Controversy Arises Over Taliban Option In Medal of Honor

eldavojohn writes "CVG is covering the controversy surrounding players' ability to play as a member of the Taliban in EA's Medal of Honor multiplayer. Fox News hopped on the wagon, interviewing a Gold Star mom whose son died in Iraq. She said, 'My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I had to deal with that every day. There's 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day. And we live it — it's not a game... EA is very cavalier about it: "Well, it's just a game." But it isn't a game to the people who are suffering from the loss of the children and loved ones.' EA's response to this criticism of giving players the objective to 'gun down American troops' was this: '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 have been doing this since we were seven. If someone's the cop, someone's got to be the robber, someone's got to be the pirate, somebody's got to be the alien. In Medal Of Honor multiplayer, someone has to be the Taliban.' Of course the story recalls Six Days in Fallujah, which was dropped by Konami following similar controversy. It's clear at least a few people take issue with games surrounding modern conflicts."

Comments

Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[drinkypoo]

She said, 'My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I had to deal with that every day. There's 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day. And we live it -- it's not a game..

That's funny, I hear that's what the people on the other side said too, except possibly in another language.

Last I heard, American soldiers were supposed to be fighting to preserve a way of life, a way which includes freedom of expression.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[xMilkmanDanx]

There isn't a mod -1 insensitive option.

And he does have a point, just because we don't hear the other side doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Anytime you're dealing with a 'modern' conflict (as in the events are still fresh) you're going to be stepping on people's losses.

I do question the wisdom in choosing a real and current conflict as a game setting. An even slightly fictionalized setting, would do much to reduce this negative association.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[wjousts]

Sorry, does the idea that people on the other side have families that grief the loss of their loved ones make you uncomfortable?

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[toriver]

Remember: It's not art unless someone is offended. If it offends no-one it is merely entertainment.

Or we could restrict game topics to pre-1900 conflicts in case there are some long-lived victims around.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Anonymous Coward]

"These days", huh? Well, if you could go back to whatever previous "days" you imagine as the time when freedom of expression wasn't a myth, you'd find that it too was chock full of people like you smugly declaring that "freedom of expression is pretty much a myth these days". They were as wrong then as you are now.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Bryansix]

Only this has Everything to do with freedom. Censorship comes in many forms including self censorship and censorship by ridicule.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Monkeedude1212]

No, but you can't torture people in Gitmo either so in the end you just have to accept that you can't do everything both sides do.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[MightyMartian]

More to the point, should we ban games where you can play, say, a Mafia enforcer or a member of a Asian Triad? I mean, cops have died battling organized crime.

In the end, while I can understand families of slain soldiers being opposite, so far as I'm concerned liberty trumps they're objections absolutely.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[flitty]

Reminds me from this post from Penny Arcade, when Gabe interviewed his grandfather about WWII Games

Q. What do you think about gamers playing video games based on World War II?

A. I haven't really paid enough attention to the games themselves to be able to tell you truthfully, but I would think, if it's just people shooting one another, I don't think it's a proper thing for young people to do. I think it sets a bad example for them, because they get into the mood of doing that, and that begins their lifestyle. And that's not the lifestyle you want.

Q. When groups of gamers are playing these games together it is common for some of them to play as the enemy. They might play as Germans defending the beach at Normandy for example. What's your opinion of that?

A. Well, it ties back in to what I already said. I don't think it's an appropriate game. I think they can make games that will interest kids, that don't have to include war. We don't need to be killing each other in games. There's other ways of strategizing and using the kind of skills that make those games popular.

Full thing here

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[bistromath007]

It has everything to do with it. Freedom is sometimes in poor taste.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[AffidavitDonda]

not exactly. only certain symbols (the swastika, the ss runes) are illegal. game companies simply replace or remove them.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[idontgno]

Censorship comes in many forms including self censorship

Basically true.

and censorship by ridicule.

