Italian-American group protests Mafia II stereotypes

F^&* whoever tries to get Mafia 2 cancelled, I'm Italian and I don't care about this game being about Italians. Seriously people need to get over themselves. You do anything and someone gets butt hurt about it. I thought us Italians would welcome this game with open arms but I guess not.

"You can act like a man!" Sure there are mafias of other ethnicities but everybody wants to be Italian. In fact, maybe everyone is. My ancestors raped and pillaged all of Europe.

The stupidity of irrelevant interest groups never ceases to amaze me.

They're gonna make Mr. Zelnick an offer he can't refuse.

The lengths they'll go to try to pretend there's no such thing as the Mafia, boy I tell ya.

Uh okay....so let me ask you all at UNICO a quick question. I mean, I'm just curious and all but, hmm, where you guys at when the first Mafia came out?? ...just had to throw that out there.

why they are targeting this game?! This same game is inspired by mafia movies, why don't i ever hear this organisation to halt the release of the mafia movies and tv shows. they are worst than a child looking for attention

Why is it that this is just now coming up? Shouldn't things like this come up during E3 or after the games release? Because doing it just four days before release will not prove anything, doing this will just make them look like idiots.

Get over it. Guess what it's a fictional GAME! Why do people have to take themselves so seriously?

Lets face it, the only "problem" is that people this day in time will call anything "racist". It's not racism, it's that people are always too quick to judge. Oh, and by all means, only white people have capibillity to be racist (epic sarcasm). I wanted to throw that one out there.

Protest Jersey Shore and they'll have my full support.

does this mean the Mafia didn't have italians? Hey, in the demo they told a guy to stop drinking on the job, accused him of being Irish!, I'm Irish and I thought it was funny, and for the record, I don't drink!

The things is that the game isn't based on complete nonsense. It's based on actual events and groups of people so technically these people should be mad at their ancestors.

They'll get over it.

remember how you could beat up the pope in Assassin's Creed II? that was fun. less was brought up about that than this.

i love the godfather 1 and 2, i love goodfellas, i love the sopranos, i love the mafia missions in GTA IV. in short i love almost all things italian mafia related, but that does not mean i think all italians are in the mafia because i'm not an idiot. in this day and age la cosa nostra has taken on its own mythology and if people didn't appreciate it at least as a form of entertainment then the aboved mentioned and this game itself would not exist!!! i think unico is just trying to get its name in the headlines someway

What!? Do these people get bored and just look for any sillty reason to complain?

What about how they demean plumbers (Mario being Italian) or, squirrels (Conker being a drunk), and hedgehogs (Animal Abuse) in games? Man, these are such SERIOUS issues. How DARE they put entertainment in a game!!!!!!!!!!! Ohh, and let's not forget how much of a Mafia problem Italy STILL has today. No, we can't put that in a game!! Such an atrocity it all is.

WHAT THE HECK!!!! Unbelievable! These people will never ever stop. They're only doing this because it's a video game. Why haven't they gone after the Godfather movies, Goodfellas, or the dozens of other Italian Mafia movies?!? ...... What a joke.

yay let's all make wrongful accusations of a game that hasn't even been released yet!

I don't think a direction in Vice City should of been "kill all of the Haitians." "Defend yourself" sounds much better.

@wiiplay1 Now, I know this will come as a shock to you, but I'm actually not playing the race card. Contrary to popular belief, we don't all worship Jesse Jackson. I'm saying the same thing you are. People need to stop pretending to be victims and just suck it the hell up because nobody gives a damn about this sort of stuff. Everyone knows that Take-Two isn't trying to raise up the nation's youth to be Italian-hating wackjobs so why are we even having this conversation? In my other comment, I was just saying that this kind of thing has been going on for centuries, and everyone really just needs to stop whining because no one is impressed.

Hey UNICO, forget about it!

