Iran Bans Arma 3

[dyre]

When a game gets released that depicts some country like Iran, Russia or China as a horribly evil invader then nobody has any problems with it, but when they release a game that depicts the west as evil then all of the sudden lots of people flip.

I don't recall anyone "flipping out" when a Western nation has been portrayed as the bad guy, but then I don't recall any games that portray Western nations as the bad guy either. The trouble is that in order to have a well-defined bad guy, you need to have a well-defined good guy, and while the US, UK and other nations have done some pretty deplorable things, they've done absolutely nothing even remotely close to what Iran, China, the Soviet Union, North Korea and the usual gang of idiots have pulled over the years. Yes, the Iran-Contra affair was ugly; on the other hand, the Americans never gassed thousands of their citizens.

In order to make it work, you'd have to craft an entirely fictional scenario - the US runs out of water and invades Canada, for instance. (And gets the stupid slapped out of it in the process, btw.) Which could work, but not as a "real world" shooter. Like it or not, in the real world, the Americans are the good guys.

Why do you need a well-defined good guy to have a well-defined bad guy? Just because there's a threat-of-the-hour doesn't mean those who oppose that threat must be shining white knights. They could just be a bunch of countries defending their geopolitical interests but also happening to be on the "lesser evil" side of things.

Plus, you don't really need a fictional scenario to have the US invade a sovereign nation that really did nothing that warrants invasion.

edit: Also, when did Iran gas its own citizens? I think you're confusing it with Iraq, whose leader gassed both its own citizens and Iran's citizens. One might add that the US, in the wake of the Iranian revolution, gave a lot of diplomatic support to Saddam Hussein and actually pushed for the war. We may even have sent them chemicals used in their poison gas.

 

[Phoenix8541]

Notice that the government has a problem with the portrayal yet its citizens do not.

 

[sagitel]

i think the best course of action Iran could take was that they make a game based on arma3(copy the game) and make you play as an Iranian not an American and fighting by the side of Iran. being the good guy and all and then distribute the game in the whole world.

 

[sagitel]

and as my history teacher used to say in history or in our life people are not black and white. they are all gray. different shades of gray but all gray. no one is pure and no one is evil. in games we really like to forget that.especially the modern shooters we see Nazis/Russians/Iranians/north Koreans/ and other enemies portrayed as assholes who only kill and kill and rape and kill. and then there are the good guys. normally Americans who never kill anyone but the enemy who never do anything bad and are pure good. and we see that in Arma3. its not right. yes the Iranian government was a bit extreme on banning (who cares about bans anyway? battlefield 3 was banned and everyone i know has played it)it but you cant blame them either. anyone gets tired of being the bad guys for 30 years. especially if they believe they are the best guys in the world. in my opinion both are wrong.

 

[Mint Rubber]

Like it or not, in the real world, the Americans are the good guys.

First I would like to apologize. It's not my intention to start an argument - I rarely post, but this time I'm compelled to respond.

Andy, I like your articles and I respect you as a gaming journalist, but this comment is youtube level.

For starters: I love my country and I get upset when it's bashed in the news for whatever reason. But to think that it's an unilateral force of good, no I don't think it is. No country is truly black or white.

You have to realize that it's not about good vs evil... no, it's about us vs them. The rest is empathy or lack thereof.

Now... picture yourself (this goes for all of you) - you probably think that you're a good person - not a saint, but an ok fellow (most of us do). You wake up in the morning, eat breakfast then you go to work/school/etc. You do you stuff: you check emails or write reports or whatever it is that you do and then you come home. You play some video games or watch some tv and go to bed. Now imagine that during all of this some guys in some far away country (let's say Iran) are hating you and your countrymen. You ask yourself why... you've never met them and you've done nothing to wrong them - why would they hate you?

Let's try the same exercise of imagination from a different point of view. Again picture yourself as an ok person who never harmed anyone willingly (like most of us like to think of themselves). You do the exact same things: you wake up, go to work/school, you do the things you usually do and then you come home, eat dinner with your family and you go to bed. During all this another group of people form another far away country (let's say America) are hating you and your countrymen. Again you ask yourself why... they have no real reason to hate you as far as you know.

During this exercise neither side realizes that they're an exact mirror of the other side.
Problem is...it's not a mental exercise - it's "the real world" as you put it.

This petty crap is really getting to me... it's bringing the entire human race down.
By now we should be exploring Mars, building colonies in the solar system, researching durable, renewable energy. But no... we have political leaders, media and religious leaders yelling "These guys are our enemies, they hate us so we must hate them!". This is circular logic at it's finest: you've got reasons and the other guys also have reasons - who's got the better reasons? Who's got the real reasons? Who has monopoly over the truth when it comes to relations between countries? Is it the guy with the bigger stick? Thought so... as long as the answer is yes I'll be in the cryogenic freezer.