Now you lost it. Ridicule isn't censorship. If's freedom from censorship. If I ridicule you, I hope you keep talking, so I can keep ridiculing.

If ridicule censors you, that's you self-censoring for invalid reasons. Freedom requires courage sometimes. At some level, you can't blame someone else for your own lack of courage. (Yes, at the extreme, that means courage unto death. It's been done, and someday in the future it may need doing again.) But courage in the face of asshattery isn't so extreme, and the lack of it is properly risible.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[PitaBred]

So... they're offending their target market, going to fail in the marketplace because nobody will buy the game, and collapse as a company? Great! Free market at work!

Or it offends a few busybodies who make a bunch of noise, and... life goes on.

If you don't like what they do, don't buy the damn game. It's not that hard. Just refuse to open your wallet when they hold you at gunpoint. Life's too short to get offended. You don't have a right to not be offended. You have a right to free speech and association.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Bemopolis]

Which is funny, since Gitmo was the result of assuming that we COULD do everything both sides do.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[ShakaUVM]

>>I do question the wisdom in choosing a real and current conflict as a game setting.

So it's okay to play as a Japanese guy dive bombing Pearl Harbor, but not a VC slashing the throat of an American sentry?

There's been so much media and gaming surrounding WWII, I'm astonished that people realize at all that the people in it were just as real (many of whom are still alive today) and died just as painfully. My American grandparents greatly disdained all the WWII video games for that reason (my paternal grandfather was pretty technologically adept). My German relatives, one of who had his jaw blown off in the Battle of the Bulge, probably have similar sentiments, though I've never gathered the courage to ask him.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[NiceGeek]

"with his takeover of the health care system" I'm sorry, when exactly did that happen?

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[TheRaven64]

It's also a really stupid law. I went on a German exchange at school. All of the children I met had played Wolfenstein 3D, but because it was not allowed to be sold in Germany they'd all pirated it. It didn't stop anyone playing the game, it just stopped Id Software getting any money.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[KahabutDieDrake]

I think you don't have the foggiest idea of the facts of the case. The so called ground zero mosque is more complicated and yet simpler than you imagine. High five for buying into the media blitz. Now lets have some facts to fuck up your opinions.

The planned community center is NOT on ground zero. It's blocks away. Roughly equidistant from 2 other mosques already in place in the area. The "symbol" isn't a symbol. It's a freaking YMCA with slightly different religious overtones. The only appreciable difference is, right now, this country likes Christians and doesn't like Muslims. Racism, religionism, whatever you want to call it. This whole thing is about HATE mongering. The people behind this community center are the kind of people we need in this country. Smart, rational, empathetic, open minded and willing to compromise. The kind of people AGAINST this center are the kind of people we SHOULD be putting up against walls. They are extremists, and zealots. Both of which, no matter the creed, should be removed from society as they are of no benefit, and we KNOW THAT as a society.

If providing a community center in NY, where exists dozens of similar centers from dozens of creeds is counter productive.... well I don't even know where to begin. Are you AWARE of your bias? Do you just not care? NY was once known as the melting pot. It was the place where dozens of religions, creeds and races mixed and more or less got along. If that is now not true anymore because of "ground zero".... well, I guess we can declare a winner can't we?

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[MakinBacon]

You don't seem to understand that there is NO LEGAL PRECEDENCE for denying a religious group the right to build a place of worship solely because you don't like them. The Constitution's 1st amendment was created with exactly this sort of situation in mind. If we do not allow them to build their mosque/community center, we are denying them one of the most fundamental rights of American law.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[gknoy]

Both sides do not stone teenage girls to death...

So how you get from "torturing people in Gitmo" .... And to put torturing a terrorist for information that will protect an innocent life on par in the ethical scale with burying people alive because "God" told you to? That's just wrong.

Torture does not yield reliable information. It yields statements which the victim thinks you want to hear, even if they're entirely false. Torturing people is always bad, it is never ethically sound.