Good for Zelnick. I do find this comment from DiMino funny: "Take-Two is directly, blatantly and unfairly discriminating and demeaning one group to the exclusion of all others." So... the goal is to demean all groups equally? Hilarious.

@ Vari3ty so true it gets annoying

did they never heard of the Jersy Shore

its FAKE a GAME chill and have fun

WHAT A JOKE! people get offended to easily! relax and play some video games

Come on, the movies said it all. The Italian Mafia's basicly ran the underworld back then with large territory and plenty of musle/tommy guns to go around. These guy's should get over it like we all do, every country on earth has its own unique image in other ppl's minds. Maybe we should send em a letter from the don :P, an offer they cant refuse.....

Well well what a surprise, another organization taking offense to a game. My God, people nowdays are offended by every little thing said. Who says that kids are going to be "indoctrinated" by thinking that Italians are the Mafia? For the most part, that is what the stereotype has always been - and stereotypes usually exist because there is a bit of truth to them. Unico and any other organization, and society in general, needs to suck it up and deal with it. This is hardly what I would call extremely offensive material. Besides, isn't the average age of a video gamer around 35 years of age now? These aren't kids playing these games. These are adults, and old enough and mature enough to form their own opinions of what they will believe.

Did they file a complaint against godfather or Goodfellas???

Some people here need to understand that italians arent a race they are white people are from a place near the mediterean . wow stupido americano muto questo gioco possiede, this game is not offensive it's like german people complaining about nazi zombies when the real nazis were german.

@Raykuza Give me a break.

Yeah, but if those same mobsters were white, nobody would give a s***. Nobody would call the world's largest Caucasian-American foundation. I don't think it would "indoctrinate a new generation into directly associating Caucasians with violent, murderous organized crime." The point is that nobody cares. They're making a huge deal out of something that doesn't really matter. I played the demo, and it didn't really matter to me that they were Italian. I don't associate Italian-Americans with organized crime any more or less than I did a few years ago.

Take-two actually loves this type of stuff because it's free publicity. Now it might make the news outside of the gaming world and people who never heard of the franchise will be interested to see what all the fuss is about. And I have to agree with starwarsnut7591. I'm a 2nd generation Italian American and I'm really not insulted by Mafia either. If anything it just gives me another "Remember what happened to so-and-so in Mafia 2... ya keep pissing me off and that'll be you."

You know, it's about time for all Americans to grow a backbone and put up the bird. It may not be right but is it not everyone's right to decide that for themselves? You or I may not agree and I personally reserve my right to decide weather something is appropriate for me. I don't need some group to decide that for me. ,!,,

Are they just mad that they forgot to protest "Jersey Shore"? At least this game doesn't make Italians look like idiots. @Raykuza Amen

I'm Italian and Mafia 2 doesn't offend me in the slightest.

Is it that big of a deal? Italian mobsters were the most common back then so that's what they decided to work with. That would be like if I made a movie about the Yakuza and the Japanese got angry and said it was racist because I put Japanese in the Yakuza.

I suppose the hundreds of WW2 games should have never existed....we might offend Americans, Russians, Germans, Italians, Australians, British.....

I can't even describe how stupid this is...

I take it this DiMino dude either doesn't know or doesn't care that the Italian Mafia isn't a lone criminal organization in the game. You've got the Bombers (Black gang), the Irish Mob, I heard that there was a Chinese gang, and I think there was another one too. But, I'm sure he'll neglect that information and go on to ban the Sopranos and the Godfather from further being sold.

Dear Italian-Americans, Welcome to our world. Sincerely, African-Americans

@Led_poison lol I don't think anyone could have said it better than that

Italian Mafia movies and games are just cooler.

...Maybe it's just me... But 'Italian Americans' representing the 'Sicilian' people, Is like 'White' guys representing the 'NAACP'.... I know they can do it for themselves and they've shown so over the course of history. I say the real Sicilian people need to stand up and protest UNICO's right to defend for them.

Guess they should ban the Godfather movies then too eh?

They should be more worried about Jersey Shore