When I was a little boy, I watched a television broadcast that would have quite an impact on me - the launch of Space Shuttle Challenger. For those too young to remember, this was quite the event, as they were sending the first teacher into space - Christa McAuliffe. As with many young boys, I found the notion of space travel fascinating. It was even more exciting that a woman who was a teacher was on board... and I'm in the UK. Imagine the thrill of nearly 20% of the population of the USA, who were watching. The Teacher In Space Project sent over 40,000 applications out and more than 11,000 were returned. I am sure the students at Concord High School in New Hampshire were proud, along with those from her former schools. So there we were, watching the launch on 28 January 1986. The shuttle takes off, heads up into the sky... and then.... How do you explain that to a young boy? How do you explain it to a school full of children, proudly watching their teacher on television? For me, it was the first time I'd actually watched something that resulted in death. Young though I was, I grasped that concept and was extremely distraught. What does this have to do with EA, you ask? A few of you may already know... On 21 January, EA released a mini event in The Simpsons: Tapped Out called Deep Space Homer. The event runs until 3 February, and has Homer build and launch a rocket. Perhaps a little in poor taste? Read on.... During the event, you will get this message: and this consequence, should the launch not be successful.... Is it in poor taste? Perhaps. Maybe EA's developers just didn't know the date of the anniversary... but it was somewhat careless of EA not to check the timing of such an event. Of course, it's possible that a young developer simply didn't know about the accident. However, they should remember this headline from 13 years ago: What they probably won't remember is this: 49 years ago today, Apollo 1 caught fire during a "plugs-out" test (a ground simulation without fuel or pyrotechnics), killing the crew. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0127.html It is a shame, when making an event that involves a 75% chance of your rocket bursting into flames, EA didn't think to check the dates of real-life disasters with the same fate. There have been two US space flights resulting in fatalities and one further fire during testing with the same result - all of which have anniversaries within a week of each other. Perhaps this wasn't the best time to have such an event, out of respect for the victims and their families? As EA sadly didn't think about the victims of these fatalities in the US efforts to send man into space, I thought I'd take a moment to remember them and their valiant contributions to the ever-continuing exploration of Space. RIP: Apollo I AS-204 Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Command Pilot Former USAF pilot during the Korean war Member of the "Mercury Seven" - the astronauts who participated in the first US manned space program, Project Mercury Piloted the Mercury-Redstone 4 flight and nearly drowned when the hatch came off after splashdown Participated in Project Gemini, the second US manned space program Invented the multi-axis translation thruster controller used to dock Gemini and Apollo spacecraft Was writing a book, Gemini!: A Personal Account of Man's Venture into Space, which was posthumously published. Has been portrayed in several films and television shows The USS Grisom in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Gill Grisom in CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Virgil Tracy in Thunderbirds and Grissom Academy in Mass Effect were named after him Deke Slayton (one of the Mercury Seven) stated he wanted a Mercury Seven astronaut to take "the step" out of Apollo 11 and would have chosen him, had he survived Edward H. White II, Senior Pilot Former USAF test pilot Participated in Project Gemini Piloted Gemini 4 Became the first American to walk in space ...and had to be ordered back into the spacecraft! Roger B. Chaffee, Pilot Former officer in the US Navy, where he became a test pilot Served as capsule communicator for Gemini 4, but didn't have a seat on a Gemini mission A shuttle called Chaffee appeared in an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which was named after him Space Shuttle Challenger OV-099 mission STS-51-L Francis R. Scobee, Commander Former USAF pilot during the Vietnam War Previously piloted Challenger's STS-41-C mission, deploying the LDEF satellite and repairing the SolarMax satellite Appeared in the IMAX documentary The Dream is Alive, shot on board Challenger during STS-41-C Michael J. Smith, Pilot Former US Navy pilot during the Vietnam War Worked on cruise missile guidance systems Was the last voice heard from Challenger Ellison Onizuka, Mission Specialist 1 Former USAF test pilot First Asian American (and first person of Japanese ancestry) to reach space In Star Trek: The Next Generation, the USS Enterprise carries a shuttle pod, The Onizuka, named after him Judith