Whenever a video game developer treads in sketchy waters it’s inevitable that they are going to cause some controversy. If you’ve seen pretty much any information regarding Duke Nukem Forever you’ll know that the game includes material that is definitely some reason for controversy. In fact, it seems that the game has caused so much controversy that a group of people have seen reason to petition Walmart to not sell the game.

The basis of this petition rests on the fact that Duke Nukem Forever is a “sexist” game pointing mainly towards its ‘Capture the Babe’ gametype. Shelby Knox, a petitioner, had this to say:

“In this disturbing version of ‘capture the flag’ the player is tasked with kidnapping a woman from his enemy’s base, throwing her over his shoulder, and carrying her back to his base to share the spoils.”

While I definitely see where Knox is coming from petitioning Walmart to not sell the game is, in my opinion, a bit far. If Knox doesn’t like the game, I’d say the logical step would be to not buy the game herself.

What do you think? Should Duke Nukem Forever be boycotted?

Remember way back in June when we told you about a group of people dedicated to boycotting Valve’s Left 4 Dead 2? Well it seems that Valve is going above and beyond to change their minds. It was recently made known that a few of these boy cotters were flown to Valve’s head quarters to get a bit of alone time with the forthcoming title.

According to Kotaku, one boy cotter by the name of Walking_Target has said that the game seemed well balanced and in no way felt like a rushed job. Additionally, he expressed high hopes for the game and has went on to say that he is confident that Valve will make a great game.

If you’ve been paying attention you’ll know that not too long ago an online group formed who swore to boycott Left 4 Dead 2 if Valve didn’t continue to support the original title. Well, shortly after that group was formed, Valve swore to continue to support the original title, which means the boycott worked, right?

According to Valve’s Dougle Lombardi, no, Valve had planned on continuing to support Left 4 Dead even before they were threatened with a boycott:

“I think there was just some confusion. When you go to E3 and make a big splash on a new product you’re trying to get the retailer’s attention and the press attention.It’s not really the venue for announcing DLC and whatnot. I think folks took our announcement as a sign that we were dropping Left 4 Dead 1 and that’s just not the case.

OK, Mr. Lombardi, we’ll believe you if you hurry up and announce that DLC pack for L4D already.

Read (Destructoid)

First Left 4 Dead 2 was announced, then a group of 15,000+ formed to boycott said game, then Valve responded to the boycott and now the group has responded to Valve.

“While we are excited about the idea of new content, we are still in the dark about it. What sort of content is it? For all we know, it could be a new main menu screen. Is it a new map, is it new monsters, is it new weapons, etc…? We’d like to know what is going to be in this new content.

Furthermore, when will this content be released? Is there any sort of timetable within which the content will be made available? These are all questions we would like Valve to elaborate on.

Last, Valve is trying to address the community split from releasing a new game in the series… they did not go into details, and are still working on it.”

I mean I don’t really blame them for giving such a stern response. Valve says that there will be new content for the original Left 4 Dead but exactly what kind of content and when, if ever, will this content hit? Let’s hope that Valve didn’t just tell the boycott group what they wanted to hear to calm them down as we will have a very unhappy community if that is the case.

Just a few days ago a group emerged who pledged they would boycott Left 4 Dead 2 due to the game’s release date being so close to the previous game’s. They also pointed to the fact that Valve would likely not support the original Left 4 Dead as they should once the new one hits the market.

Well, Kotaku proceeded to contact Valve about the boycott and Gabe Newell himself, president of the company, has taken time to make a statement:

Doing a sequel in one year is new for Valve. But providing ongoing support for our titles after the initial launch isn’t – it has been part of our philosophy since Half-Life was released ten and half years ago. We see no reason to change that and will continue to support the over three million customers in the L4D community.

So there you have it folks, Valve will in fact continue to support the original Left 4 Dead once the sequeal drops so you can stop boycotting and such.

With the exception of the Grand Theft Auto series it seems that usually whatever game is raising the most hackles is generally pretty poorly made. Manhunt 2 stirred whole anthills of controversy before it was released followed by a poor performance in terms of both sales and critical acclaim. Most recently Hindus took offense to Hanuman: Boy Warrior, the first game developed entirely by an Indian studio. In it you control Hanuman, one of the deities of the Hindu religion.

As you might imagine Hindu leaders weren’t happy about this and after voicing their displeasure to the folks at Sony sought to get the game recalled from shelves. Sony of course wasn’t interested in recalling a game aimed at a single market because a subsection of people in that market objected to it. Sony finally made it clear to the Hindu leaders that they really had no desire to comply with their demands.

The Hindu leaders have called for a worldwide boycott of Sony products as they had threatened to previously. The overall impact of such a boycott is unknown and it could potentially be terrible given the large Indian market. Yet I somehow doubt that it will be more than a blip on the radar, since there’s probably not much overlap between conservative Hindus and gamers.