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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?
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.
It's not a ban, it's a boycott. Turns out that people don't like games where the best the can be is set dressing for the glorification of a violent foreign power when that same power back in the real world indiscriminately sends out robots to bomb the next village on a weekly basis.
I don't see a lot of games released here in which you get to play a Pakistani agent conducting ops in the states.
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.
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.
Let's be fair to the game companies. They tried localizing the games for the Pakistani audience; but it turns out going from cave to cave while hiding from the Great Satan's minions doesn't make for exciting gameplay.
#DeleteChrome
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.
The drones don't 'bomb villages' (that statement shows how ignorant you are) they fire hellfire missiles into 'compounds' that the various special forces have usually reconoitered. Those compounds have jihadis and their families. Occasionally the missiles do miss and do kill villagers - this is indeed a tragedy, but is unintentional and less frequent than you would think. In Afghanistan NATO compensates for the damage, which inspires villagers to quickly bury donkies and claim them as killed civilians since the payoff is worth it.
It is completely awesome the drones do this because if they didn't the jihadis would continue their following reign of terror:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/index.html#Attacks
Of course, if you are a cultural relativist you will excuse the jihadis for their violence and instead simply condemn the US/West/Israel for trying to defend their citizens against these vicious killers. You'll then probably come up with the excuse that the jihadis do it because they are poor (Osama bin Laden was rich), had their land 'stolen' (jihadis have been operating for 1400 years) or some other lame excuse. All the while you'll remain doggedly ignorant of the teachings of the Qur'an that make jihad obligatory for able Muslim males.
Meanwhile you'll probably ignore the hundreds of madrassas pumping out replacement zombies ready to kill Afghan villagers. You'll also ignore the Pakistani ISI and the crime syndicates and opium lords who provide the money for the Taliban. You'd much rather cherish the thought that the West is the bad guy for standing up to these brigands and crazed zealots.
Keep dreaming your false dream. Meanwhile the rest of us will be doing what we can to argue for our rights (stop creeping Sharia and 'cultural jihad' in the West!) and even for your rights. Hopefully one day you'll get a clue and realise who the evil guys really are - the ones that think it nothing to kill little girls for trying to get an education, or kill girls who don't want to be married to old men four times their age, or kill Muslims from another sect, or kill people just working in a building in Manhattan, or riding a bus in London, or a train in Spain, etc etc. That's the real evil.
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!
I don't think you have to be a jihadist to worry that the U.S.'s policy for combating it is insufficiently cautious about "collateral damage". There is also a realpolitik question of whether it's actually effective: bombing the bad guys may feel good, but from a rational perspective feeling good and killing bad guys is not sufficient, and is counterproductive if you cause so much negative sentiment that you inflame anti-American sentiment among the local population, increasing terrorist groups' ability to recruit new members and find sympathetic people to shelter them. In some cases bombing works, and in other cases it does not work, and I think it's legitimate to ask whether the strategy the U.S. is currently pursuing is actually working, or is intended just to make it look like they're doing something, to please U.S. voters.
Here's a fun game you can play in which you wipe out terrorists by bombing them.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I can tell that it's pointless to have a discussion with you until you stop being afraid of your own shadow.
Good luck with that.
Completely incorrect. There is nothing the US has or has not done that causes jihadis to hate you. Same with Israel. It is core to Islamic doctrine to hate and subjugate all non-believers. It is a mistake to think it is for any other reason. The other thing is the Arab and Islamic culture respect strength. If you are willing to compromise it shows weakness which they will push to exploit. The only way to earn respect is through strength and fighting at an intense pace that the jihadis can't match. That is the lesson Israel has learned the hard way. There is no quid-pro-quo with jihadi organizations. You can concede but all you get is 'hudna', a temporary respite while they gather strength preparing for the next attack. If you are weak you will not be offered hudna, jihadis take the weak down without remorse. Look at the slaughter of Lebanon. Your statements are nice in theory but just do not match the historical record or reality. There is no compromise with jihadis. Either you win decisively, or they win and you are extinguished. Winding down your offensive means looks like you are losing to jihadis and it emboldens more recruits. So your uninformed guesses about 'inflaming' the locals is wrong and counter to history (eg. see the Sunni Awakening in Anbar where the strength and moral restraint of US forces gained respect and did more than appeasement ever would).