Resnik, Mission Specialist 2 Former design engineer at RCA working on radar circuits and systems engineer at Xerox Recruited into NASA by Nichelle Nichols, Lieutenant Uhura from Star Trek First American Jew and first Jewish woman to reach space Became the second American woman to reach space on Space Shuttle Discovery's maiden voyage Ronald McNair, Mission Specialist 3 Physicist known for work in the field of laser physics Collaborated with Jean Michel Jarre and was due to record a saxophone solo on Challenger for his album, Rendez-Vous, which would have been the first original piece of music recorded in space Has had two pieces of music dedicated to him - Last Rendez-Vous (Ron's Piece) by Jean Michel Jarre and A Drop of Water by Keiko Matsui Gregory Jarvis, Payload Specialist 1 Former USAF officer Worked on the SAM-D missile, FLSATCOM, MARISAT and LEASAT Christa McAuliffe, Payload Specialist 2 Former teacher, selected for the Teacher in Space project Was due to conduct science experiments and teach lessons from space The Canadian television show Space Cases had a spaceship named Christa after her A 2006 documentary, Christa McAuliffe: Reach for the Stars, commemorated her death and featured an original soundtrack by Carly Simon. She had taken a Carly Simon cassette on board Challenger Space Shuttle Columbia OV-102 mission STS-107 Rick D. Husband, Commander Former USAF pilot Worked on studies to return to the Moon and travel to Mars Piloted Space Shuttle Discovery's STS-96 mission, the first time a space shuttle docked with the International Space Station William C. McCool, Pilot Former US Navy pilot In a Star Trek book, Mirror Universe - Glass Empires, the USS Defiant's shuttlecraft is named McCool after him (and he served about the USS Enterprise in the navy!) David M. Brown, Mission Specialist 1 Former US Navy surgeon and pilot Appeared on television as an expert on g-force loading on the human body, resulting in the cancellation of the Firestone Firehawk 600 CART race Kalpana Chawla, Mission Specialist 2 First Indian woman and second Indian person to reach space Previously flew on Columbia's STS-87 mission The Star Trek book Star Trek: The Next Generation - Before Dishonor features a shuttlecraft named the Chawla after her The Deep Purple song Contact Lost was written in memory of the disaster, as she was a fan of the band Michael P. Anderson, Mission Specialist 3 Former USAF pilot Flew on Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-89 mission, carrying equipment and supplies to the International Space Station Laurel Clark, Mission Specialist 4 Former US Navy medical officer Had filmed a video minutes before Columbia broke up, showing the crew in good spirits Ilan Ramon, Payload Specialist Former Israeli Air Force pilot First Israeli astronaut for NASA Mother and Grandmother were survivors of Auschwitz and he took symbols of the Holocaust on board Columbia
Or worse: in a sick and twisted fashion, EA planned the event to generate controversy and gain extra attention from people looking to see how bad it is. EA has been soulless for a long time and as a corporate beast, it really doesn't use the same logic a person would when it comes to planning and marketing things.
Regardless of how tragic these past events are, these are from a lot of few years ago. Personally I think it's a bit far fetched to see this mini event from The Simpsons: Tapped Out as offensive. Lately it seems 'everyone' is taking offense of something and making it into a big deal. Everything can be made to look offensive. Heck if something like this is made big by the media, the media will ironically be the one that hurts the people with relatives lost, seeing they will be the one ripping the bandage off and asking them "how tasteless this Simpsons mini event is" and putting salt on their wounds. I'm willing to put my hand in the fire none of this is intentional, everything space is big right now (Interstellar, the Martian etc) so it makes sense for the Simpsons to tap into that.
I would hope it wasn't intended, just pure coincidence by people at EA who didn't realize when the anniversaries were. Apollo was before my time. From what I understand, electrical spec were changed during construction of the capsule which resulted in mismatched parts. Plus high O2 content of the capsule during the test along with arcing electricity sparked the fire. I was in elementary school when Challenger blew up. I didn't have live video and I never heard about it until I got home after 4 pm EST. I was shocked when I heard it on the news. I was playing Everquest when my Mother told me the shuttle Columbia blew up, I went to the TV very quickly. At the time there were still lots of question about what happened, we only knew that NASA lost contact with the shuttle, it was late for landing and there were already a few video of unusual smoke trail. Then more news started coming in of people finding pieces here and there around east part of Texas. As I understand, people were still finding pieces here and there from both shuttles years later.
