Battlefield 3's TV spot features Jay-Z '99 Problems,' sets inappropriate tone
A teaser for a new TV-bound Battlefield 3 gameplay trailer has arrived, featuring Jay-Z's hit, '99 Problems."
I'm not quite sure how to feel about the new Battlefield 3 teaser trailer released today that serves as a prelude to a full-blown TV spot set to air on September 26 "in a number of countries." Scored to Jay-Z's hit '99 Problems,' it's kind of an odd duck. Is EA is trying to pointedly call attention to the fact that there are no women in Battlefield 3, or are the misogynistic undertones purely coincidental?
Here's the thing: I'm looking forward to playing Battlefield 3 as much as anyone, but mass-marketing efforts like this tend to leave a bad taste in my mouth. To be fair, a lack of female soldiers in shooters isn't Battlefield 3's issue alone, but the issue really seems highlighted here by how the teaser is scored.
Check the teaser from the Battlefield 3 blog out for yourself, and share your thoughts in the comments.
In any event, maybe the organizers of the large, private, no-women-allowed Battlefield 3 LAN launch party in Texas (reported by Kotaku) can use it as their new anthem.
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Shacknews
replyJeff Mattas posted a new article, Battlefield 3's TV spot features Jay-Z '99 Problems,' sets inappropriate tone.
A teaser for a new TV-bound Battlefield 3 gameplay trailer has arrived, featuring Jay-Z's hit, '99 Problems."-
The Brokeback LAN party.
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you would have 99 problems but a bitch ain't one...on the battlefield?
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Why not? the smell of most of the players after a week of no showers glued to the game should keep most women away from them.
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That was good. This was tacky and bizarre.
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While the title of Mad World is appropriate for a game where you fight alien humanoid locusts that you can chainsaw in half the tone wasn't really fitting with the rest of the game. It may have fit with the trailer but you could say the same about the Jay-Z song thanks to the editing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coOHjF4_apI&t=0m15s
From 15s - 20s I really really like that song.
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The soldiers wife is at home struggling to keep the family afloat
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You guys are looking to deep into this. Also that Jay Z song is about dogs. Police K-9 units, not ladies. Jay-Z has been on TV saying it so I believe him because he is a scary drug dealer and I don't want to die.
The song is about someone who has many issues and there is one thing that does not appear on the list of issues of which he is concerned. A soldier probably has a similar list of things to be concerned about. The trailer shows these things are explosions, tanks, the desert, being shot and/or shooting people. Indeed a "bitch" was not shown as part of the available options for worrying.-
"If you're having girl problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems but a bitch ain't one".
The song does play with the meaning of "bitch", and meanings are always open for interpretation, but I think most people associate the use of the word with the chorus, which seems to insinuate womanly-troubles. I get the strong feeling that you aren't serious, but Poe's law is always relevant, so I figured I'd pipe up just in case. -
So speaketh Joseph Ducreax
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Yeah not sure that was the best choice. RAGE on the other hand has a better song for their launch trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xr5x3hXl-yA-
Without making any comment on the lyrical content, it's a nice contrast in how music choice and editing can make or break a trailer.
The Rage one is a less familiar song to most people, with less distracting vocals and they were able to use that to make the song more of a complement to what they're showing in the video.
The BF3 one is just a really weird choice. The song is too familiar, it doesn't match the footage they're showing at all, and I found it to be a distraction from the game footage.
Clearly it was very important for their marketing team to get that full lyric, and maybe this is what the CoD fanboys respond to, but it makes for a weak trailer. Getting that entire lyric forces them to start an action montage on an upbeat, and it doesn't mesh very well with the BF3 music at the end of the trailer.
I'm looking forward to both games, but I think it's weird how good all the BF3 stuff has been so far and now the TV spot that you'd assume is going to get the most mass-market eyeballs is cut together in a way that seems kind of amateurish. -
I don't care much for Rage but that trailer is fucking great.
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I love the music in this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hm1FOnSbHXA
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that's what happens when you use anything Maynard does
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Shitty marketing ideas make for a shitty trailer.
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arica harbor. tanks on rush, buggies on conquest, no helo...
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there absolutely are buggies on conquest. not jeeps, but buggies. theres a buggy at the uav station on the us side, and one under the bridge on the russian side. and that map IS arica harbor.
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that is, where the uav is in rush, the buggy is on conquest...
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I really don't remember any vehicles in conquest, not even a quad bike, but looking it up apparently one spawns minutes after the game starts but I never spawn back at the base! And I've played that map a dozen times and I have never seen anyone using it, ever.
Plus it still doesn't look like Arica at all. In the video the streets are narrower, there are way more buildings / densely packed with what looks like more side streets and such. Weird. Just looking at any Arica Harbor video on youtube and it reinforces that totally different: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iKaRasX3fE
Anyway, my point is they advertised it as a vehicular combat fun fest, but the actual game is focused way more on infantry. While the vehicles, helicopters especially, rarely appear on the most maps. But even if it is Arica, like you say that combo of vehicles still doesn't exist on that map in any game mode :( Still misleading!-
From http://battlefield.wikia.com/wiki/Arica_Harbor
"The Conquest variant of this map is very infantry-oriented, with only one Quad Bike spawning at each team's base after a few minutes from the game's start and a UAV-1 station spawning at control point Bravo once it is captured."
