Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

The boycott is beyond stupid. People have the rights to their own opinions and that does not make them bad people. I personally have no problem with same sex marriage, but to boycott something because of a issue like this is just stupid people trying to turn a small thing into a big cause. If gay people want to be treated better they have much bigger enemies, like the church.

What's next, can I not buy my milk at a certain store because the guy who puts it in the frig hates black people. Everyone has their opinions and prejudices and only time will generate tolerance….boycotting a game won't.

Well I bought this game yesterday not knowing these details. But again like most have said here already – it doesn't impact my purchase decision or feel that it sensationalizes Orson Scott Card's position. Just because he's against it, big whoop. I'm not but I don't care what he thinks; it's a damn good game!

And also, from the article Stephen quoted and linked… the comments section has turned delightfully juicy, as writer Peter David (who actually wrote Shadow Complex and is, by all accounts, gay-friendly in his work) shows up to defend the game. And the whole devolves into semantics really.

Maybe not if the milk-stocker is a racist, but if the store OWNER is a very public, very virulent racist, then, yes, absolutely I will no longer shop at that store.

That's what is going on here. It has nothing to do with the game, it's about Card. As an author, his works contain his ideology. This game is based on his works (even if he didn't write it, which he didn't), so he is positioned as the “top name” on the game. He has made himself a spokesman for the anti-gay movement, to the point where he has threatened to attack any government that creates a safe harbor for homosexuals.

Apparently, one of the key moments in his fictional world is the destruction of San Francisco. So yeah, you can see why this guy inspires a boycott. If you're going to Free Speech, you're going to get Free Speeched back.

As an atheist, it's pretty good odds that the games I buy are made by people who fundamentally disagree with me. It's also pretty good odds that some of the money I spend on gaming goes to people who later invest in Christian works. I'm not going to stop buying games made by Christians, but I will not buy products like Left Behind or VeggieTales that are specifically upfront about being part of a Christian cause. That's what Card has done to the homosexual community.

If the topic at hand was important enough to you, you would.

It is unfortunate that whenever a social issue arises in our little gamerspace, that the first reaction is to dismiss is out of hand as “stupid,” “irrational,” and “it doesn't matter.”

I probably wouldn't care, because I don't really have much of a bone against communism these days. Although America certainly went through a phase where being affiliated with communism, however tenuously, was considered very bad indeed.

Here's one for everybody who says that the creator's beliefs don't matter… suppose PETA makes an awesome game, and you have some inkling that part of the proceeds will fund one of PETA's crazy-ass fringe marketing tactics. Do you still buy the game?

Avoiding the question makes the decision seem easy, doesn't it? Look, if Sean Hannity decided to get into the video game world, I'd avoid his game like the plague. I don't like him and disagree with him fundamentally. Thus, it doesn't matter WHAT game he's produced – it's out of the question.

If you feel strongly about a cause, this makes perfect sense. Knowing what people know about Card, it's not a stretch that they'd have some difficulty supporting something with his hateful, backwards name on it.

I like PETA's marketing. I'm still eating meat, so it isn't working on me, but I give them kudos for getting people talking. I agree with them, on some level, but I'm just enough of a hypocrite to keep eating meat, anyway.

With something political/moral, however, you strike a chord with people. That's war. You can decide you don't support gay marriage, but I will NEVER support your decision, and will ALWAYS believe you're closed-minded and completely wrong. That immediately gets a rise out of people, because they can disagree so intensely. Frankly, I'd completely avoid something produced by or obviously connected to a person or group who pushes some kind of agenda that I find revolting. Out of principle.

And just because you disagree doesn't mean you get to decide people who DON'T buy Shadow Crisis or whatever the hell game I've never heard of is called are dumb and wrong. Just like I don't get to tell you you're wrong for deciding to buy it.

If, however, you're the kind of person who might buy it BECAUSE of its connection to anti-gay types, then I'll never truly be able to respect you as a person. We're just too different, and there clearly can't be common ground…

Those people are out there. If you just think the game looks cool and you don't care about all the fuss, buy away. If you're buying it to prove a point…well, I'd avoid it to prove the opposite point. Games as politics. We're both going to think the other side is dumb and wrong. It's a decision that weighs on your conscience, not on your status as a gamer.

There are people buying Michael Vick Eagles jerseys right now, just to prove a classless, embarrassing point, to identify with a disgusting culture that doesn't deserve to be defended by anyone. No one can be buying them to support him for all his great achievements as part of Philly's NFL franchise – he hasn't accomplished anything, yet! The item itself becomes a symbol for something I vehemently dislike on a basic, gut level. It's not a jersey…it's a way to wave it in my face that you want to support something I find sickening.

How can two sides see eye-to-eye, there?

I don't think they can.

It comes down to how much you care about the issue at hand. If you don't support gay marriage or don't know about the Card connection at all, the purchase of this game seems perfectly fine. If the opposite is true…how can you separate that knowledge and your personal convictions from the decision whether or not to own Shadow Wars 3: Rise of the Gay-Bashers, or whatever?

So your response is “deal with it,” unless your belief happens to be that you shouldn't buy something that supports someone with whom you strongly disagree? Because you don't seem to be dealing with it that some of us might be offended enough by that kind of thought process to avoid purchase of this game.

I wouldn't buy Hitler's book of poetry, either. Even if his poetry's about flowers and bunnies and not genocide, I still couldn't buy it.

I don't even want to buy games with which Tomonobu Itagaki is involved, because he just SEEMS like a total dick.

Not sure why those decisions wouldn't fall under the happy, snarky “welcome to life” umbrella.

Joe's PETA situation isn't the same as this one. Orson Scott Card didn't make the game. The game is loosely based on one of his novels. To fix Joe's hypothetical situation, it would really be like an impartial developer and writer create a game loosely based on an idea that someone at PETA had.

Wow, this whole thing about hating the game because of the ideas of the writer of the books it was based on is ridiculous. Ok, so Card doesn't support Gay marriage, big whoop. There are people out there that dont support everything. Find something out there and there is somebody that doesn't support it. What people are failing to realize is that Card, more than likely, isn't the only person involved in the Shadow Complex game that doesn't support Gay marriage. There are producers, designers, testers, artists, voice actors, directors and anybody else who has any involvement in the game that have their very own ideas about things. Each one of them is human and believes what they believe.

If you are soley not buying the game because of a person's personal belief in something then you have no right to buy any game ever made, because I guarantee you there are people who work on other games that dont support gay marriage or who do/do not support other things. People are people and they all have their beliefs, welcome to life.

So, are you saying that you would actually watch Battlefield Earth, or am I missing something here?

It's based on Card's fictional world, so I would not be too quick to dismiss his involvement. At some level, it all began with his work. And anyway, as I said before, it's more about Card period than about the game.

Remember, Card is extremely loud and volatile on this issue. ANY project connected to him is going to carry the weight of his name. Doesn't matter what he actually put into it. He could lend his name to a box of tissues and people would choose not to buy it.