Okay, back to the real topic: playing virtual terrorists or Really Bad People in a multiplayer video game. People are not playing these games to stone virtual children or mass-murder civilians. Yes, as far back as Counter-Strike there's been sides that are planting bombs, or kidnapping hostages -- but the "crimes" of Team A are merely a plot hook, a vector for the competetive gameplay that the players want.

Hostages are "easily killable assets which require extraction". Bombs are, well, bombs, but the target could be a weapons cache, a school, or a harbor, and gamers wouldn't really notice or care. They care much more that it's a bomb placed behind that building, or through this choke point, than what the fictional target is. The goal of the game, when playing as the OpFor, is to achieve tactical success.

Frankly, I feel that America's Army did it best, as someone noted above: each side sees themselves as being on the "good guys" team, with objectives explained appropriately. However, we've been playing Counter-Strike, Global Operations, Call of Duty, and Enemy Territory for over a decade, and this is not very different. The only difference is that the Bad Guys are a group we are currently fighting against. Pretty much any gamer won't care - the reasons to choose Team A vs Team B are either aesthetic ("I don't want a mask") or logistical ("Team B has better guns"). Most servers will even auto-assign a team to preserve team balance. Very rarely does any ideological ("I want to be a bad guy") viewpoint have any bearing on team choice, because both sides swap roles (attacker vs defender) after rounds in most such games.

The name, nationality, or character models used for Team A and Team B are completely orthogonal to the gameplay in just about any game. Counter-Strike is the only exception I can think of, where each team has a different stable of guns to choose from. Many players preferred to play with the M4+silencer, whereas many other players were die-hard fans of the AK-47, even going so far as to use captured guns when they were forced to be on the team that could not buy them. In nearly every newer game I can think of (OK, not Battlefield 2) all characters can choose from the same guns, so the teams are effectively Team A and Team B.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[fishbowl]

>In one word, yes. It's all a matter of sensibility.

As soon as you define "matter of sensibility" in a way that has universal acceptance *or* can stand as a basis for a legal decision in court, it will be meaningful.

Like pornography, just because "you know it when you see it", that doesn't make it a reasonable universal standard that can be applied to any given scenario.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Monkeedude1212]

I have some perspective. Plenty of it. Would you like some?

No, we don't stone teenage girls to death, we put them down for how they are fat or ugly to the point where their self esteem gets so low that they commit suicide.

We don't bury homosexuals, we just kill them

We don't beat people for listening to certain kinds of music. Even if some are criminals, we just assume All their fans are gang members.

And of course the Americans have shown their importance of preserving monuments such as all the ones in Hiroshima.

I mean you can't just say "But they are bad" and act like everything our society does is all high and mighty. Perhaps if you asked them why they are fighting you'd understand a bit more. Not all of them are shooting American troops because their God said so. Some of them dislike the embedded materialistic society we've created and want to stop the greed from spreading out of America. Most of them see this as an invasion, and they are fighting back.

Torturing people to find out information to protect the soldiers you put there in the first place sure does seem to balance out nicely. Tell me, how does being in the middle east stop people from taking over American Jets? Couldn't those soldiers be manning the airports over here? Maybe then I wouldn't need a full body scanner to take a picture of my junk, instead I'd get someone who is a professional with weapons and demolitions to identify if I'm armed or not.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[jd]

The US has a health care system? When did that happen?

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[ooshna]

The producers of South Park made their own choices.

Umm apparently you don't know that Matt Stone and Trey Parker (Creators, Executive Producers, Head Writers, and for Trey Parker Director) released the episode uncensored online before Comedy Central forced its takedown and censorship.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Surt]

The thinker is *naked*! For all we know he's thinking about how best to mix kiddy porn and clubbing baby seals.

Think of the children, and baby seals...

Oh come on, that can't be true. The best way to mix kiddy porn and clubbing baby seals is so straightforward that to hypothesize him 'thinking' about that is just ridiculous.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Jerf]

No, we don't stone teenage girls to death, ... don't bury homosexuals, we just kill them, ... don't beat people for listening to certain kinds of music.