I seriously haven't seen one quad there and there are two! Either way it's not a buggy. You really had me doubting my memory.-
meh i call the quads buggies... sue me :)
but it is arica, you can especially tell in the last few seconds, you can see the two open-air structures to the left that are towards the bridge on the russian side...
the bugg... er quads were great in conquest though, especially the one on the us side... blow a hole in the wall on the corner, and you could skirt the map around to the far point along the beach and almost never be spotted thanks to the slope breaking LOS to everyone but the snipers at the highest point on sniper ridge... and they almost never saw you anyway because they were too busy holding their dicks and being useless...
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If anything, I still believe they should have ripped off Valve's Meet The ________, except used it to highlight the shit that BF brings to the table, that other games lack.
IE Meet the A-10 Warthog GAU-8 Avenger...with wings!
Hell, even the BFBC2 teasers / trailers with the squaddies were better than this useless piece of shit.
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There's 99 controversies, but a bitch aint one.
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I see what you did there. Well done.
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What's confusing? It's a cool song set to war porn. It's not really much different than Gears of War getting false pathos out of a song or Modern Warfare using the absurdly cliched at this point Gimme Shelter.
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What makes me sad is that Gimme Shelter is actually a really good song.
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I married, gonna be playing this game all day long and wifey gon' be making me sammiches ALL DAY LONG!
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I can see that they're trying to do the whole Gears of War thing (and trying to be unique as no one has done a rap one yet), I don't think rap is the appropriate type of music to create something like that though... Rap has always been the odd one out for a number of reasons, it's not really music video material.
That aside, I don't think rap is hitting their right playerbase either.-
iirc Modern Warfare 2 did rap already.
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Yep http://youtu.be/AzwBeDV5IAY
It's probably my favorite MW2 trailer.
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youve got 99 problems, but PC aint one.
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If you have the ability to put http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg0Tmydj29M in your trailer, putting anything else in should be considered criminal.
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I'm not a female and I thought the ad campaign was grossly out of taste. Why would DICE or EA risk sales with a low swing like this? Poor choice for sure.
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Out of all the songs they could have used. That's the one they went with? Really?
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I like this one posted in the comments
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP3Pq8Uhhmc&hd=1
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oh no! not the bitches!
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but a lady bug aint one...
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Lame... I don't know what they were trying to do with that...
The message I got from that was something along the lines of:
"Hey, come play BF3, there's no problematic bitches here"... -
Well that's a heck of a thing!
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How about letting the people who you feel might be offended say something rather than act as another typical mewling white US male by being "offended" by something you should have zero relation to? Males, sorry to break the news but we aren't responsible for every ill on the planet (though it seems we have no shortage of jellyfish who are more than willing to be the punching bag for the sins of our fathers).
Andrea Dworkin is dead. let the fat, deluded bitch rest.-
I agree. The white US male has been persecuted for far too long. Fuck women, fuck minorities, lets burn this mother fucker down.
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Holy shit this thread is balls deep retarded. 99 problems is about having real problems in the world, but having a girl be a bitch to you isn't one of them. If calling a chick who is being a bitch a bitch is misogynistic then I am certain almost everyone in the world is a fucking male supremacy advocate.
You can take it two ways at face value in the commercial:
1. It's a joke because there are no women in the game
2. It's a fucking war game and the last thing you're going to be worrying about is a bitch
Trying to use a popular song for mass appeal that is slightly funny?
*puts on hipster hat* NOT IN MY WAR GAME.-
This post is worse than the whole thread.
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I really tried hard.
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After the small uproar over this shitty trailer, EA has decided to replace it with this one instead:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbxcpLTDtkE
DON'T START FREAKING OUT GUYS!
To those who would take this at face value:
1. When he says "suck on my dick while I fuck that ass" he means it as a light metaphoracal jab at those who would oppose him on the Battlefield.
2. It's a war game and the last thing you are going to be worrying about sucking dicks or fucking asses.
I think it's a clever way to show off their game to the masses. -
Should have gone with "Represent" by Nas.
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Oh come on aren't we stretching a bit here? The video itself is terrible but there's no way anyone should think this is about women especially if you bother to read the lyrics of 99 Problems.
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I made this account just now because I wanted to say how dissapointed I was in Shacknews for posting this garbage, TMZ level news. Weekend Confirmed and Shacknews are my #1 sources for video game information and this kind of saddens me.
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I think reading into this as an overtly or purposeful sexist statement by DICE or EA is a huge mistake and involves a whole lot of projection.
"99 Problems" has been seen as a "cool song" for a long time so the marketing people decided to put it in the commercial because they want their game to be seen as cool, too. It stands out as a terrible choice, but it's terrible because the tone is so off, not because it's sexist.
