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GameStop Pulls Medal of Honor From Military Bases
donniebaseball23 writes "EA's Medal of Honor reboot doesn't ship until October 12, but it's already seen a fair amount of controversy thanks to the publisher's decision to allow people to play as Taliban in multiplayer. The controversy just got escalated another notch, reports IndustryGamers, as the world's biggest games retailer GameStop has decided it won't sell the title at its stores located on US military bases. The new Medal of Honor won't be advertised at these stores either. GameStop noted that they came to this decision 'out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform.'"
Seems more like discretion to me.
It looks like someone forgot to close an <i> tag. Good thing it was near the end of TFS, or it would have been less readable than usual.
"Gimmie that!" *yoink*
"But...!"
"Because I respect you!"
... that they can't emotionally handle this
In group behavior: 'because they're evil/morons/sheep/crazy' is not 'insightful' it's 'oversimplified'
I can still play as Germans in WW2 games, though? Phew. For a second there I was worried.
Out of respect or out of fear of vociferous soccer moms? They have certainly never found issues with war games in the past, even when the opposing sides were concurrent.
Do we not trust our servicemen and women to stay loyal to the US Government/Military when they play this game? Are we afraid they will decide the Taliban are a more noble cause? Are we afraid they are sitting on the fence and this game will push them to cross to the other side?
Or is the pendulum of Political Correctness just swinging even farther into the ridiculous zone?
Not all of them are, but the ones likely to get upset by this have: access to weapons; combat training; learned how to deal with the emotional cost of killing someone. Not the kind of person you want to risk upsetting.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
If they really were doing this out of "respect", they'd pull the game altogether. Not that I think it should be pulled, but pulling it only from military locations makes no sense. This is just saying "If you're in the military, you can't have this game. Not yours."
Respect would be acknowledging that our men and women in uniform are adults and can decide for themselves how they want to spend their leisure time.
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I guess the term "too soon" counted in the days following 911, but guys on the front lines don't deserve this same respect? How about let it lay for a few years before adding the Taliban as an option if they must at all. Personally, I find it a bit repugnant. I'm curious, do they allow the Taliban characters they play to throw acid in the faces of girls who dare go to school, or execute them for showing their faces? If this company was really serious about this and not just going through the motions, they would pull the game from the shelves until this disrespectful option is removed.
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No to avoid Glen Beck demogogery?
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Aren't military games pretty popular among soldiers? I would wager that many are going to play this game anyway, and will just be annoyed that they can't get it on the base. I guess I am also a little surprised they even have video game stores on military bases...
I can see why they would do this. Being a prior Air Force member, not everybody who gets deployed, comes back the same. I do agree though, if it was truly respect they would pull the game all together. I know it is easy for non-military people to say that we should let the solders decided, but in all honestly, it could end up being very traumatic to some. PTSD doesn't show up right off the bat. I know you can play as German's in some of the WW2 games, and you can be "terrorists" in CS, but with the level of realism that games are coming to, it really could push some people over the edge.
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I'm more confused by the fact that there is commercial stores inside USA military bases in the first place.
From the summary they mention the reason for their decision to be "out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform."
If they really want to respect them they should be giving them the choice to choose on their own. Not forcing their own decision upon them.
Enough with the spoonfeeding mentality...
They are just trying to repeat the success Activision enjoyed with it's shockingly scandalous "in bad taste" scene where you had to kill the civilians at an airport in order to proceed. Despite all the "bad press", Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 went on to generate more than 310 million dollars in sales on the first day and broke sales records by a huge margin.
Of course since this is an EA game, they will probably drop the ball and bungle the release completely. But that's just my opinion, since I believe there is a special circle of Hell reserved for Electronic Arts.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Quite funny, considering that the Army itself is freely distributing a simulation that allows you to play any side you want: video 1 & video 2>
So even if they wanted to buy it they won't be allowed?
They are allowed to die in battle but not to chose what to play?
Imagine the game was very realistic - It would give them big advantage to see their own weakness through the eyes of the enemy.
How is that any different than any WW2 game?
