According to Variety, the non-profit, anti-smoking organization Truth Initiative reached out to ELeague’s President, Rod Ferguson; ELeague is the organization that owns all eSports broadcasting rights for Gears 5.
Truth Initiative asked that The Coalition remove all depictions of smoking in Gears 5. The request was formed based on statistics that show viewers and players tend to be younger than the game’s M-rating would suggest they might be, along with causal links that see increases in smoking tied to depictions of it in pop culture — including TV shows and video games.
Ferguson agreed to the request and provided a rather personal reason for his decision:
That firsthand experience was his father’s death at age 38, when Rod Ferguson was only 4. Apparently, because of these experiences, Ferguson has tried limiting depictions of tobacco use in all Gears games.
It’s always been important for me to not use smoking as a narrative device, which is why we made the conscious choice to avoid highlighting or glorifying smoking in ‘Gears 5’ and throughout the Gears of War Universe moving forward
Of course, there’s no way to verify these remarks one way or the other.
The move does open up another topic of discussion, though. Truth Initiative claims there are definite links between images showing certain actions and people’s behavior, though that contradicts claims stating depictions of violence — and Gears 5 comes with an M rating for gore and violence — have no impact on others.
While it would seem there’s some casual picking and choosing when it comes to causality here, that’s another topic for another time.