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.
I think you have a rather ignorant view of what's going on, which doesn't match historical record or reality. Support for jihadists in Muslim countries has waxed and waned for various reasons. It's completely sensible, if you want to have an actually fact-based policy which causes improvements, rather than a blind-faith-based policy which makes you feel like you're playing a cool videogame and killin' dem brown people, to look at which U.S. policies contribute to waxing versus waning. And I don't think the "fire-and-forget" use of drones is mainly aimed at that kind of optimization. Rather, it's aimed at getting people reelected (and this goes for whether it's Bush or Obama trying to get reelected).
In short, I think your fondness for action films, and possibly some kind of weird bigotry, is clouding your judgment, which is true of many of my countrymen, to the detriment of America's safety. But killin' dem Muslims gets American politicians elected, so they'll keep doing it even when it's dumb. Shock 'n' awe, duuuuude! Mission accomplished! It's like a bunch of you fucking frat boys are in charge; I'd rather have some adults.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Completely incorrect. There is nothing the US has or has not done that causes jihadis to hate you. Same with Israel. It is core to Islamic doctrine to hate and subjugate all non-believers.
The same applies to other religions too. Yet most practitioners aren't as focused on hating and subjugating, but rather on their everyday business. I think you're overestimating the importance of extremists. Most people there are just trying to survive.
It is a mistake to think it is for any other reason. The other thing is the Arab and Islamic culture respect strength.
You're confusing them with Klingons.
The only way to defeat islamic extremists is to cut them off from manpower and supplies and that can be done only with non-combat means.
.
All the while you'll remain doggedly ignorant of the teachings of the Qur'an that make jihad obligatory for able Muslim males.
Yeah, in the same way that the bible make stoning children to death obligatory for the Christian believer. I can't see the US fighting against fundamentalist Christians. The US is attacking those people because they became a serious threat to the US goals in that region (mainly "We want the oil!"), mostly caused by the US itself by giving money and training to those people some time before, without thinking about the consequences. I don't have to be a "cultural relativist" to see that, these are enemies of the US because the US has made them to enemies, not because of the Qu'ran.
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.
Plenty of FBI in Grand Theft Auto though.
Is that really so different ?
Completely incorrect. There is nothing the US has or has not done that causes jihadis to hate you. Same with Israel. It is core to Islamic doctrine to hate and subjugate all non-believers. It is a mistake to think it is for any other reason. The other thing is the Arab and Islamic culture respect strength. If you are willing to compromise it shows weakness which they will push to exploit. The only way to earn respect is through strength and fighting at an intense pace that the jihadis can't match. That is the lesson Israel has learned the hard way. There is no quid-pro-quo with jihadi organizations. You can concede but all you get is 'hudna', a temporary respite while they gather strength preparing for the next attack. If you are weak you will not be offered hudna, jihadis take the weak down without remorse. Look at the slaughter of Lebanon. Your statements are nice in theory but just do not match the historical record or reality. There is no compromise with jihadis. Either you win decisively, or they win and you are extinguished. Winding down your offensive means looks like you are losing to jihadis and it emboldens more recruits. So your uninformed guesses about 'inflaming' the locals is wrong and counter to history (eg. see the Sunni Awakening in Anbar where the strength and moral restraint of US forces gained respect and did more than appeasement ever would).