Nazi's, Japanese, Vietcong, and terrorist in every other military FPS
A few years have passed since WWII to let the raw emotions ease. I am very sure that if games like this existed at the time, there would be a near riot if a company tried to release one where you got to play the German side just after WWII (never mind while it is was ongoing as is the case now). My father was a veteran of that war (front of the front line combat from France to Germany) and he had strong feelings many years after the war. They eased somewhat later in life, but he still had issues about what he saw and did. Except for one he told my mother, he would only tell us stories where no one was hurt even though combat was going on (e.g. How many guys can you fit under a Bren Gun Carrier? Eight, as long as they are being mortared at the time. How far can a guy throw a dud 88 shell when it crashes through the stone wall of the house you are in? A long, long way... while shitting bricks at the same time.). He buried his rifle and side arm very shortly after armistice was signed (while still in the army in Europe) and refused to carry or use a weapon after that. They busted him from Staff Sargent all the way to Private after he refused to tell them where he buried them and refused to carry a weapon. It is easy to sit in a chair in front of a computer and pass judgment. The same as it is to compare society's feelings at the time events happened 65 to 71 years ago to how they feel about them today (and some folks still feel as strongly and think playing the German side is repugnant).
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Pulling the ads is sensitive. Pulling the game at ONLY military outlets is wrong. If the game is "bad" enough to be pulled at military bases, where very mentally tough individuals reside, you sure as hell better not sell it to 14 year old suburban couch potatoes. They certainly will not be able to handle it. I do applaud them for pulling the advertising -- no need to waive it around inside bases.
... that they can't acquire the game some other way if they really wanted to.
I didn't realize "making sure computer games are readily available to soldiers" was a priority of the US military, much less a priority for a private company who themselves have the freedom to do what they want.
"We're fighting for your freedoms, just don't exercise them."
..and Activision had NOTHING to do with this. lolumad?
(MoH does suck, but still...)
The difference is that WWII vets aren't even close to the target audience age-group for such games.
For the new Medal of Honor, on the other hand, game's target age group and age of the actual veterans aren't all that different.
funny, my bro that is an 82nd airborne vet plays online multi-player Call of Duty and such all the time. He says he only play with other vets--some from Vietnam Era. Without fail, when these actual vets play online, they play as NAZIS. Can totally see them doing the same thing with Taliban multiplayer. Don't see what the difference is...
The Taliban (former government of Afghanistan) are the name Fox News & other US Government outlets have marked as "evil" because they "harbor Terrorists". Complete and utter nonsense. We now see, how complete nonsense, if repeated enough times propagates everywhere, becomes reality and starts affecting various other aspects of life.
They don't teach you to cope with the emotional cost of killing someone - that's left for the public to deal with when they get back from war and are dumped into the streets.
You can't teach that - you either cope with it, get help coping with it, or go stark raving mad.
I've known a few lifers who went over to Iraq who've told me that since coming back they've thought an awful lot about eating a bullet.
In Soviet Russia, new video games pull out all the stops. In American military bases, GameStop pulls out all the games!
Let's stir up as much heat as possible about frivolous issues that distract from what actually needs to be done.
Not only that, what better target is there than video games?--a medium that is already stereotyped and reviled by millions of people who don't know any better and don't really care to consider other possible viewpoints.
I seriously don't understand why anyone would pay any respect to US soldiers. They are voluntarily risking their own lives while travelling halfway cross the world to kill people that never harmed them in any way. Each of them that dies, had it coming and had a death that was unnecessary and totally avoidable. Parents of servicemen on tour probably ought to take a good look on themselves and figure out how they could fail so horribly as parents that their child became a state-sponsored murderer. It deserves no respect what so ever.
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allowing soldiers to play games about the same war they are fighting. Hhmmm I wonder what an army psychologist think about this... You don't need to be Einstein to figure it out.
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"Some of you feel that this does some kind of injustice to your brothers in arms, so we're going to allow you to pretend it doesn't exist while still selling it to everyone else. We're doing this because we respect the fact (which we pulled out of our ass) that you can't handle things that make you upset as much as people who don't travel to foreign countries to get shot at for something they don't believe in."
This is a suitably ridiculous response to a ridiculous situation. I'm surprised GameStop had the nads to go there.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
'out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform.' So should we not play as Nazi's and Japanese in WW 2 games?
All Mario games are now off-limits to people allergic to mushrooms. They might get upset. And don't even get me started on the trauma of Burger Time.
Thats just retarded.
TFA doesn't make this clear. Here's a better one: Video Game Pulled Globally From Military Stores Over Taliban Inclusion
I don't know how many military people would be offended or not by this. Why not let them decide for themselves by buying the game, or not, or complaining to the store if they find it's mere presence too much? If it offends, it won't be in the store on base very long, and if it doesn't - let them choose to buy it!
