Here is one for the “you can’t please everyone file.”
Last Saturday Take Two had its Mafia II Launch Party, at the 92nd Street Y’s Tribeca Center. Sounds like fun, doesn’t it. Well to a group of mainly older Italian Americans, it was a call to arms for them to protest the game which they think is demeaning and stereotyping Italian Americans.
For more than a week, Italian Americans led by Andre’ DiMino pounded away at the event’s host, the 92nd Street Y, to cancel the event as inappropriate for a well known not-for-profit institution
Andre’ DiMino declared, “I have no doubt our efforts resulted in the Mafia II Launch Party, at the 92nd Street Y’s Tribeca Center, being a dismal failure.” DiMino continued, “When we first heard about this marketing event only recently, we went into action, using our resolve to challenge an event whose purpose was to mock the Italian American community by promoting the new video game Mafia II.”
Per the DiMino, “the event was mainly sparse group of mostly young people trudged into 200 Hudson Street Saturday night. No Take-Two executives were anywhere in sight, least of all Strauss Zelnick, company chairman.” The Italian American coalition claim Strauss Zelnick had belittled opponents of the new game.
I know many of you readers are shocked that a video game launch would be mainly attended by a younger audience.
“I believe,” continued DiMino , “the combined result of our activities was that, without acknowledging our efforts, both Take-Two and the 92nd Street Y became very hesitant to heavily promote ethnic bashing in this very public way. The lack of media coverage for the launch party is another indicator that they pulled back on promoting this event.”