I'm going to side with @wombat. I highly doubt this was intentional. While I'd be the first person to throw big-business VGs under the bus (Activision being my main target,) EA doesn't need to do this kind of stuff. They do a good enough business without shock value like this. They don't need to get people's attention or sell games this way. It was probably an honest mistake. Although any time is a good time to commemorate the tragic loss of human lives, especially those so happy and willing to undergo something so monumental.
I wasn't alive for the first two tragedies but I was for Columbia. I was little and all I remember was sitting on the living room floor in front of the TV and watching the news report after it happened. In Brevard County, Florida, there's a city across the Indian River from Kennedy Space Center called Titusville. In the south part of Titusville and stretching throughout the northern suburbs of the city below it is a long stretch of road called Grissom Parkway. It's named after Gus Grissom. May all of those astronauts rest in peace. EA should have known that these tragedies happened around this time of year and they should have waited. This is just terrible and EA should be ashamed of themselves even further. I'm not playing any EA games or purchasing any for a while because of this stunt.
I kind of remember Columbia. What I do remember was how shocked everyone was in the house after it had happened, though. No one spoke a word for a while, and it was very sad.
I knew none of this (RIP all those brave mission crew by the way), if I made a game, say that had, in any part of the game, a failed space shuttle launch and released it in the same day of the tragedy, would I be a bad person for doing so? To be quite honest I find the obsession in finding stuff in new (and sometimes even old!) media resembling a disaster to be offensive quite dumb. Kinda like Aero Fighters for the neo-geo and the destructible twin towers, it is a game from 1994, and yet some people find it to be offensive. Retroactive offensiveness! Now are all games with exploding space shuttles offensive too? How dare they update Kerbal Space Program with new features this week! The game that has you inside the twin towers for the Oculus Rift also had a lot of people complaining, but I didn't find it to be of bad taste at all, in fact it was quite interesting. Now that's an example that could generate a lot of interesting discussions and might have been done to be exploitative or not. Compared to that phone game I think it's nothing to be mad about. In fact, I bet it wasn't intentional (aren't cheapo cash grab phone games outsourced to dev houses outside of the US anyway?)
I do think that the developers or the management didn't have info of when these tragic events happened. This addition to the game could have been easily added 1 month later. Although most people who are playing this Simpsons game are very young and may have no knowledge of these events at all.
I agree that is a possibility and if this were a small/indie developer, I don't think that it would be an issue. However, this is EA who has a full time PR department. They are paid to know about these things.
I don't think EA deliberately did it at this time, although they should have checked. Certainly, people like to take offence to a lot of things nowadays that shouldn't necessarily be offensive. However, there is a difference between some generic things (even a plane crash... sadly it happens too often to be aware of an anniversary), but rare events like a shuttle disaster are somewhat different. The fact they all happened within a week is certainly sad coincidence... but enough to say that the week could be avoided as a mark of respect. Strangely, people would probably be more offended if it were a war event like Pearl Harbour. As for the astronauts, they did contribute to furthering knowledge of safety issues and the memorials in media that I mentioned were definitely the tip of the iceberg - many schools and streets were renamed in their honour. EA may have inadvertently inserted this mini event at an unfortunate time when it could have been done a bit further down the line, but we can at least remember these astronauts.
I'm not even offended by it. I'm just irritated that this week, EA made statements to the effect that they "weren't trying to be bad" and that they were going to try to improve their public image. They are off to a good start.
I vaguely remember the launch, was really young at the time. On topic, people need to stop taking offense over every little thing.
Anyone old remember to remember when LotR: Two Towers were scheduled to be released in theaters? The movie came out a little over a year after 9-11 terrorist attack and some idiots were running petitions to have the movie renamed so it wouldn't be connected to the Twin Towers. They had no idea the title were written more than 70 years before the twin towers fell. Heck, before the twin towers were built too.
