Activision's Eric Hirshberg says it's "very hypocritical" networks bad mouth the ad, which had Kobe smiling with an assault rifle, as they ran the adverts.
"He’s smiling while wielding an assault rifle in combat while we have troops overseas at this moment doing that same thing for real, in combat,” said ESPN's Skip Bayless, stating why he feels it was in 'poor judgement' for Kobe to do such a thing.
Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg however would like to highlight the hypocrisy of these networks suddenly finding a 'moral' objection as they were more than willing to accept the dollars to run the ads on their respective networks.
"I’m going to put it in air quotes, which you can’t see, but the ‘controversy’ surrounding Kobe Bryant I find very hypocritical. Those same networks that are now questioning Kobe’s inclusion in this had no problem accepting the ad and approving the ad, and accepting the dollars to run the ad on their networks,” said Hirshberg.
“Are they being irresponsible to their fan base by running the ad on their networks? Because if it’s good for the goose, it’s good for the gander. I find that to be very hypocritical.” It's just general bias against videogames he reckons.
“I also think that there’s a little bit of a maturation process going on for video games overall where certain people still don’t see them as mainstream entertainment, but I wonder if Kobe or Jimmy Kimmel had been involved for the marketing of a new Tom Clancy movie if they would have gotten the same response,” he continued.
“I feel like this is still seen by some people as some sort of subculture or niche product, and the performance in the marketplace demonstrates that this is the epicenter of mainstream entertainment.” Eric Hirshberg helped engineer Sony's fictional Kevin Butler.
Do you see any controversy below?
