Despite Homefront, THQ VP Critical of Taliban in Medal of Honor

mb16

make cupcakes not bombs
Sep 14, 2008
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Catalyst6 said:
England deciding that they wanted their land back, then taking it.
I take offence to this! anyway if we were going to invade anywhere it would be Canada or Australia. not you smelly country :D
 

Taluien

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Apr 15, 2009
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The thing I would like to see is a game based on the Afghanistan War... but, mind you, the one between Russia and the Mujahideen. Would be interesting how people would argue against that. I mean, on one side we have the bad communist hordes of oppression, on the other the (secretly helped by America) freedom fighters of Afghanistan. Hooray for the "towelheads" (not meant offensive, just trying to sarcastically paraphrase the view of many ignorants on the people in that region), right? Oh, hey, look, it's our glorious leader, Osama Bin Laden... oh wait...

Could make for a pretty interesting game if told right, and for quite a strange discussion about the whole thing.

But I doubt anyone would ever touch this in the next years.
 

Terramax

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Jan 11, 2008
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Taluien said:
But I doubt anyone would ever touch this in the next years.
Sign me up.

Seriously, a game like that would actually spark my interest. But I'm sure both countries represented would have something to say about being exploited in such a way.

Also, typically the Americans would be made at as saviours which would ruin it all.
 

lewiswhitling

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May 18, 2009
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i'd say there was a huge difference between cashing in on a real life event to get more sales, and inventing fictional scenarios to project storytelling. It all comes down to intention - imagine if a game featured a depiction of the houses of parliment being blown up. Owing to the fact that the houses of parliment have never actually been destroyed in this way, the intention here is to project a fantastical departure from reality, designed to excite the player's imagination.

Now imagine that a game decided to put in the world trade center being destroyed, with a vivid reconstruction of planes flying into it, and people jumping from the windows etc. Suddenly, there is no fantastical departure, because this actually happened. The intention here isnt to propel a player into a compelling fiction, it's simply a short cut to generating very real feelings of sadness, controversy, and a bunch more publicity.

Honestly, i cannot think of any other reason why a coperation like EA would put the chance to fight as taliban into the game. If they were proposing to do it in a way which handled the subject matter in a more sensitive manner, with the intention to deliver a multi-sided narrative that didnt rely on seeing american soldiers being blown up, then i wouldnt mind. But the fact is that they wanted it in to excite some controversy about the fact that you can kill americans in a modern day conflict - exactly the kind of economics driven, non-moral approach to media coverage that we should be criticising.
 

nipsen

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Sep 20, 2008
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lewiswhitling said:
But the fact is that they wanted it in to excite some controversy about the fact that you can kill americans in a modern day conflict - exactly the kind of economics driven, non-moral approach to media coverage that we should be criticising.
..of course, your sense of morality conveniently missed out on the last 500 "let's kill our enemies in various wars, fictional or otherwise, with super-marines from the United States" titles for some reason. Why is that?
 

lewiswhitling

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May 18, 2009
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nipsen said:
lewiswhitling said:
But the fact is that they wanted it in to excite some controversy about the fact that you can kill americans in a modern day conflict - exactly the kind of economics driven, non-moral approach to media coverage that we should be criticising.
..of course, your sense of morality conveniently missed out on the last 500 "let's kill our enemies in various wars, fictional or otherwise, with super-marines from the United States" titles for some reason. Why is that?
As i said, i regard it as a matter of intentionality. Games are often about states of war, in the same way as movies are set about them. But the difference is that theyre generally not doing it purely as a means to be controversial, and so boost sales. What i object to, is a company who obviously saw the naming of a playable faction as "taliban", to be a potential means of generating exposure.

They didnt do it for any artistic purpose, it was just to generate hype, hence why they folded so quickly once they realised that the backlash may actually be counter productive in marketing the product. Had they stuck with it, i might be inclined to think that perhaps there was a genuine point to it, beyond being controversial.

The same goes for any other artistic medium, when someone tries to take shortcuts to become hyped through controversy. Whilst i wouldnt condone censoring them, i certainly wouldnt regard them as a product of good taste, or real quality for that matter.
 

Ranchcroutons

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Sep 12, 2010
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This guy seems to not understand quite was he is implying when he gets all offended like this. On the other hand I will agree that the article is quite biased.
 

Thorvan

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May 15, 2009
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Loonerinoes said:
Irridium said:
So... he doesn't want to see things from the perspective of the other side of a conflict because it clashes with his "they're completely bad, we're completely good" views?

*sigh*
That's all this is about. Doesn't matter who the hell it is, it's just the fact that you get to play for a side that has ties to RL events and that is given the opportunity to beat the crap out of AMERI-KAY!

Honestly...some of these days someone should just make a videogame that supposes America's imperialism going wild in the future by trying to take over the world and a league of nations has to stop it, with China at the helm. Player gets a chance to play both sides, but either side you play and whoever wins it all because of your actions - the end is always a dark one. China winds up doing the exact same America would only in a slightly different way with more pretense on Communism, but really using the same kinds of imperial strategies.

I'd love to see these 'politically-correct' hypocrites throw one massive shit-fit over a game like that.
...

Err, Fallout?
 

mekanic5

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Apr 21, 2010
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Cousin_IT said:
It's okay because the USA isn't losing in the Korean peninsula atm.

Ummm, yeah, we'll just completely ignore the South Korean army there. Sure, they wont' do a thing when the T-55s roll across the border and either break down or run out of gas.
 

guntotingtomcat

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Jun 29, 2010
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So, it's not okay to fight on the side that's willing to kill and die for their belief.
It is okay to fight on the side that are willing to kill and die for money?
 

DTWolfwood

Better than Vash!
Oct 20, 2009
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hope the man realizes what EA did was simply creating publicity for itself when they OK'd the naming of the opposing force "Taliban"

They knew the reaction they would get from the get go. If they didn't, everyone in their PR department needs to be fired.
 

thethingthatlurks

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Feb 16, 2010
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Akalabeth said:
thethingthatlurks said:
How is a soldier, regardless of nationality, either a hero or a villain? They're nothing but mindless tools, who carry out the orders of their superiors (at least in the grand scheme of things). There is no fundamental difference between playing an allied or a german (note: not nazi and/or SS) soldier in ww2, except for the inevitably hilarious accent in which the orders are given. This guy's an idiot..
You ever seen Das Boot? There's a reason they all die at the end.
I have, actually. 'course, the reason they all die is to 1) symbolize germany's defeat, and 2) to reiterate the pointlessness of war. I'm afraid I don't quite see how that's related to the hero/villain dichotomy.