Last week, we brought word of an ill-conceived contest being held by Electronic Arts for attendees of the San Diego Comic-Con. Based on the "Act of Lust," entrants were to "commit acts of lust" with the game's booth babes. This basically amounted to taking a picture with them and sending it to EA, but there is no doubt plenty of room for misinterpretation.

As of Saturday, July 25th, EA has issued an apology via TwitPic, which curiously enough does not seem to be linked from their actual Twitter account. However, they seem to have had a number of such problems with images, so we'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. Curiously enough, though, they made sure to repost the link to their NECA Dante figure picture, but not to the apology. Go figure.

For posterity's sake, here is the text from the image:

We understand there's a lot of debate right now around our "Sin to Win" promotion at Comic-Con, and wanted to clarify a few things. We created this promotion as part of our marketing efforts around the circle of Lust (one of the nine sins/circles of Hell). Each month we will be focusing on a new circle of Hell. This month is Lust. Costumed reps are a tradition at Comic-Con. In the spirit of both the Circle of Lust and Comic-Con, we are encouraging attendees to Tweet photos of themselves with any of the costumed reps at Comic-Con here, find us on Facebook or via e-mail. "Commit acts of lust" is simply a tongue-in-cheek way to say take pictures with costumed reps. Also, a "Night of Lust" means only that the winner will receive a chaperoned VIP night on the town with the Dante's Inferno reps, all expenses paid, as well as other prizes.

We apologize for any confusion and offense that resulted from our choice of wording, and want to assure you that we take your concerns and sentiments seriously. We'll continue to follow your comments and please let us know if you have any other thoughts or concerns. Keep watching as the event unfolds and we hope you'll agree with us that it was all done in the spirit of the good-natured fun of Comic-Con.

I don't doubt their intentions were benevolent, nor do I believe they wished to hurt or offend anyone. However, with something like this, sometimes you just have to expect the worst and account for the lowest common denominator.

On the other hand, given that it seemed that no one had entered as of our last post on the subject, perhaps there was less to worry about from Comic-Con goers than one might have imagined. Score one for the human race, I guess.

[Image Source]