Violence Divides Video Game Community Following PlayStation Trailers, Sony Responds

During the 2017 PlayStation Paris Games Week, Sony unveiled some truly stunning trailers for fans to enjoy. Among them were the titles The Last Of Us Part 2 and Detroit: Become Human. Shortly after the clips were shown, publications started posting criticisms of what they viewed as excessive violence towards women. This sentiment has since divided the video game community, which prompted Sony to respond.

Among the most vocal critics of the trailers that were shown during the PlayStation event is Polygon, paying particular attention to the trailer for TLOU Part 2. The publication took issue with what it considered gratuitous violence when henchmen of a female cult leader broke the arm of a woman using a hammer.

An opinion piece on Gamezone took the opposite stance, saying that the violence depicted in the trailers are no gratuitous at all. Rather, they set the tone and expectations with regards to the kind of world the players are going to be stepping into.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Sony executive Jim Ryan addressed the complaints leveled at the company for showing such trailers. According to him, this was simply the company’s way of giving the targeted demographic exactly what they want.

“I think a platform holder provides a platform and the people who make games, whether they’re our own studios or third-party publishers, they bring the content to the platform. We provide the platform. We have to ensure the right content is played by the right people - of appropriate ages in particular. I thought The Last of Us Part 2 was a great way to end the show and I feel very good about it,” Ryan said. "And, again, the studio was seeking to portray a game that will be rated as suitable for adults to play and that’s what we did.”

Ultimately, the decision to show the trailer was Sony’s way of trusting Naughty Dog to deliver the kind of experience that the clip portrays. That this resulted in a divided video game community is simply to be expected.