It's all about Gamestop thinking that closed minded politicians or a nit witted public think it's unpatriotic and end up boycotting Gamestop--such that sales go off a cliff.
If they were really smart, soliders should use the game and play as the bad guy--cause for them to think in the ememy's shoes equates to a better solider from getting hurt. Heck, if you knew your opponents chess moves, guess who wins? Granted, the game probably has crappy agent logic for foes.
If one can think about your enemy and 2nd guess, you're better off. The military should be using it as a training tool. But then again, we live in a lemming, non-intelligent world nowadays. It is... all about control, control of cash (gamestop) in this case.
Modern Warfare had players as "taliban" or Iraqi soldiers (though it wouldn't call them that - As Yahtzee put it, they're all from Unspecifiedistan), and they wouldn't pull that from store shelves. So because the enemy is identified in this case, that suddenly makes it less appropriate? In a multiplayer setting, you can't both be the US forces unless you pull an America's Army and just have the enemy show up as OpFor all the time while you appear to be American all the time.
I mean, I have a hard time imagining why, exactly, there's any controversy over this at all. But I guess no publicity is bad publicity, huh?
Screw the rules, I have green hair!
What's the point of pulling games where you can pretend to be the enemy?
In real life you can be OPFOR.
This article makes no sense.
last I checked, Germany is still touchy about this. All games must be free of basically anything to do with Nazis, Hitler etc. Sure you can find that in the US, but it still wont fly in Germany.
insert funny sig here
What's next? No selling/advertising Grant Theft Auto games near police stations? No selling/advertising Diablo games near churches? No selling/advertising StarFox games near animal shelters and zoos?
Their dependants who shop on base are for fucking sure sensitive, far more so than G.I.s.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
This is a simple leverage in free press.
Maybe someone who just lost a friend to the Taliban might not really be in the mood for seeing a game where they can re-enact killing their friend.
Perhaps my father was killed by VC, does that mean that nobody should make historically accurate Vietnam games? What if my grandfather was killed by a German, does that put ww2 games in bad taste?
Sure the time scale is greater, but its just being fucking 'PC stupid' to go to lengths like this. I think if I was killed in Afghanistan, I would be pissed off by politically correct assholes who want to sweep everything under a rug, 'out of respect for the survivors'.
What the HELL is wrong with a factually depicted game? Telling an accurate story is very respectful of those who served.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
a company making an individual decision to sell/not sell a game doesn't classify as censorship. If the chinese gov't said it would not be allowed in the country under penalty of death, that's censorship. I say kudos to gamestop for placing empathy over money. Too bad more companies didn't prioritize that way.
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They'll just buy it from the BX/PX game section instead of the gamestop on base.
Is it sad that I am more likely to recognize you and your posts by your sig than your name or UID?
It's not quite like that: Remove the red bracelets, Nazi leaders and SS symbols, and you'll be good to go, so if you are recreating a WWII battlefield, more often than not you won't have to change anything unless you are trying to portray one of the SS divisions.
So just change the Taliban to Nazis? Problem solved.
Now how should they sell the game in Germany... Change them back to Taliban? Problem solved.
But what about US bases in Germany... Change them into... lemmings? Now comes copyright infringement. The studio is doomed.
I Hope i'm not duping someone else who already fixed the the misconception here. The game just won't be sold at the On base version of WalMart. It's a decent, convenient place to shop, sometimes has good deals, but it's just one fucking store. Porn isn't sold there either but you really thing Soldiers or sailors don't have porn? (I was both, and I never wanted for my playboy) Airman are of course Androgynous A-sexual drones they don't count for this discussion.
A board game had gone on sale where you could play the Americans or the Japanese, likely the factory would have mysteriously burned down! Of course, great big board games were at that time played by the Generals and Admirals in "what if" scenarios. And I would presume now they use computer simulations. The difference in both cases is that a commercial game seems to involve the trivialization of an event in which lives of our troops are at stake.
Frankly if I were in that god-awful fray I would WELCOME the game with the supposedly offending feature. I'd be appreciative of a tool that allowed me to understand the enemy more completely. And nothing teaches you about an opponent better than climbing around in their pelt for a few hours. In general I think this type of overreaction is indicative of the black and white simple minded dogmatic world-view that so many people are championing as virtuous these days. Also, the best comment I've heard so far is the one pointing out that WWII games allow for play from the German side of things.
Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.--Mark Twain
... little bitty bunnny wabbbitt children from any sort of outside influence.
Cannot have trained killers running around with ideas in their heads from some source other than the officially approved sources. Killers with wrong ideas is just wrong.
The idea of solving problems without training killers is heresy. Burn the heretic(s)!
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This is the result of hand-wringing do-gooders who don't know the military from the bible.
You think the military isn't conducting training exercises with real humans in the role of the Taliban?
Putting it in a video game just makes it cheaper to repeat for the newbies.
Someone tell GameStop they're totally fucking stupid, here.
I suppose if the advertisements were anti-american it could be a tongue in cheek issue.
It's a game, guys, seriously. While there is a war going on right now, *this* is just a game. If people are seriously offended by that, well, then they can just not play it and stop being so oversensitive when someone mentions it. This is absolutely insane. These people claim to want to uphold freedom of speech and freedom of expression until it's something that *they* are personally offended by, then it's just wrong! If they don't like it, fine, but their dislikes should not affect my decision to play this completely harmless game. If they can't differentiate between what we know as reality and a video game, well, I feel that under societies' standards, they would be deemed insane.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Instead of driving a mile across base to purchase this game, I'll have to go two miles to the gamestop in the mall... and I'll have to *gasp* pay sales tax! This isn't censorship, it's a move by someone at aafes gunning for a promotion. Sadly, people whose only knowledge of the military comes from the news and movies are freaking clueless...
So Gamestop stops selling it, most bases have Gamestop right outside their PX - I am sure the Soldier can walk the extra few feet to the Electronics section and pick it up there... Where is the problem other than Gamestop making a stupid choice? I mean it's not like they are not going to sell it in any gamestops around the Pentagon, or near ground zero right?
Look out, you'll shoot Dorkus.
Everyone is way off base with the motives here. This isn't about protecting the soldiers or respecting them. The real story is a bunch of top level gamestop employees got their asses handed to them last night in a game of CTF by a bunch of people with "USMC" as their clan tag so now their trying to take precautions to prevent that from happening again.
Coalition forces use a computer game to learn to fight as their opponents fight. Might be useful intel?
This decision should be re-thunk.
"Flight Simulator" for War in Afghanistan; what's wrong with that? Mind the innocent civvies, please.
Give 'em the game. It'll be good for them.
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We need to protect the childish people! They are our greatest asset!
stores right outside those bases better stock up.
Taliban or otherwise.. they're going to want to play.
Assuming that my fellow service members who like myself have never even seen a gamestop on a base even stop to consider the moral implications of buying this game as they drive to the gamestop that will be within a fifteen minute drive or 30 minute bus ride of a military installation (I needed to find a gamestop once near whidbey island naval airstation and I literally just drove around for 20 minutes until one showed up)they may wonder why Gamestop feels the need to take a game that allows them to play US soldiers who kill taliban members, which is what I signed up for and continue to support, literally all day and night. Do they think that if I took issue with it I might accidentally select the taliban side in multiplayer and go to bed hating myself? The concern is touching. Besides, I assume they didn't go all out on the realism of the game anyway. Unless I can play by driving a crappy car packed with explosives that will kill me, or sit at a mortar tube waiting for a hellfire missile to hit me out of no where, or log on when players aren't in a map to place IED's, then it's not very Taliban-ey sounding. I think it's probably a fancy (read: douchey) way of saying a guy with an AK-47 instead of an M4, who can't call in helo strikes or anything fun like that. Also, I don't think many service members would enjoy being a realistic Taliban soldier, because they are culturally much more into hand holding than we are in the US. Like, way more into it.
Perhaps they could let one side play as French (with ability to surrender).
There is both playboy and penthouse sold at the Navy Exchange, and in fact you can even score some soft core on liberty weekend in Navy boot camp if you know which motorcycle magazine features the Fox Hunt. It's good for morale. And as a sailor on an airforce base I will agree with your A-Sexual drone hypothesis
..because the Military will probably be their largest customer
They should just have a special censored edition for military base sale in which the taliban models are replaced with hippies and beatniks. Blizzard has to make changes along those lines in order to sell games in China.
It is just a game, i am in the military and that makes no sense, it's just a game, if it offends us so much why put it out, it doesn't matter, just give us the game, now i have to go find it else where
Yes, but can you play the Germans in a SP game kicking the shit out of some good ole boys? Thought not.
