EA Boss Was "Surprised" By Medal of Honor Uproar

Skratt

New member
Dec 20, 2008
824
0
0
Lets see.

We can play as and/or kill Nazi, Korean, Japanese, small island dictator/drug cartels and cowboys and Indians, but play as the TALIBAN to kill Americans in a war game? OMFGWTFBBQ!?!?!?

High likelihood of hypocrisy in progress.
 

AngryFrenchCanadian

New member
Dec 4, 2008
428
0
0
rockyoumonkeys said:
What a liar. That crap was put in there deliberately to cause exactly this kind of uproar, considering what it did for Modern Warfare 2.
Look, you play a game where you fight the Taliban in single player. Who do you think was going to be the faction opposing the Marine in the multiplayer component of the game? I doubt John Riccitiello really didn't expect that there could be a controversy, but it's not like he could've done anything about it, not without changing the whole design of the game or removing the multiplayer...

In short:
MichiganMuscle77 said:
Medal of Honor multiplayer has ALWAYS been Axis vs. Allies.

Who is the Axis in this case? The Taliban. It's sort of a no-brainer, this is the MoH formula.
 

Canid117

New member
Oct 6, 2009
4,075
0
0
rockyoumonkeys said:
Canid117 said:
rockyoumonkeys said:
Woodsey said:
Are you seriously saying that MW2 wouldn't have sold so well if not for some stupid little controversy?
Yes. It still would have sold extremely well, but it absolutely gained a boost from the controversy.
MW2 sold because it was the sequel to one of the most beloved shooters off all time. The controversy may have boosted early awareness before ads started coming out and so increased pre-order sales but it was going to sell better than most other games ever have regardless. If there was a mission where you played as the Taliban I might agree with you but it is just multi-player. The real reason they put this in is because, hey someone had to be the bad guys.
I didn't dispute any of this. Yes, MW2 would have still sold very well. Yes, it would have become one of the best selling games ever regardless. But the controversy absolutely boosted awareness, and it also boosted curiosity. The controversy certainly changed, in some peoples' minds, the perception of CoD from that of a generic war shooter to something more complex and thus more interesting.

Look, I'm not saying either game is deserving of this controversy. I'm just saying that it baffles me that anyone is surprised by it, especially EA's boss.
If someone didn't hear of MW2 until the story on Fox then they were not going to buy it anyway. They are baffled by this controversy because of how incredibly retarded it is even by "Think of the children" standards. No one complains about the Taliban in MW2 (And they are in MW2's Afghanistan levels and multiplayer maps) or those wacky nazis in WWII shooters. So why complain here? There are reasons it is just that all of them are dumber than the hicks in Deliverance.
 

Sephiwind

Darth Conservative
Aug 12, 2009
180
0
0
Well this game does take place in modern time. Who the hell else would U.S. and U.K. military be fighting? Would it have been any less controversial had they decided to have U.S. & U.K. soldiers killing each other in multi-player mode? Or better yet what kind of storm would be brewing had they had U.S. troops killing other U.S. troops in the multi-player mode? People seriously need a reality check.
 

z3rostr1fe

New member
Aug 14, 2009
590
0
0
The way he described the journalist was like describing a reporter who works for "The Day Today". Made me lol. :D
 

Mr. Omega

ANTI-LIFE JUSTIFIES MY HATE!
Jul 1, 2010
3,902
0
0
Three things:
1: While I do think the guy is being honest, he should have seen this coming. The media is constantly making games a target because shit like this makes it easy.
2: Dude, we've had games where we've played as a Nazi killing Americans, an (whatever the things in GoW) killing (presumed) Americans, Other Americans killing Americans, and even other Terrorists killing Americans. WHAT MAKES THIS NEW?
3: Those journalists are assholes for showing those images to people they well knew would be offended. It would be like me showing a mother a picture of her dead son. Who is at fault for offending her? The photo for portraying her son, or me for showing it?
 
May 1, 2010
93
0
0
I myself find it surprising that Ricci didn't anticipate the presence of hypocrites, outrage whores and just plain good old fashioned idiots.

But I share his thoughts, for people to get offended over this when there are films, books and songs that are a lot deeper than an inch thick body variant in an FPS is absolutely ridiculous.