No, in fact we do not do any of those things. We in fact condemn those things and tend to prosecute and imprison the individuals who do those things. Just about the only way we could show our disagreement more strongly is to execute the individuals, but better than even odds says you'd consider that barbaric to, which leaves we with not much more we can do to show our displeasure.

When the Taliban stone girls to death or actually, factually publicly execute gay people by burying them alive, they do so as the ruling government in question. If there is a "we" there, if there is in fact a broad public consent that this sort of stuff is OK, that's what it looks like.

I utterly reject any suggestion that there is moral equivalence between the US and the Taliban, and say it says more about the person doing the equating's inability or refusal to see evil than about the US. The US isn't perfect, what a shocker, but the idea that we would publicly execute someone, or deeply weave honor killings into our culture, or engage in widespread female genital mutilation, is just absurd.

(Besides, if we are morally equal no matter what we do than there's no great argument to get any better. You hate X for bruising someone, you hate X exactly equally for going on a mass murder rampage, you've not given X any particular reason to care what you think. Moral equivocation as a technique for trying to get the US to behave better is profoundly, deeply flawed, because it is based on entirely sacrificing the very idea that there is a "better" to be.)

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[rolfwind]

Just so you know, if torture doesn't yield reliable information, you're doing it wrong.

Of course you're doing it wrong, you're torturing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html

For six decades, they held their silence.

The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Elektroschock]

When you are a solidier it is part of your normal duties that you could get killed in action. There is no moral argument in complaining about getting shot when you occupy a foreign nation and your nation attempts to impose your societal model on their nation. Many Afghans don't agree with Taliban opinions but many Taliban are Afghan while the occupying forces are not. I am not arguing that the invasion of Afghanistan is "wrong" because I don't moralize the military interests of the United States.

Furthermore, soldiers are supposed to obey and do their duty, not to "fight to preserve a way of life, a way which includes freedom of expression" or pursue other personal political agendas. That is propaganda for the uninitiated. A military is rooted in the traditions when soldiers were like prisoners and 30% of them got killed in a single battle.

Unlike warfare the current occupation of Afghanistan implies insignificant losses of coalition soldiers. That does not require all the mourning and respect for those killed in action, heroism tales and phrases like in a real war. Likely more Americans die in the making of the hollywood war movies about their heroes than in battle: car accidents, drugs, gun crime - you name it.

Americans follow a strategy of their chess master Bobby Fischer and sacrifice the pawns of their opponents, even use machines to kill. I think war without risk leads to moral decay, it is not a fair fight. It is very useful that soldiers die because it reminds the nation that engaging in war should not be taken too easy and their leaders bear a responsibility for its military planning.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[alexo]

I can walk into a medical center and get the best healthcare available in the world for me or my family. I'm unclear what your point is. That I have to pay for it?

You can also get the best justice available in the world, with the same caveat.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[fishexe]

Mod parent down. I know this family, and it is highly insensitive of you to put it this way.

Because innocent Afghans who've lost family members to US bombing are totally different from Americans who've lost loved ones to Taliban attacks, and it's highly insensitive to make it sound like they have something in common, right?

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Joce640k]

I wonder how many enemy's sons her son killed...oh, wait, they don't count.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[bloodhawk]

last I checked there were more than 1200 afghan families in a similar situation just this year and they weren't even soldiers. So how exactly is it highly insensitive to point out her hypocrisy. If she wants to protest against modern conflict games that's fine, but to protest just against american deaths is purely hypocritical.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[TubeSteak]

Sorry, does the idea that people on the other side have families that grief the loss of their loved ones make you uncomfortable?

The propagandists try very hard to make sure we aren't uncomfortable about whatever happens to "the other guy."
Why else would anyone describe the events which transpired in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba & Abu Ghraib, Iraq as "fraternity hazing."

