If you haven't heard already, Microsoft will soon be pulling any weapon items for its (stupid) Avatars off the Marketplace. If you already have one of the items, you can keep it but they won't be up for sale for much longer. The company hasn't come out and said why yet but Epic Games, the ones who reported that their Lancer and Hammerburst Avatar items would be pulled soon, stated that it was because of an upcoming anti-gun policy soon to be enacted.
I laughed pretty hard when I read this. Why does Microsoft need to pull these from the marketplace at all? Are they worried that with all their new family Xbox users out there who bought Kinects are going to be disgusted by a virtual gun on their Avatar? Considering Microsoft's penchant for Mature-rated first-party games, this seems just a little odd. Not to mention, it isn't like thousands of pre-teens don't already swear and shoot up others on Xbox Live every day.
I think Destructoid had a good point in their post on this when they compared the Avatars to Disney characters. If you didn't know, Disney is very strict with their core characters. When Kingdom Hearts came out, Donald and Goofy had to be given a shield and a staff since Disney wouldn't let them carry real weapons. A bit extreme, in my opinion, but an okay reaction. The same argument for Microsoft? Doesn't really play. Avatars don't really harbor any favor with most gamers and they certainly aren't above a virtual gun or sword.
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