It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Linkspam! (10th July, 2012)

You can suggest links for future linkspams in comments here, or by using the “geekfeminism” tag on delicious, freelish.us, or pinboard.in, or the “#geekfeminism” tag on Twitter. Please note that we tend to stick to publishing recent links (from the last month or so).

Thanks to everyone who suggested links.

From the “how did this get past the lawyers?” files

[Trigger Warning for abduction, assault, rape and treatment of women as commodities]

Duke Nukem Forever’s “Capture the Babe” CTF variant requires you to abduct a woman to score. The mode is revealed in the latest issue of Official Xbox Magazine US where they explain that Gearbox will give the option to give her a “slap” if she “freaks out” as you drag her across the map.

Err… so, um… what does the company have to say about this?

Speaking to the magazine, Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford said: “Our goal isn’t to shock people, but I think there’s some stuff that’s a bit uncomfortable. I mean, the alien’s plan is to capture our women and impregnate them to breed an alien army, so you can imagine some horrible shit happens.”

Whaaaa?

So lets get this straight. Because it’s in a game where extraterrestrial invaders* want to rape women and forcibly breed them, it’s ok that the “good guys” treat women as trophy objects who are to be abducted and assaulted if they protest.

Oh, when you put it that way. Fuck you, Gearbox.

It’s neigh impossible to find pictures online to see for yourself. Why, you might ask? Well

“You can get some things across in screenshots but not really,” he said.

REALLY? I CAN’T IMAGINE WHY!

* Note that a common definition for “alien” is “A person, animal, plant, or other thing which is from outside the family, group, organization, or territory under consideration.” Lets not go there. [http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/alien].