Nothing really? Invading Iraq and Afghanistan and installing puppet regimes doesn't count? Western powers have interfered in the Middle East for a long time causing enough for the Arab populous to hate them. After WW1, the British and French having promised Arab independence carved up the middle east leading to decades of oppression. That along with GB promising a Jewish state in Palestine, WW2 and declaration of Israel as a state. The US presence in the region came with the departure of European control leading to Soviet interest in the region. It is all this that led to islamic fundamentalism. The invasion of Kuwait led to the first invasion of Iraq and permanent US military presence in the region which Bin Laden used as a reason for 9/11. Since this point, nothing the US has done in the region has endeared them to the Arabs/Muslims. US interference in the region is driven by resources and not by the welfare of the populations. Organisations like Al Qaeda have benefited from US interference - whether it is true or not CIA funded/trained Al Qaeda directly US presence training forces in the region has allowed them access to it. Overall, the US and the West in general have done a lot for the Middle East population not just 'jihadis' as you call them to hate us. With regard to Israel, without the US backing them they would not be in the position they are in now. No longer the persecuted but now the persecutors. Without the broken promises of the West (GB to be precise), Israel would not exist (at least where it is now). You don't have a clue.
Back to the games.. the FPS modern military shooter is getting way overdone now. Don't think its a bad thing they're banning them. We should probably do the same as it would save us money as they are all the same now. Warfighter was the biggest pile of poo I have played in a long time and CoD is just the same. They should do another BF 2142 or something. That was pretty good with the mechs, pods etc.. and titan mode was great.
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
There is nothing the US has or has not done that causes jihadis to hate you
Okay, let's have a thought experiment. Let's say that some unkown force starts to bomb places in the US. They claim they're targetting only "militants" and warmongerers but every now and again they happen to kill the entire family, a few neughbours etc. Are you telling me that this would not cause everyday citizens to become enraged at whoever it was that was doing this? And that the recruitment officials wouldn't use it as a marketing tactic to get young men (and women) to enlist? Because that's essentially what you're doing right now. And your take on this seems to be along the lines of "well, we can't reason with their ideological leaders, so we might just as well not give a fuck about what the general populace thinks of us."
You're missing something important here: jihadists don't appear out of nowhere. These kids don't list "suicide bomber" as their dream job when they grow up. They're recruited - just like american soldiers. The difference is, recruiting is not exactly hard when you can just walk into a neighborhoodthat recently had a drone strike and find the relatives/friends of those who've died on that strike and start talking to them about vengeance.
So it is a legitimate question to ask whether or not the drone strikes are acutally helping or just making the problem bigger. No matter what the media would often want you to believe the world isn't neatly black and white. Believe it or not the way your foreign policy is conducted affects how people all over the globe judge you and if you're seen as the world police who will use whatever means to destroy those who disagree with it with little to no regard for civillian lives... well, let's just say you're not making life any easier for yourselves.
You tried the "The communists hate because they hate us and you can't reason with them so we must destroy them all" -tactic with much greater force in Vietnam and it failed there. And islam played no part in that whatsoever. All you've done now is replaced the Viet Cong with terrorists/jihadists and communism with islam.
Maybe it's time to try something else? Just a thought.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
Actually, the jihadists don't worry about this, especially if the people accidentally being killed are not particularly sympathetic to their goals. They'd love it if that person's extended family was radicalized and perhaps provided some new recruits. As with the Southern Cause in the US Civil War, some were fighting because they believed in the Southern Way of Life, and some were fighting because they hated the damned Yankee invaders.
Hell, they may consider him an infidel, but even a Muslim fundamentalist jihadi can read Mao. The principles of guerrilla warfare don't change based on ideology.
However, drones are perfect for a modern, relatively unpopular, US war. Air power has always been seen as cheap in terms of lives lost, and in this case you won't have a robot's family sitting outside Obama's house demanding why their robot was killed in some foreign war, even if someone should get lucky and bring one down.
At this point in GWoT, force protection (keeping Americans out of harm's way) is very important, because the American public is starting to get somewhat weary of the whole War, especially as the whole country turns into a dump being looted by politically connected Banksters. Too many body bags, and maybe some oil companies would have to pay bigger markups on their contracts instead of having the US Military strong-arming countries to get them bargain prices.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
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.