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[drinkypoo]

No, we don't stone teenage girls to death, ... don't bury homosexuals, we just kill them, ... don't beat people for listening to certain kinds of music.

No, in fact we do not do any of those things. We in fact condemn those things and tend to prosecute and imprison the individuals who do those things. Just about the only way we could show our disagreement more strongly is to execute the individuals, but better than even odds says you'd consider that barbaric to, which leaves we with not much more we can do to show our displeasure.

The Western lifestyle, which includes being able to drive one's fat ass down to Wal-Mart to buy some plastic shit for next to nothing, is predicated upon slavery, murder, and torture. We simply have abstracted this stuff away from our lives by exporting it to China. You and I and everyone you know is partially responsible for these acts. We know that the people making the crap at the dollar store are likely to be doing it inside a prison camp where they've been imprisoned for their political or religious views, but we still shop there (as a people.) You might like to think that if you saw someone being enslaved before you that you would act; would you then go forth and stop people from selling goods made by slaves? Our government indeed has been one of the largest funding sources for the Taliban, but we still pay our taxes. We are partially complicit, you and I, in the successes of the Taliban. I like to pretend I have the moral high ground sometimes too, but I think reality is substantially different than what you're telling yourself.

Re:Hypocrisy Isn't Free

[Tom]

In fact, once we have RFID bullets, I'm thinking about setting up an Internet site that brings mothers of soldiers in contact with the mothers of the enemy soldiers their sons have killed.

It'll be interesting to see how long wars can last after that. War mostly works only because it is anonymous. And we've known that for a long time, it's one of the strongly emotional topics in "Im Westen nichts Neues" ("All Quiet on the Western Front"). We just don't yet have the technology to break through it.

Humans have always enacted war

[Max Romantschuk]

Movies, books, children's (non-computer playing-in-the-yard) games even. We don't like (and thus the kids don't have) toy weapons in our family, and guess what? The pine cones are BOMBS! now...

Games are no different. Tasteful? No. But war never is.

Re:Humans have always enacted war

[Soilworker]

Dear Mom,

You're currently destroying all the effort your son made fighting a threat to your freedom.

Thanks,
The talibans.

If her son was alive today....

[russotto]

...he'd be playing war games (not necessarily on a computer) where he played the side of the Taliban.

Re:If her son was alive today....

[Dahamma]

...he'd be playing war games (not necessarily on a computer) where he played the side of the Taliban.

(citation needed)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/25/AR2009102502633.html

uhh

[buddyglass]

Was there any outcry when Battlefield Viet Nam came out? Because you can totally frag G.I.s in that game, and there are plenty of Viet Nam vets still around.

Too Soon, I Suppose

[BigSes]

I don't see it much differently than being the Germans, Russians, Japanese, or any other opponent of the US in a conflict. I appreciate the realism of a theatre of war when depicted in entertainment, I guess its too soon for those involved to handle.

Re:Too Soon, I Suppose

[shutdown -p now]

There is a game called Red Orchestra: Ostfront 1941-45. As the name implies, it's a (multiplayer) FPS set on WW2 Eastern Front, with Germans and Soviets being two opposing factions. Naturally, it lets you play for either one. It is also fairly realistic, not just in gameplay, but in depictions of various things - i.e. all swastikas and such are in place where they should be, and so on.

Now, forget Afghanistan, heck, forget even Vietnam - Soviet Union lost 10 million soldiers in WW2. 10 fucking million!

Which does not preclude Russian gamers today - including those having WW2 vets in the family - from playing this game in general, or playing it specifically for the Germans. If anything, the game is actually strongly appreciated for being one of the few Western games that deal with the subject of Eastern Front (which bore the brunt of the war) at all - most Western movies and games about WW2 focus on Allied, and, more specifically, American involvement, to the point that it seems sometimes that war in Europe started with the landings in Normandy...

Counter Strike

[Mantrid42]

You've been able to play as a Terrorist in Counter Strike since day one. It came out ten god damn years ago.

