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Pakistan Boycotting Call of Duty, Medal of Honor Games
An anonymous reader writes "As first-person shooters have evolved, they've transitioned from using Nazis as the bad guys to more modern organizations, such as the Taliban. Two recent games, Call of Duty: Black Ops II and Medal of Honor: Warfighter, have both shown the country of Pakistan in a very negative light, and now shopkeepers in the country are beginning to boycott the games. 'Saleem Memon, president of the All Pakistan CD, DVD, Audio Casette Traders and Manufacturers Association, said he had written to members ordering them not to stock the controversial games after receiving dozens of complaints. ... The latest installment of the Medal of Honor series opens with American Navy Seals coming ashore in Karachi docks on a mission to destroy a black market arms shipment. But when their detonation sets off a second, bigger explosion they realize they have stumbled on a much bigger terrorist plot, sparking a global manhunt. A chaotic car chase through the city follows amid warnings that the ISI — Pakistan's intelligence agency — is on the way. Mr. Memon added there was a danger children would be brainwashed into thinking foreign agents were at war inside Karachi, possibly leading them into the arms of militants. "These games show a misleading idea of what is happening in the city. You don't get the CIA all the way through Grand Theft Auto," he said.'"
It'd probably be a bigger statement if he were selling legal copies
Where was the most wanted terrorist hiding out again?
You don't get the CIA all the way through Grand Theft Auto," he said.'"
There's a mod for that.
Unless the ISPs are on it too, they can just get the PC version on Steam or some other digital distribution service.
Would shops in the US sell a video game showing the glorious jihadis blowing up Americans get sold in the US? The "sandn****r" guy above would probably blow a gasket.
Anybody have any info on the All Pakistan CD, DVD, Audio Casette Traders and Manufacturers Association? If I google it, all I get are links to different versions of this story. If a shopkeeper or group of shopkeepers decide they don't want to stock particular titles, that's a commercial decision they are perfectly entitled to take and - if they are part of a competitive marketplace and have competition who might decide differently - it doesn't really raise any freedom or censorship issues. Certainly, supermarkets in the US/UK have decided at times not to stock games which have the highest age-ratings, because they don't fit with their brand image or perceived clientelle. It doesn't matter, because you can still get the games from Amazon or another high-street retailer.
If, on the other hand, this Association is some kind of Government standards-body, or if it's a trade-association which you have to be a member of if you want to sell games (giving it genuine market-control) then that's more serious.
And as an aside, I'd note that plenty of games have sold well in the US despite having the Americans as either morally ambiguous or outright baddies (indeed, not to defend Call of Duty, but most of its games fall into the first of those categories) - and that here in the UK, being made into the baddies in games and films is pretty much standard fare.
I don't see a lot of games released here in which you get to play a Pakistani agent conducting ops in the states.
Surely some of them have a taste for and can afford these games.
Even if India's censorship is just as asinine sometimes, I can totally see them giving any game that paints Pakistan in a bad light a pass.
If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
If Pakistanis want their country to cease to be viewed as a hotbed of terrorism, the best approach would be for them to stop supporting terrorism.
Pakistan is the most lawless of the US' so called "allies" and is in fact at heart no Ally of the US or any Western Nation.
They openly harbor Terrorists and are can't even protect their own citizenry against the likes of the Taliban and Al Qaida.
They are as corrupt as Mexico and the US would be right to bomb them even further back into the Stone Age than they already are, but since they are in a death grip with India -- that's a no go.
Fuck Pakistan -- they are no friend of the Free World and are nothing short of a Lucy to the Al Qaida fighting Charlie Brown, pretending to help, but openly acting to subvert our efforts.
"You don't get the CIA all the way through Grand Theft Auto"
The fuck does that even mean?
Their crap. Sheer and utter crap. I refuse to buy crap.
Take that multi-billion dollar game franchises!
I remember playing "raid over Moscow" when I was a kid, which was a C64 game where you had to fly a bomber to the Kremlin, kill its guards, and blow it up. I suspect that it wouldn't sell well in the USSR, and that if somebody published the very same game today as "raid over Washington" replacing the Kremlin with the White House then it wouldn't sell well in the USA. People don't enjoy being offended, especially by propaganda, especially when it touches open wounds.
If the games were set in fictitious countries, they'd get dinged for it. An interesting writing challenge for these games would be to anonymise the locations - in effect, to amplify the murky nature of the operations concerned. "We were down in South America somewhere, some rathole of a banana republic..." or "We'd been travelling upriver for a couple of days, heading deep into African jungle..." The original Bond books did it quite well - the idea that the top echelons of the various intelligence agencies had realised that they were all on the same side (i.e. the side that likes money and power in quite huge quantities) and were running their own organisation that wasn't based on or in any particular country. And they weren't going to let any grubby little politicians mess it up.
