Interesting Email from Sega

[Neuqua]

An Open Letter to Gamers and Parents of Gamers:

By now many of you may have heard the rumors circulating on the internet alleging unintended physiological effects caused by playing ESPN NFL Football, a video game developed by Visual Concepts for our parent company, Sega Corporation. This letter is to inform you that absolutely no credible evidence exists to support the wild accusations being made at websites like www.beta-7.com and others like it. As with all Sega products, normal and responsible use of this game will not result in any physical harm*.

At Sega and Visual Concepts we are committed to providing the most intense, realistic video gaming experience possible. To that end, we are constantly working to improve our technology and break new ground with innovations like the First Person Football feature. However, we also go to great lengths to make sure all of our games are thoroughly tested by a nationwide network of professional as well as amateur beta testers to ensure they conform to accepted industry safety standards before they ever become available to the public.

Thank you for your continued support.



Greg Thomas
President, Visual Concepts
a subsidiary of Sega Corporation

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eh?

[Calis]

Wow.

What can you say? Reading through that site, that's disturbing. More or less the light the guy who made the site is putting it in than anything.

Very very odd. I really don't understand it, but the guy is scary. :)

edit: Oh I get it now, apparently Sega and Visual Concepts are a part of some big conspiracy to hide the fact that the First Person mode causes blackouts and people to have no control over what they do during that time?

Seems likely actually.

[Shkspr]

That website is all lies and trash. I feel like tackling the creep who put up that garbage, chopping his body up into little chunks, feeding them to a pack of starving pit bulls, and then throwing the leftover bits into the woodchipper.

Oh, sorry, gotta go. First person mode rules on this thing!

[Ksyrup]

Interesting. Is this supposed to be like the Ford Pinto memo, where Ford determined that the cost of 30 people a year due to the placement of the gas tank was outweighed by the economic benefits to Ford?

[Calis]

I have a feeling this is much much more sinister than that....

[SackAttack]

Didn't I remember reading that the beta-7 website was supposed to be set up by Sega, sort of as a way to draw publicity to the game?

[GrantDawg]

Originally posted by SackAttack
Didn't I remember reading that the beta-7 website was supposed to be set up by Sega, sort of as a way to draw publicity to the game?

That seems completely believable. That's about the crazy crap I've ever seen.

[sterlingice]

This sounds a lot more like a hoax than anything (hm... beta does have an E and an A in it...)

SI

[Calis]

Yeah, this sounds like some sorta horrible publicity stunt.

Why would Sega send out an e-mail with the site linked? No one's heard any of this before, so it makes sense.

So does this make it more or less pathetic?

[GrantDawg]

Dola: Actually, the videos of these supposed "blackouts" are funny stuff. Of course, they could probably get sued by the the creators of the "office linebacker."

[Draft Dodger]

strangest marketing ploy ever

[JeeberD]

Originally posted by Calis
Yeah, this sounds like some sorta horrible publicity stunt.

Why would Sega send out an e-mail with the site linked? No one's heard any of this before, so it makes sense.

So does this make it more or less pathetic?

That's exactly what I was thinking. Why would they draw more attention to that site if it was anything other than a marketing ploy....

[SnowMan]

Now it appears EspnVideoGames.com has been hacked. Either that or the site isn't the official site, but it is linked from sega.com. Either way, it's pretty funny. And a great marketing ploy.