Re:Counter Strike

[Narksos]

When I used to play America's Army, which was created by the US Army as a recruiting tool, they had all of the multi-player game types written from both sides. I dug up an IGN article describing how this worked:

The terrorists are holding a UN envoy hostage and you, as the Army team, must infiltrate the area and confront and defeat the terrorists. But the other team doesn't think they're terrorists. Instead, they get an Army briefing indicating that they've been asked to defend the envoy from possible abduction by an infiltrating terrorist force.

That way everyone could play for the "good guys". Everyone could fight for the cause they thought was right, which is usually how war works anyway. There wasn't any controversy about you shooting at people who thought they were playing as "America", because while you played they looked like "terrorists".

The system was clever, and probably appropriate for this application (I don't think the US Army wants to encourage people to shoot at them), but as we have games based around modern conflicts, people have to play both sides. It is "just a game". Cops and robbers would be pretty boring with no robbers. Should we not watch heist movies because it encourages people to steal money? Modern Warfare 2's No Russian mission (in which the player is undercover as a terrorist and has the option to massacre civilians with no penalty) created controversy in the US, but the overriding opinion was that it right to include it in the game. How is this any different?

Oh right, this time we're shooting Americans.

HTFU

[Smoke2Joints]

I dont want to hate on Americans, but seriously, you have no problems with a game where Russians are the enemy, despite the fact that Russian gamers might be interested in the latest new FPS. The same could be said about any number of WW2 games, where Germany is the enemy. I know that it was based on a different era, political climate etc, but get over it - there are two sides of the story, as EA says, and you need to accept that. Dont like it? Dont play the game. Or dont play that part of the game. And in the process, stick to your beliefs that America is always right and only evil people have opinions contrary to yours.

Newsflash: life isnt fair, neither is war.

Re:HTFU

[wjousts]

Yeah, but those Russian gamers will probably pirate it anyway ; )

Re:HTFU

[Kitkoan]

Its not just limited to war games. The GTA series lets you kill cops and that really does happen in RL. As mentioned in another post, you could be a terrorist in Counter Strike. There are 2 sides to everything and some people just don't want you to see any side but theirs. Its how the US has slowly becoming a Nanny state because someone didn't like something they saw/heard/ect and felt that if they didn't like it, no one should see/hear/ect it.

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

My son didn't get to start over when he was killed. His life was over and I had to deal with that every day. There's 1200 families from Afghanistan that have to live with this every day

I feel your pain. Given our nation's involuntary draft, the servicemen who have died in the war thus far did so against their will. They did not know what they were fighting for, and what they were ready to give up to secure our freedoms.

Oh, wait. They did. They bleed crimson red so we can maintain our way of life. They chose to join the service.

You do a disservice to the fallen soldiers memories by acting like the very corrupt, anti-American terrorists. How dare you?

They died for us. It's our job to keep on living and enjoy life. You've better things to do than to wallow about some videogame.

These people are idiots

[HBI]

I did a deployment to Iraq in 07-08. My sister was killed in the line of duty (Army). My parents have a triangular box with flag to 'commemorate' that. These games are fine. The woman complaining is an ass. Unless they started naming people and having you kill real people, the issue is moot. We all know there are enemies out there and they shoot to kill. Simulating it isn't a problem.

Re:These people are idiots

[Ironhandx]

This is the reaction I get from everyone I've talked to that does a stint overseas. There was one that I know that might have a few issues, but even then he wouldn't complain about them or stop anyone from playing a game(except maybe directly around him) and just avoid the stuff himself.

I have a number of family members in the military and multiple family members that have done a stint in Afghanistan, the only consistent response I get from them and others I know through them is "We don't know why the fuck we're there. The majority of the people don't want us there and it would be easier to evacuate those civilians that want to leave than change the mind set of the majority."

