Medal of Honor: Taliban Dropped

EA was deffo right,

Firstly they respected the wishes of those that opposed the thought of a real life terrorist killing a solider that still will happen but placed more into fantasy situation which people should be able to accept easier, secondly what difference will it make to game play, none that's what, who ever was buying the game on the basis that you could be a Taliban soldier was obviously a loser who was going to gun his school down anyhow, I dont see this as a lose for gamers, once again its the games industry respecting the public opinion and as such it should be seen as a win, showing that the games industry can respect the wishes of others and are not in it purely for the cash ins.

I wonder if the papers will report that the game is removing the taliban. On one hand, it looks like they won. On the other more inportant hand, games look less evil. I don't think this will be mentioned anywhere else but games websites.

It is a nice bit of promotion for the game though. Plenty of coverage and they look the good guys by the end of it.

Of course they will report it, and they will spin it like they usually do, fuelling more s**te for the games industry, my previous post isn't about letting the papers do and say what they want my post is about the understanding of the general public's reaction to this,

Its like WWII games, we can be a German solider and kill American and British troops, it makes it no less or greater than this but.... the social situation of the world is very tense on this subject of course it will cause s**t, the thing is this is happening right now somewhere in a middle eastern country a American troop is either being shot at or has been shot, its about respecting the current situation and climate of our society by simply removing this game from the harsh reality of today and making it fantasy again it should be enough (although I know it wont be), and one day in the future it will be fine to make games with Taliban just as it is to make games with the Axis.

Games aren't the be all and end all and sure freedom of speech and all that but sometimes we should just respect others, even if they don't respect us.

and personally I don't want any part of the ignorance bashing, as I am and everyone else is ignorant about something, it doesnt make someone wrong or stupid, it just requires patients and education.

I think the story should be told how EA wanted to tell it. The only difference between this and WW2 games is that it's "too soon", meaning it's acceptable before the event (being fiction or prediction) or a while after it.

In my opinion the original idea for this game is no worse than the 9/11 movie.

But since they're renaming the opposing team, they might as well have gone for "Balitan".

None of it has anything more uplifting or degrading about it than "What will the market bear?" Art, politics, realism, making the industry mature and confident enough to stand by what it initially proposed... nope. This was a cold, hard decision taken at board level and based entirely on sales impact.

cheers

Tim

I don't want to sound clinical or disrespectful but EA has known this has been an issue with the game for a while now it's hardly a recent development. Now with only a few weeks to go (before release) they change the name, citing beta testers as the main reason for it.

This to me looks like a business decision designed to generate more hype before the launch!

And you know this how, So if a game dev decided that it wanted to use child pornography in a game in graphical detail, I suppose that it being removed by peer pressure then it would be the industry not being mature or confident enough to stand by what it started with, are all things socially acceptable to a gamer over the publics opinion can all things can cross all forms of entertainment?

Using child pornography in anything is illegal. Therefore a publisher would have no choice but to (a) report the dev in question (b) not use child pornography in their product. It's not an analogy that works.

The initial choice to put Taliban in the game as playable MP-characters was either deliberately targeted at arousing contention or was a management failure to gauge the mood of certain areas of the US public. Or more exactly to gauge the mood of the representatives of certain groups of the US Public. From the look of it, it was the latter.

Less than a month ago, EA CEO John Riccitiello said that no one had noticed the Taliban... "until a journalist decided to put the game box in front of a mom who'd lost her son in Afghanistan to create some controversy..."

He noted that the controversy, "says more about the newspapers than it does the game industry. Having said that we're incredibly sensitive to the challenges that a non-gamer who doesn't really understand what I've just described might imagine when a journalist who also doesn't understand a game describes it to her."

A few week's later and - apparently - it's not a newspaper's fault at all. It's deference to the fallen (in fact dead men and women, very few of whom fell anywhere) that forces a name change but the ability to KILL allied troops is retained.

So, what we're supposed to believe is that the fallen (dead people) and their families don't mind seeing Allied troops killed, they simply object to the name 'Taliban'. In short, the enemy get rebranded but the killing continues.

If a rebranding isn't a cold, hard business decision, I don't know what is. If EA wanted to really consider the feelings of the fallen (real dead people) and their families, then the ability to kill them would have been removed as well.

Cheers

Tim

bitches! I can't believe that they caved at this point.

I was very surprised that they caved in, even with all the money in their coffers, and all they money FiFA, Madden, NHL, The Sims 3 and Dead Space 2 are due to earn them soon. I'm not a heartless bastard, but I wish that people would educate themselves, instead of blindly following the tv news. Soldiers die in a conflict, but they die doing what they love to do, under orders from an higher power (that's not always right, as we know). Those loved ones left behind, I feel, naturally find it hard to deal with their loss, that anyone or thing against these conflicts shouldn't be heard. What they miss, is that we can't understand the big picture of anything, without looking unbiasedly at both sides etc.

EA should have stuck to their guns, and a few days from release, shows that they clearly don't care about what gamers really think on this. When we will be buying their product, we don't get a say in it al, and that's wrongl. However, the flip side of this crap, is that EA could just as easily offer the Taliban name back later with MoH DLC. This way, those that want it, can have it, and those that don't can avoid it, if it upsets them.

Again, I hope that the Taliban campaign is still on the dvd, and will stand up well, and not be gimped to hell, to meet the minds of those who don't even play games.

And the most upsetting thing, is we gamers, can't trust either EA or Activision now. Buy their games if you like them, but they are not your friend at all, just another cold, black hearted business, who'll lube up for anyone, for free.

i think EA have done the right thing. i'm all for computer game freedom of speech. but we are still at war with the taliban and hence getting "fun" from playing a computer game that is based on the conflict is dodgy ground. i think this small edit will be enough to save the game from the critics and those who are personally effected by the war.

