Article written by Peter Chapman.
Published on 01/10/2010 at 03:15 PM.
Just take a moment to get over the terrible pun in the headline. There, all better? I’m sorry, it’s a Friday afternoon and I haven’t had nearly enough coffee yet.
The gist of this story is, as you may have guessed, that EA have removed all mention of the Afghan extremist movement from the multiplayer element of their imminent first person shooter. Apparently the Taliban aren’t in Medal of Honor multiplayer at all. You’re now playing as the heroic Spec-Ops adventurers against a nefarious, over-zealous, extremist bunch of terrorists who go by the name of “Opposing Force”. Snappy.
As far as we’re aware they’re still allowed to be the enemy troops in the single player campaign. So it’s okay to shoot hundreds of them, just don’t pretend to be one.
Personally, I think it was all a storm in a teacup but obviously EA have felt enough of a backlash that they feel the need to polish out any mention of the Taliban. What next, WWII games fought against “The Naughties”?
I hate all the bullshit a lot of the papers come out with at the mmoment in regards to gaming, but I can see the point here. Fact is that there was no need in naming either side, it was clear enough without naming one side the Taliban. It wouldn’t bring anything to the game, so you can’t really compare it to No Russian. They must have known it would get removed, so it’s all just to get more press so people remember what MoH is since CoD took over the world.
Let this one go, people. It’s retarded.
its funny on the MOH website there called insurgents… why cant they call them that in the game?
as for a nail in the moh coffin… i seriously doubt that very much, after all the controversy with cod 6′s rather tacky air terminal massacre… i know whos side id pick and thats EA and MOH!!!
Sheesh, so after all the hoohah it’s come to this.
Movie/game….what’s the difference??
Daily Mail 1
Gaming 0
RANT TIME Have any of you slating this decision read the full statement by Greg Goodrich? http://kotaku.com/5653024/electronic-arts-buckles-under-pressure-removes-taliban-from-medal-of-honor If you take it at face value, in my opinion it seems to be an honest and heart felt decision by EA to take on board some criticism from those who probably have the biggest voice when it comes to something like this, the family and friends of killed servicemen and women. I may be just nieve (SP?) but I want to believe that is the main reason behind dropping the taliban from the multiplayer. You have to remember that gaming is different from other mainstream media like movies and print in that it is interactive and we as gamers get more attached to the content that we are viewing and playing and have to remember that we are different from the others and have to be more grown up. So please take some time to actually read the full statement and think again about your opinion on the decision. RANT OVER.
I’ve read the article and thank you for the link grey :)
I agree that gaming is different from other media due to the interactivity but does it really lead us to form a stronger attachment with the content? Really?
I can’t think of a single game that has come even remotely close to affecting me in the way that films like Requiem For A Dream, Moon or, more relevantly, Kokoda have and I would challenge anyone to undertake a similar excercise. (I’ll laugh at any Heavy Rain suggestions though.)
And is censorship really a “grown up” approach, I for one would beg to differ and consider it quite the opposite. It’s this kind of logic that led to Trafalgar celebrations being fought between reds and blues as opposed to British and Spanish navies. To my mind this is completely counterproductive and serves to further trivialise conflict.
Are the most powerful affecting war films those that are set within real world conflicts or those that are set in madeupistan? Would Peacemaker have been such a good game and eye opening experience if it had been set in a fictional land and featured a struggle between two fictional peoples?
the whole point of the entertainment media, be it film, books, music, games or even art – is that it reflects the times in which we live and actually serves to document events and attitudes to those events around the world. Future historians and media studies students will just be writing essays about how the games industry lacked the integrity and honesty of its older more well established companions.
MOH is an FPS video game, in which the player shoots at collections of pixels, polygons and texture maps representative of people. Now lets get this in perspective, they’re pixels not people, they’re not real and ayone who thinks they are, probably shouldnt be playing a game of this nature in the first place.
If we’re gonna start getting upset about “sides” and whether it’s ok to kill people in games, I vote we start with chess and ban the black “team” – Their inclusion is quite obviously a racist affront, implying that all blacks are warmongers. It’s the same crackpot logic.
I’m a commited pacifist and have marched and protested against going to war, yet I’ll still play violent video games because, well, they’re games, they’re exciting, fantastical and no-one gets hurt.
Something else that I find strange about this whole thing is the fact that this decision in no way lessens the number of “our boys” polygonal representatives who will be killed during the game, just who by.
As I said earlier this logic leads us to abstract shapes fighting each other as the only inoffensive option.
This won’t make any difference to my enjoyment (assuming I enjoy it, occasionally I buy a game which turns out to be … not to my tastes, thus not enjoyable at all) of the game or thought process contemplating the purchase of it.
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all them the balitan.
Wait, so the Afghan government has gone out of their way to get an American company to take out the name of an illegal terrorist organisation from their game? I understand Taliban representatives met with the Afghan government recently. I’m sorta out of wack when it comes to international relations recently, but… how can I put this… dat’s £&*%ed…
I’m not buying this anymore…I wanted to play as Taliban