The sad part is several media outlets have attempted to report on this and have quickly been bombarded by public(read:political) outcry against it, and its quickly squashed. Interviews with soldiers that actually make it to being widespread throughout are generally of the sort where it is very easy to pick up that the soldier is basically reading from a script except for maybe a few heart wrenching moments where they recall actual experiences. Almost nothing I've seen in the media coincides with what I've heard from the people on the ground.

Re:These people are idiots

[HBI]

Hearing what people say on the ground doesn't sell newspapers/ad views. The truth is that anything the government does at a macro level is disorganized and spotty on the ground. In some places, the US presence did good and we got stuff done. In some places, it was not well received. The variable was generally the people involved. Quality officers/government employees got good results, the mediocre and uninterested got nothing done or made enemies for us.

My experience was that Iraqis wanted life to be peaceful, orderly and to have control of their own destiny. We might not like their choices, but they are theirs to make.

Soldiers never really understand 'what they are supposed to be doing' or 'why they are there' on anything but a slogan level (Fight Communism! Fight Terrorism! End Fascism!). I go all over the world and hear the same thing from soldiers everywhere. Their officers know better, but it seems to me that the officers often give a very serious briefing to their people (once) and assume that the mission brief means the same thing to the common soldier that it does to them. They are immersed in planning for said mission. It's their life. It's just some droning speech to the soldiers. If you read back to WWII or even before that, this is a common feature of military life, then and now.

Afghanistan is a losing game and we all know it. Just waiting for the clock to tick now towards the ultimate withdrawal.

(obligatory) Nobody is forcing you to buy the game

[Hadlock]

....Even if someone somehow forced you to buy the game, most servers have the option to let you choose your team. Don't like the Taliban, but don't have the time to be a real soldier? Join the American team! Kick some Taliban ass! We're now 10 years deep into the latest conflict. When can people start talking about this conflict as a reflection of our culture? It has to happen sometime.

What the fuck ever

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuppies are die hard hypocrite pussies. Wake me up when a game contains the following plot:

1. A foreign invader bombs your village and drops leaflets about liberation
2. You lose one cousin to an errant bomb, another is killed by a rival tribe
3. The electric grid starts to fail. Riots take over the streets, and you can no longer go to school or even visit family across town
4. Finally, your mother is forced into prostitution because your father was abducted, tortured, and killed by the invaders
5. You completely lose your mind and embark on a mission to kill at least one foreigner in retribution for the suffering you have endured

When that shit happens, video games will be art, and they will start to matter. Any complaining about obviously pro-American games like Medal of Honor is the most pathetic and empty endorsement of patriotism I've heard this week. And trust me, there's a lot of competition.

Not just war games!

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally agree with this woman. Anything that can be linked to personal loss in video games should be disallowed. My son died in the 80's because a giant L-shaped girder fell on his head. People are unaware of the amount of construction accidents that happen everyday and affect the lives of so many, these game developers can be so insensitive!

Re:Not just war games!

[Jafafa Hots]

My uncle Mario was killed almost 30 years ago by a gorilla throwing barrels down the ladder he was climbing up.

I've been fighting to have that damned game banned all this time.

I would play as aTaliban

[jameskojiro]

For the express purpose of losing and mocking the dumb SOBs. All through the match I would warble and scream like a Taliban fighter and would yell out "Allah Fubar" or "Admiral Akbar", before getting sniped, as I was getting sniped I would scream, "I can see heaven and my 72 virgins, oh crap they are star trek nerds!!" before respawning.....

Release the Dickwolves

[Herkum01]

For those who feel that playing the Taliban is offensive, I order you off the property because I am releasing the Dickwolves and you better hope you are not caught.

If this offended you, please read Gabe and Tycho's response while you are being herding to the mines.

And so begins the free advertising

[TheDarkPassenger]

:)

Re:Firest a ground zero mosque now this whats next

[shutdown -p now]

A nuke the usa game where you can play as north korea or Iran?

You mean, like Civilization 4?

