Infinity Ward pulls MW2 Hamels video after Internet furor

Last night, Infinity Ward posted a short video on their YouTube account featuring an in-game version of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels (who will be facing the New York Yankees tonight in Game 3 of the World Series). In the vignette, Hamels advised Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 players that random grenades are “for pussies”; the “public service announcement” was provided by an organization called “Fight Against Grenade Spam.”

I somehow missed the “FAGS” acronym the first time around, but the Internet certainly didn’t. Numerous Web sites and Twitterers condemned the PSA and Infinity Ward’s perceived endorsement of an anti-gay message (something that’s especially troubling in the context of the foul-mouthed gamers who comprise much of the online user base for Call of Duty).

Infinity Ward has since taken down the video, and the studio’s Community Manager, Robert Bowling, posted a couple of responses on Twitter. In reply to , who called the PSA “stupid” and said that it “makes [him] reconsider [his] purchase [of Modern Warfare 2] more than any other controversy surrounding the💧 game thus far,&r✨dquo; :

I think it was more of a social commentary joke of that stereotype than it was🌊 a fist-bump of acceptance to it.

But after n🌳oted that the video “was so po▨orly handled/executed that it looks derogatory” and “seems to enforce the [assh*le]-ry,” :

I t𝓀hink the core gag is great, the end is a bit too far from the intenღt of the joke & can appreciate the concerns.

What do you all think? Do you buy Bowling’s claim of “social commentary”? Should Infinity Ward have seen the response coming, or is the Internet overreact🐻ing to a harmless joke? Is the studio perhaps merely appealing to the people whom it hopes will buy its game, and if so, is that an acceptabl✤e explanation?