We're not at war with the Taliban. The US are at war with whoever might stop them benefiting from oil from the Afghanistan pipelines. Doesn't matter if it's the Taliban, the French Foreign Legion or the Girl Scouts. If anyone seeks to destabilise an area America gets oil from, they are "the enemy". The Taliban is an insurgent group, fighting for values the US doesn't understand understand (OK those values may be anathema to western liberals, but if they were equally unpalatable to Afghan Muslims, the Taliban would have no support), against a government the US could not care less about, in a country that 99.7% of American's could not point to on a map. If it wasn't for oil, the US would not be there.

without getting into the finer details of international politics i should point out afganistan doesn't currently have large oil fields, thats iraq. the invasion is more likely as a knee jerk reaction to 9/11 back up with a drive to erradicate an aggressive regime of the taliban who rule viciously especially in regards to womens rights and human rights in general. also to find a certain taliban leader.
I just don't think it is sensible to base a game on a conflict the UK is still involved in.

Where in my post did it say ANYTHING about oil fields?

I'm happy to discuss the "finer points" of world politics. But if we are gong to do that, I'd appreciate it if you didn't put words into my mouth. I never mentioned Afghan oil fields. The word I used is pipeline. Afghanistan is incredibly strategically important in transporting the hydrocarbon wealth of Turkmenistan and the Caspian Sea to the Arabian Sea.

If the US hates the Taliban so much for idealogical reasons, how come they were perfectly happy to do business with them in the 1990s when US oil company Unocal was favoured to construct a new gas pipeline across the country?

Only when that deal broke down, and the Taliban were identified as the cause did the US seek a reason to invade Afghanistan and oust the Taliban, to pave the way for the pipeline project. 9/11 gave them the perfect excuse. They even engineered former Unocal advisor Hamid Karzai into the role of Interim President of Afghanistan.

The US could not give a f**k about human rights or sex discrimination in Afghanistan. If they did, there are dozens of other countries they would need to invade on similar grounds. The war is about oil (and gas).

Yep sure is going to be fun in the future as that oil (and gas) disappears.

apologies i did miss the pipeline bit but I replied to the "If anyone seeks to destabilise an area America gets oil from, they are "the enemy"" .

I still believe there is a little more to 'they screwed up our oil pipeline lets go get them.' but i wont deny that is a factor. i firmly believe the invasion was as revenge for 9/11 to hunt down osama and to make it seem like the US would do something if attacked hence why it did so within a month.

I agree with the 9/11 position, it made America appear weak in the eyes of the world or at least America thought it did, or should we Say Bush thought it did, so how does America show its not weak, well like all bullies do, kick the s**t out of a weaker country, not to say I don't think Oil was a major factor too, but Bush had all ready shown how large his penis was by invading Iraq to `protect the Kurdish and remove nuclear threat (ha)` and sure Sadam was taken down along with his sons so that made it look like America got a result, and by chance they take control of the country and oil fields and also appoint a government that they thought was acceptable, of course the troops did as they were told and America was shown to be a savour of the middle east, so next on the list was the Taliban (and protection of American assets aka a big f**king pipe), and 9/11 provided a nice scape goat.


A favourite quote of mine from a Iraq Citizen during a news report is "I have nothing against the American people its your Government that i hate"

But my point is, America already WANTED to attack Afghanistan. 9/11 was an ideal excuse. But if 9/11 had not happened, they'd have found another reason.

Remember, they attacked Iraq for WMD that DID NOT EXIST. If they had not been able to claim that Usama bin Laden was in Afghanistan, they'd have fabricated some other pretext.

The US does not care about the atrocities the Taliban allegedly visits on the population of Afghanistan, the US does not invade a country for sex discrimination and human right violations. If they did, they'd have invaded Algeria, Brazil, Burundi, Colombia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Liberia, Nigeria, many countries of the Middle East, Congo, Russia, Uganda, China, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Cuba, Kenya, Sudan, Panama, Macedonia, Turkey, Ukraine, Iran, Pakistan, Tunisia, Vietnam ...

If the Taliban would come to the table and support a US backed oil pipeline in Afghanistan, and pay some lip service to moderation, they could get back into power, and abuse Afghan women's rights all they likes, the US would not give a damn.

And that's why I think it's wrong to say that America is at war with the Taliban. The idealogical differences are secondary to the economic ones. THe UK, of course, just does what it's told.

Let me be clear. I support the troops. Not the war. Young men and women should not be forced to go to a foreign country to die in order to perpetuate some politician's backhanders from the oil industry. On the other hand, our troops should have the conscience to refuse to fight in immoral wars. They are there to protect us from invasion, not extend our colonial ambitions.

The thing is, if we invest sufficiently in renewables, we can reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons. But right now, the big money is invested in hydrocarbons, and they need to keep us addicted.

There is HUGE money to be made in battery and generation technology, but it requires huge investment. It needs government backed projects... but in a world where people do not want to pay taxes, governments are being forced to cut back, so it is down to the private sector. They are making progress, but what we really need is major renewable infrastructure projects. It WILL happen, indeed it is happening: the UK opened the world largest offshore wind generation plant recently. But it will only really take off when the price of oil rises to the point that renewable energy is price competitive, and that's some way off unless we have some pretty big breakthroughs.

But we can massively reduce our reliance on hydrocarbons... it's water that will be the problem. If global population continues to climb like it is, some places are gonna run out of water, and there's no alternative to that!