You wouldn't believe it, too - not only that game lets you nuke New York with impunity, but you can actually spread Islam (Islam!!!) in American cities, leading them to revolt and secede! And then demolish Christian temples in them, and build mosques!

You wouldn't believe the unspeakable lows some people are willing to get to in their burning hatred of America!

Dangit, it's good training !

[cbelt3]

I'm sure some people will be offended, but gosh darn it.. any trained soldier will tell you that training to 'think like the enemy' is a good thing. It lets you anticipate him and kill him before he kills you. If the soldier's mom is offended, I'm sorry to hear about it, but it is distinctly possible that some of her son's squad may find their lives saved at a future date by playing simulations like this one.

I hope that someone takes her aside and explains that to her.

Um, no

[jalefkowit]

If someone's the cop, someone's got to be the robber, someone's got to be the pirate, somebody's got to be the alien. In Medal Of Honor multiplayer, someone has to be the Taliban.

Not true. America's Army solved this problem rather elegantly: there were two teams in any given match, and no matter which team you were on, your teammates were always displayed to you as Americans and the players on the other team displayed as Bad Furrin Terrorists ("OPFOR"). So nobody had to play as a Bad Furrin Terrorist; the BFTs were always the other guys, not you. Given how effectively this approach removes the issue of "playing as the Taliban" I'm a bit amazed EA's developers didn't use it.

Re:Um, no

[Geldon]

Interesting. I didn't know that...

I do appreciate the existentialism, though. I mean, in the end, doesn't every side of a battle see themselves as the patriots and their opponent as the "bad guys"*?

*Insert whatever the term of choice is for the conflict in question. Whether it's Fascists, Commies, Terrorists, or Borg, it's still "the bad guys."

To be fair..

[ArbitraryDescriptor]

I can't watch the video, so this is based solely on the summary. It is entirely possible that the 'Gold Star Mom' (huh?) now objects to all depictions of war as entertainment. The summary doesn't say she thinks it's OK to play the US side, but not the side who killed her boy. It just says she objects to war being portrayed as a game.

This is not a viewpoint that I share, but she's welcome to it.

It's gotta be rough

[phantomfive]

It's gotta be rough playing Taliban where your only hope of anything is to shoot quickly than run, and hopefully you'll kill someone before you die, if you're lucky. Where if you ever begin to get the upper hand in any fight, your opponent calls in a helicopter that you have no defense against, or even hope to have a defense against. Where your only chance of winning is if your opponent decides to go home. That would be so depressing.

Pirates and aliens?

[apparently]

A's response to this criticism of giving players the objective to 'gun down American troops' was this: '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 have been doing this since we were seven. If someone's the cop, someone's got to be the robber, someone's got to be the pirate, somebody's got to be the alien

Cops and robbers, sure, but who the fuck ever heard of playing pirates and aliens? Who's even the bad guy in that scenario? EA should've gone with the analogy all of our father's at one point impressed upon us: "If someone's the pitcher, someone's got to be the catcher, son. Now let daddy see your mitt."

All credibility lost

[Anonymous Coward]

The moment you ragged on Obama as 'the worst President'. If you honestly think Bush was any better, then you have NO credibility at all with your statement.

And yes, one thing has something to do with the other, since YOU decided to mention that.

You comment being marked as 'insightful' says volumes about the readership of this site.

Re:Firest a ground zero mosque now this whats next

[rinoid]

What's next?

Watching your social security trust fund go toward buying some more up-armored humvees, obtuse weapon systems, drones, and benefits for the blasted apart.

Seriously dude, be upset that in the US we spend more than most nations COMBINED on defense. This will be the downfall of our country, that and the leeches that make up the top 2%.

Ike knew it would lead to this:
http://www.h-net.org/~hst306/documents/indust.html

Listen to DEVO - Freedom of Choice

[ronaldmigahil]

I think hearing this song can help. DEVO - Freedom of Choice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jVoroHx3IU&playnext=1&videos=IibK1CODwX4