However, sheep exist on both sides of the fence, take for example the bandwagon thinkers in this thread still thinking its hip and trendy to slag EA off, when they have no idea why they should be slagging them off apart from the generic "because they're an evil company, they release games for profit" bullshit.

This all boils down to the fact that Taliban are presented in an "equal light" to the America, and that they can even "best" them in this fake arena that means sweet fuck all. American literature and media has such a God complex that it will creatively rewrite history (I'll leave the most obvious film: Pearl Harbour for your consideration) to make it seem indomitable and anything that contradicts this is Satanism.

But in a world where people are "too busy" to think for themselves, and feel that they must get offended because they are instructed to do so - this is a lost conversation piece and one not really worth the attention. Like a naughty child, as soon as you stop shouting, the child gets bored.

Perhaps I should show Cooking Mama to one of my vegetarian friends and see if they are offended by the use of butchered dead animals, cut into slices merely for my amusement of making fake dishes.

Excuse my swearing, but this is such crap its difficult to swallow.
 

WelshDanny

New member
May 10, 2010
319
0
0
But to put it in a little context, there are war movies released all the time.

Does the media get into a fit about actors playing enemy soldiers?
 

Striker Vulsine

New member
Apr 27, 2009
11
0
0
What gets my goat is that there's already been a game with the taliban and even iraqi insugents as playable factions. A game where you can plant ieds, use car bombs while playing jihadist propoganda music, and kill surrendering soldiers (though another player has yo conciously drop their weapon for that to happen) and no one's said a thing. This whloe contraversy was stirred up because some guy wanted to impress his editor and the 24 hour news media saw a chance to make a buck. I applaud ea's pres for telling it like it is

Edit: the game is the current and upcoming mod for bf2 and arma2 called Project Reality
 

Kukakkau

New member
Feb 9, 2008
1,898
0
0
rockyoumonkeys said:
What a liar. That crap was put in there deliberately to cause exactly this kind of uproar, considering what it did for Modern Warfare 2.
It's really not they put in the Taliban because they were going to use some of stories from the Tier 1 Operators that they worked with on the game. They said all the time changing the name to Nonameistan would feel like disrespecting them.

Medal of Honour isn't going for controversial hype - they're merely trying to respect the soldiers fighting overseas by not having to censor story based on their fight.

Also don't compare it to MW2's level where you have a level you can skip where all you really do is gun down innocents (also starts making the plot make no sense)
 

rockyoumonkeys

New member
Aug 31, 2010
1,527
0
0
Let me amend my original statement. Whether or not it was put into the game to deliberately stir this kind of controversy aside, EA is still THRILLED about it.

EA's boss is still a liar (or stupid), because he absolutely should have anticipated this. But they're all thrilled about it, because it means more attention for their game. And unlike MW2, this one wasn't necessarily going to be a huge instant hit, so it's getting a much bigger boost from its controversy than MW2 did.

I also don't buy the "respect" argument. I don't see how letting people play as the taliban killing American soldiers makes them feel "respected". Yeah, it would have been awkward to work around this; you can't remove multiplayer, and you can't remove or rename the bad guys, but still, this isn't about "respect".

And if I recall, I read a story where they DID censor themselves already: they were going to put in a certain true event, but the person/people involved didn't want it in there, so they took it out. Clearly those involved wouldn't have felt "respected" by having their troubles serve as entertainment for consumers.
 

Blackjack 222

New member
Dec 2, 2009
386
0
0
Dragonborne88 said:
Randy11517 said:
EA has a boss!?!?!?!?

I always assumed it was run by a horde of about 50-60 bipolar chimps with brain damage.
I didn't realize making fun of EA was still the cool thing to do, now a days. And here I've seen EA as the bright light in the game creativity department, especially when put up against that other company...what was the name...oh right, Activision...

EA has been on a road of improvement since a few years ago. And that was after the new management took a hold of the company. Don't even pretend that EA is the great evil of the game development world anymore when the President of Activision says stupid stuff on a daily basis.
Improved but still terrible, Activision is no better.
 

antipunt

New member
Jan 3, 2009
3,035
0
0
SirBryghtside said:
It's not Carr that was in the wrong, he didn't mean to offend anyone - it's the papers, for spreading it to the people who will be affected most.

This news post is disturbingly similar to that story.

Source [http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/nov/05/jimmy-carr-paralympics-joke]
Annoying, but true. Alas, tis la vie.