Respect for who? Might as well ban all games on bases. In all war games you have a enemy. In all war games payback can be hell, and fun. So just who are you respecting?
I'm a servicemember. I've been to Afghanistan and seen the places shown in this game first hand. I've seen men and women die for freedom, and some die for no reason at all. I still want to play this game. I've not been home a full year yet, but I want a small piece of that time back. I want to see things I know and feel the same heart racing fear of going around a corner when Taliban snipers are looking over your shoulder. This isn't internet tough guy talk, I'm a broadcast journalist and I've shot plenty of video showing what I'm talking about. Some of us (military members who have deployed and fought the Taliban) still want to play this game. I don't live in the States and there are no GameStop's here so it doesn't really affect me, but I know that if I were in America and wanted this game, I'd like to be able to go to my nearest game store (most likely a GameStop) and pick it up. They're not removing it from all of their stores, just the bases. That makes it more about the attention will get from this move, and less about the people affected.
When someone pointed out that they did not want some marine to come in and unleash hell on the employees at the GameStop. They did not mention whether it will be pulled from GameStop locations at Navy Exchange (NEX) services.
call me cynical if you want but the amount of free publicity EA will get from this will far outweigh the loss of revenue from the banned sales, ALL corporate decisions are based on money not ethics or respect.
I can still play as Germans in WW2 games, though? Phew. For a second there I was worried.
So was I; the Germans have much better toys to shoot with.
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When I would play a fps or rts game with other people, I would always pick the "bad guy." The reason I would do that is because I am below average skill wise and when I would lose, it would make me feel just a little better knowing the good guys won... haha
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
What is more scary, you can even play as a US Marine in many games these days. Talking about bad examples...
The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think.
when I was in college, I had an assignment to read "Dispatches" by Micheal Herr ... there's a couple things I remember.
A) getting physically ill by the time I finished it (it was graphic and highly depressing)
and
B) a scene describing a situation some military brass absolutely looses his shit because some kids scrawled curse words on their helmets (or a helicopter or something ... this was like 15 years ago at least when I read it).
18 and 19 year olds ... literal children ... sent into the jungle half a world away for the intent of carrying out some of the most brutal and horrific acts imaginable, and they are chastised for using profanity.
That kind of *complete* and utter lack of perspective reminds me of this situation.
Let me get this right. We have been waging two wars for nearly 10 years. The general public has become *so* desensitized to it, that not only can you make a photo-realistic video game *about the real war that is still happening*, and this is not controversial or unpopular, but is instead one of the most anticipated and popular games of all time.
And it's "disrespectful" to sell the instances of the fake war to the people waging the *actual* war.
But it's not "disrespectful" to wage the *actual* war.
W-to-the-T-F, people?
WOW.
You're missing the point. No one is telling these people they need to play these games, or even watch people play them. This is an issue of freedom of choice.
Sun Tzu put it best why American soldiers should play as the Taliban:
So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
You're missing the point. The fact they are making the games is disrespectful. But I guess respect is a victim of modern times. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. But I suspect that this is beyond you or most these days. People cry foul when Wall Street types make a ton of money for doing nothing; but this is just an extrapolation of your attitude: Just because it is wrong to take money for doing absolutely nothing to help you clients profit (which is what your job is supposed to accomplish) doesn't mean I can't take a 10 million dollar bonus, but I can so I will. It is all the same thing. Both situations are an exhibit of a total lack of class.
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Airman are of course Androgynous A-sexual drones they don't count for this discussion.
I was in the USAF back in the day, flameboy. I get more pussy from you mom than your dad does; she complains about his little dick. She's lousy in bed but she gives pretty good blow jobs.
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You refuse to stock the game. If no one wanted the game anyway, you've already failed, right? So you plan on the soldiers wanting the game. Then you wait for the soldiers to complain that they can't buy the game on-base. After which you issue a big press release announcing that the soldiers requested - nay, demanded - that the game be put back into stores, so you're bowing to their wishes.
This is a win for you, because most of the criticism comes from people outraged on behalf of the soldiers. But now you can point out that the soldiers FORCED you to make the game available to them, so obviously it must not be a problem.
The best way to beat the Taliban might start by learning how to think like a Taliban.
Hey, in Cowboys and Indians...someone has to be stuck as the bad-guys (Cowboys)
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