EA has been just asking for trouble with its decision to have its upcoming FPS, Medal Of Honor, take place during the current conflict in Afghanistan.
The decision was conveyed to the public months ago when the game was first announced and stirred a bit of controversy at the time. The media outrage has been renewed now with the discovery that the game’s multiplayer will have one side playing as Taliban.
“We’ve just come off of the worst month of casualties in the whole war, and this game is going to be released in October – so families who are burying their children are going to be seeing this, and playing this game,” Fox News anchor Karen Meredith said. “I just don’t see that a videogame based on a current war makes any sense at all, it’s disrespectful.”
EA issued an official statement standing behind their creative decision and explaining the reasoning behind it.
“Medal of Honor is set in today’s war putting players in the boots of today’s soldier… we give gamers the opportunity to play both sides. Most of us having (sic) been doing this since we were seven – if someone’s the cop, someone’s gotta be the robber, someone’s gotta be the pirate and someone’s gotta be the alien,” the official statement reads.
“In Medal of Honor multi-player, someone’s gotta be the Taliban.”
It’s not uncommon for mainstream media to lash out against games’ violence, but this time around several game reviewers have expressed their discontent with “watching virtual Coalition troops gunned down by insurgents in the ruins of Kabul.”
However, I do not feel the same way on this situation and see nothing wrong with this game as if this is disrespectful then all shooting games in someway are equally as disrespectful. Let us know your thoughts.
Apocacrux
People must lead terribly boring lives to make such a big deal out of this, why are they not saying anything about the fact that the news portrays images of the current war quite often. Playing it in a video game and experiencing it vicariously through video is of little distinction.
andrew
People are making a big deal because they have sons and daughters over there and they cant stand the thought of people having a good time killing american soldiers and the same people playing as the taliban. if yall want to be shooting at people and being in a battlefield then get off your lazy asses and join the army this is real this isn’t world war 2 or any fake war game producers create. Our troops that have familys are actually going through what yall are playing and unlike yall they dont get to respond when they die. EA has lost their minds, its like they dont have respect for our troops. And some of my family is in the army and im sure they dont want to come home to a video game like that. IN MY OPINION.
Apocacrux
So, Andrew, you would obviously be against them showing images and videos of bodies coming out of Iraq then, and if so have you complained about news stations gaining money off of the tragedy that faces our troops? Sure, it may not be the same as controlling troops in the likeness of real ones fighting right now, but it still boils down to a vicarious experience. America is a large proponent of war and this game is exemplary of that.
This is in no way hurting the families that have children or spouses over there, as they do not have to play this game or buy it for their children. I doubt people are buying it as a way to truly experience war, it is more to get a more intimate understanding of what the current is about.