Conn.

While studies have found no connection between video games and gun violence, the case of Medal of Honor Warfighter illustrates how the firearms and video game industries have quietly forged a mutually beneficial marketing relationship. "

"Many of the same producers of firearms and related equipment are also financial backers of the N.R.A. "

"In the case of the recent promotional Web site for partners of Medal of Honor Warfighter, a spokesman for Electronic Arts said it took action after it discovered that gamers could click through to its partners’ sites.

“We felt it was inappropriate and took the links down,” said Jeff Brown, a spokesman for Electronic Arts, in an e-mail.

But Mr. Smith, the gaming enthusiast who wrote about the links, said the company had not gone far enough. Mr. Smith said the direct link is gone, but visitors to the site can still search for a gun and “take a few extra steps to buy it.”

“I personally think they should not have real weapons in the games in the first place,” he said. “It’s just bad to link things you can do in a game with tools of death you can use in real life.”

Whole article at link below.