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After Donald Trump tweeted a fan-made trailer for the politician based on Mass Effect 2 , Electronic Arts has requested and enforced the removal of the footage from YouTube.
As a gaming journalist, real-world politics isn’t a matter that comes into play all that often. Indeed, political movements and lawsuits pertaining to games and hardware are par for the course, but reporting on recent campaign happenings with the current batch of participants in the United States presidential election isn’t something we had ever planned on covering – but Republican candidate Donald Trump has allowed the site to do just that in the wake of recent events. Ladies and gentlemen, this is ‘Trump Effect’.
Earlier today, Trump tweeted a fan-made video from his official Twitter account that featured a mash-up of atrailer and several of the businessman-turned-politician’s speeches. That video and corresponding tweet have since been taken down at the request of Electronic Arts, however, as the publisher has no interest in seeing its intellectual property used in politics for any reason whatsoever.
EA made this stance crystal clear in an official statement to Game Informer , where it said as much to the publication via an email. “The video was an unauthorized use of our IP,” claimed the alleged message before clarifying that “we do not support our assets being used in political campaigns.” This seems like a no-brainer for the firm, admittedly, but these events are rather entertaining to see transpire.
While the trailer is now pulled, the original Mass Effect 2 launch trailer that the Trump rendition ripped off can be seen below.
Despite these comments, the publisher has been involved with politics before. One of the more entertaining aspects of the firm’s past involvement stems from the playable inclusion of Republican and Democratic representatives inon Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii consoles. Mind you, this move happened back in 2010, but it was an entertaining means of incorporating possible candidates for the inevitable Presidential election just two years later.
While that particular example of political promotion was made in fun, however, it did present itself much differently to the now shuttered Donald Trump video. This is because the video itself, despite being fan-made, was used in an official capacity to promote a candidate. Understandably, that is immediately grounds for Electronic Arts to request its removal, which is probably the best move available regardless of which candidate it was being used for.
Even though gamers can’t see the Trump/ Mass Effect mash-up anymore, there was the leaked footage of Mass Effect: Andromeda ‘s jetpackto keep fans preoccupied. At least, that was the case before the unofficial gameplay sneak peek suffered a similar fate to the video that’s responsible for spawning this article. With that said, official footage will likely be arriving on Mass Effect: Andromeda in the near future – despite the fact that the title has been confirmed for a 2017 release.
Source: Game Informer& VICE