You don't actually follow news, do you?
http://www.torontosun.com/2012/11/13/canada-will-burn--fk-the-troops
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
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!
The problem is that the middle east is pretty F-ed up politically, and economically.
It's more analogous to if during prohibition the U.S. government had allied with martians to take down Al Capone and the other gangsters by deploying martian tripods to destroy speakeasies.
The U.S. is undertaking the drone strikes with the permission of the local government and usually the drones launch from that very government's military bases. The local government doesn't like these people any more than the U.S. does, and there's a whole illegal international narcotics and weapons trade that is funding these outlaws.
The main problem is that illegal trade is pretty much the local economy and the U.S. doesn't have the guts to just say "fuck it, we're taking over it's our way or the gallows". Neither do we really have the option of simply ignoring these people and letting them wallow in their own mess because of the oil trade and our alliance with Isrial. It's also true that a fair portion of this mess is our fault as it's a result of the shenanigans the U.S. and U.S.S.R. pulled during the cold war.
The goal of the drone strikes is largely to act as a deterrent. The idea is that if the public at large sees the president of the U.S. crossing names off his "to die" list at a fast enough pace, they'll generally try to avoid getting on that list. And drones are the cleanest way to do that (no U.S. casualties and collateral damage is more limited than any other approach that wouldn't cost american lives.)
Damn Imperialist Canadians!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Bullshit. The jihadis have been art war with every non-Muslim for 1400 years. You are an idiot if you think it is because of something the US did, or the Zionist movement in Palestine. The Muslims hate us and are working to subjugate us and put us in the Islamic social system - and have been doing this for 1400 years. Your argument is complete rubbish (peddled by the political Left because it has common cause with Islam in seeking destruction of existing society).
So it is a legitimate question to ask whether or not the drone strikes are acutally helping or just making the problem bigger. No matter what the media would often want you to believe the world isn't neatly black and white. Believe it or not the way your foreign policy is conducted affects how people all over the globe judge you and if you're seen as the world police who will use whatever means to destroy those who disagree with it with little to no regard for civillian lives... well, let's just say you're not making life any easier for yourselves.
More crap. The drones are a huge issue in Pakistan because the Pakistani ISI *created and support the Taliban* and the drones are so effective at taking the Taliban down. There is also a soveriegnty issue as well, but given the Pakistani ISI are covertly fighting the Free World this is dismissed. The line about drone strikes making more enemies is rubbish. The majority of Afghans want to be rid of the Taliban. If the people in the madrassas are angry who cares? they hate us anyway. Your average ignorant citizen around the world responds to what they are told: and the Left media, for its own reasons, says that opposing violent islamo-fascists is bad (they are idiots because they are ignorant of Islams intended aims). The people around the World are peeved because of the media spin, if they saw the full picture (or are in a country ruined by jihadis) then they vehemently disagree with your leftist point-of-view.
It is clear you don't know very much about the history of Islam or the contemporary situation at all. Hence you defend the indefensible.
It is clear you haven't read the Qur'an and don't understand Islam at all. You are speaking from a position of total ignorance. I hope when the jihadis come for you then you explain how you support them. They might wait for you to finish speaking before they take your head off, like Daniel Pearl etc.
We want the oil!
This is the mantra of the ignorant. Oil is a factor for sure but not the prime motivation of the US. You see, some parts of the US actually do understand what Islam commands (which you clearly do not - and haven't even bothered to check before posting your rubbish statements). The Free World is locked in struggle to the death with the totalitarian, theocratic political ideology called Islam. The Free World already defeated the gloabl threats from right-wing totalitarianism (National Socialism) left-wing totalitarianism (Soviet Communism); and is now engaged in a life-of-death struggle with the aggressive totalitarian ideology called Islam. The Islamic jihadi armies are failing but theior 'cultural jihad' is working quite well. Even you believe the lies ('taqiyya') of the jihadis. Wake up.