They follow the example of Muhammad impeccably, kidnapping and raping non-Muslim girls, terrorising non-Muslim countries, and even who oppose laws used to suppress non-Muslims.
Truth hurts...
So the games wouldn't be sold in Pakistan, who gives a shit? Notice how only the muslims/muslim countries ever take offense to these kinds of things, Russia didn't ban any of the games that were anti Russian, nobody needs to get asspained over stuff like this.
I am from Pakistan, and all I can say is "LOL, a ban, haha, how cute"
This is just a storm in a teacup situation; For one, now one gives a flying fuck, and secondly, pirates CDs for 30 rupees (~30 cents) each man, if one shop doesn't, you don't think there are 100 other shops in the same damn plaza who will provide it?Besides they haven't been able to stop outright *porn*, they will do something like this? Yeah right.
Go back people, noting to see here, no one cares except some bourgeois who like to #TweetLikeABurger . Mr "Association President" just wanted the world to know that (a) He exists; and (b) Vote for me at the next association election!
This isn't even news here, I didn't even know this was an issue (For once, Slashdot provides news on time!). We are more concerned over CNG (no fuel for cars, winter heaters or stoves), or the fact that the investigator who was investigating corruption charges against our PM conveniently committed suicide (The fact that there were signs of torture, or that he had sent SMS to pals regarding him being pressurised to change evidence is obviously unrelated.)
Come on people, we are people of, what, 180 million? Most of whom can't even afford to feed them self, much less buy games. We are Hungry, cold, freezing and Immobile, not to mention without work. We have better thing to worry about, besides, no one can outdo us in cursing our nation, I am sure your games pale in comparison.
I am an ACCA student. Got a query on Accountancy/Finance? Maybe I can help!
Pakistan has a bad image because of this: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks Most attacks are Muslim-on-Muslim . or on little girls that want education etc. This video game does nothing to their already well-deserved terrible reputation.
It's because almost all those games take part in the second half of the war, when all the badass production planes are US made, not japanese.
I was reading through wikipedia a few months back in regards to WW2 era planes and franky the japanese selection sucked. Tons of planes that could've changed the face of the war, but thanks to production limitations, supply problems, etc they never made it into production before the end came.
Pretty much the same deal as the germans.
While I don't really care to consider the increase in casualties, it's interesting to ponder what the technological advancement of the world might've been if the war had dragged on a few more years. A number of advancements that got killed as a result of the wind-down of the war machine following the surrenders of Japan and Germany left a lot of nearly complete prototypes on all sides either destroyed or neglected rather than being finished, many of which might've lead to valuable research that didn't take place for years afterward.
Aren't the games restricted to people over 18 or 16 years of age? I find it dubious that a 16 years old Pakistani could be brainwashed by Medal of Honor.
As opposed to the USA where you get raped just for wearing a skirt.
How would the US feel if a pakistani company was using the same sort of creative license to lampoon the NSA and the CIA?
And they whined and bitched about "The Two Towers", especially since the two towers were towers held by the Forces of Evil.
...movies and games are not real-time, and are often works of fiction.
I can only imagine how they think driving in some of our most famous cities is like after seeing GTA.
Besides, the irony here is real activities in their own countries have been the basis of these games for decades now. Perhaps if we American game writers were not so fucking inspired by real-world events...just a thought.
There's no "just" about it if you or someone you care about get "enriched" by them.
You don't need to be a jihadist, you can be the next best thing: an oikophobe.
And let his Family (Good friends of the Pres) out in spite of the lockdown after 11/9, and give them lots of contracts and contacts before, during, and after.
The USA installed Saddam. Shook hands with him. Armed him.
Until he stopped using US Dollars to do business with. Then you shot him.
Got proof?
Or is it just "They're nig-nogs and ragheads, so they're all criminals"?
You could RTFA:
"Although shops in all of Pakistan's major cities have been told of the ban, the game was still available on Friday in shops crammed with pirated CDs in the capital Islamabad."
In most ME countries they really don't give a fuck about piracy.
So wait ... let's get this straight ...
These nice people want to encourage game manufacturers to stop doing something, by threatening to stop selling and spreading pirated copies of their games ?
I'm guessing it's going slightly worse than planned.
Well for some old, anecdotal info: When I was deployed to Saudi in the early 90s you could get any software title for ~3 riyal per 3.25 floppy. From single disk games to 15+ disk AutoCAD. A guy was just sitting in the store making copies while you wait or shop elsewhere. That was 20 years ago in a different country but they were cutting people's hands off for stealing too.
I don't see a lot of games released here in which you get to play a Pakistani agent conducting ops in the states.
And you never will. They wouldn't let you make a game where the bad guys were taliban because you could play as the bad guys and shoot american soldiers. Quite frankly I Pakistan is completely justified in boycotting the game if only to send a message that "hey we're people and we love our country too and we ALSO get offended when you make games where you shoot us". We can all laugh and talk about how piracy makes this null but if the shoe were on the other foot it wouldn't be nearly as funny. I mean I don't play FPS but I find it kinda scary to think that they're making games where your tasked with assassinating sitting (or former) heads of state. It's a lot more offensive to my sensibilities than anonymous airport massacres
Just another second banana
In most ME countries they really don't give a fuck about piracy.
Or you could look at a globe.
Pakistan is the Middle East now?
Hookey Street is full of people selling pirated stuff.
The Western democracies really don't give a fuck about piracy either.
I mean geez, it's not like helicopters of commandos are landing to storm armed compounds in the middle of cities, to kill the most wanted terrorist ever (who's been 'hiding' there in plain sight for years).
Oh, wait...
-Styopa
I dunno, they might decide to sell Chinese Bootleg Call of Duty instead. If that's anything like Chinese Bootleg Final Fantasy VII that might be a good thing.
"There is nothing the US has or has not done that causes jihadis to hate you."
That has to be the most willfully ignorant statement I have read in a long time. US foreign policy in the mid east has clearly created enemies where there were none before.
But you know, I have learned that there is no compromise with murderous thugs who think that killing will ever bring them peace. As a vocal representative of your kind, I'd like to tell you that your insanity will be the death of us all. Thanks for creating enemies for my grandkids to fight. Fuck you very much.
In most ME countries they really don't give a fuck about piracy.
Or you could look at a globe.
Pakistan is the Middle East now?
Pakistan has been included in some definitions of the Middle East. The words on a globe are just written there by a person, it's not like the "Middle East" is anything but an arbitrary Western concept.
Go outside you fucking idiot. It's not a generalization by any mean. Piracy is rampant over there.
I wish they would go back and do some WWII games. The graphics/game-play have gotten a ton better since the last one
Jack of all trades,master of none
It has nothing to do with the "most" people, trollboy.
Bin Laden isn't a war criminal for targeting the Pentagon in and of itself, that's a valid military objective. He's a war criminal for targeting the Towers, and using 747s full of civilians to do it, deliberately, deliberately killing thousands of civilian innocents in the process. Bush did not target civilians, period. The US tries to avoid collateral damage - one reason we spent so much damn $$ on smart bombs and laser guided munitions. It'd be a lot cheaper and less risky to just carpet bomb with traditional bombs, if that's what the US really wanted.
It's lucky the enlightened Saudis know that copyright infringement!=theft isn't it?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
"You don't get the CIA all the way through Grand Theft Auto," he said."
Thanks for the game, and moive idea!
ARRRRGG!!! Not really sure how big a deal Pakistan boycotting would be to begin with. Does anyone have the numbers on PC consumerism for video game sales in Pakistan? I'd be interested if this was even a percentage, although I don't know and it could, in fact, be significant. I doubt it though. Note: Legal consumerism. Not just pirated copies.
a 2000lb "smart" bomb that can level a complete city block is "avoiding" collateral damage? especially when it misses o so many times. and BTW please explain the Iraq war to me while you are it!
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/05/12/bush-convicted-of-war-crimes-in-absentia/
http://www.salon.com/2011/11/23/bush_and_blair_found_guilty_of_war_crimes_for_iraq_attack/
So, if Bush is a terrorist, then what's that make our new messiah Mr Obama? hmmmmmmmm???
Bush used a uniformed military to engage in an action you might dislike, but which was universally recognized as "war" and was aimed at enemy fighters
Obama is using remote-controlled drones to strike an unknown number of non-uniformed people in non-warzones around the world. He has a secret "kill list" and is not telling us [a] who he is trying to kill [b] who is is actually killing [c] where the killings are happening [d] why the targets were selected. Given that he is not acting in a war zone as part of a declared war, one might presume this is more of a police action (as indeed his administration has often tried to characterize the anti-terror struggle) in which case the targets ought to get their day in court and "due process" before being sentenced to death. Unlike Bush, Obama actually is acting like a terrorist.
Any chance you'd put tags, or remove spoilers from the summary? You basically told people the entire plot of the game.
Terrorists are everywhere, so probably the same here
Yep because Pakistan is in the ME.
And everyone in the ME is Muslim, too, right?
Civilians are ONLY protected if both sides are using a uniformed fighting force and fight in the open. Read the human rights treaties.
If terrorists hide among civilians, those civilians have zero protection from those treaties.
But don't let facts disturb your ranting. (and don't for a moment think courts like the Hague are anything but political dealmakers).
And yet, over 160,000 civilians perished in Iraq from Bush's war occupation there. Some of them armed combatants. Most just happened to be targeted by Bush's black ops mercenaries and other related skirmishes.
Don't be a fool trollboy, Bush and Cheney are most definitely war criminals!
The capital is called Islamabad. I think it's safe to say Islam is influential there.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.