Iran Bans Battlefield 3

[josemlopes]

These games dont make me fear Iran, or Russia, or North Korea (although that one doesnt need a game to be scary), these games just make me understand how USA sees the world.

USA = video game developers? Idk I, for one, liked the last Iranian guy I met.

I know that the game isnt even american but it falls into that stereotype of USA saves the day crap. And by these games I mean these "realistic (barely though) modern war FPS" games that all surround the US being the hero against some other usual minority.

 

[tehroc]

The map in question further increases animosity towards the West when American sentiment is already extremely low.

 

[Vegosiux]

Remember when Russia invaded Washington in MW2? Remember all the trouble that caused? Good times!

I think it would have caused more trouble if the Russians were presented as the good guys in that one ^^

 

[Robert Ewing]

I guess I can understand their reasoning behind it. Even if it is overreacting a bit.

I mean, it's not cool to have a country that they aren't exactly on good terms with depicting pwning their own citizens. Doesn't do well for international relations.

 

[Siege_TF]

Didn't China ban one of the Command And Conquer games because T. Square gets blown up? That's more of a dramatization than an outright act of fiction.

 

[AstylahAthrys]

Oh yes. My opinions on Iran are directly influenced by its appearance in a video game. Oh what this game has done for my perception on Iran. I fear the nation so greatly now. Oh dear me.

Yeah, seriously, I'm not surprised it was banned. I mean, it's Iran banning a western product that shows the country in a negative fashion. The reasons they state though are borderline silly.

 

[The Man With the Soap]

Instead of banning the game, Iran should make a state-sponsored game with the United States as the bad guys to counter Battlefield 3, kicking off the first installment in what is to become the great Iranian-American Video Game Rivalry.

I would play this. What say you, America? a game where you play as a freedom fighter for a downtrodden emerging nation that gets invaded by the American's for morally ambiguous reasons?

Nope. I would rather play as the Americans.

 

[Gmans uncle]

This feels appropriate...

Honestly, this is IRAN we're talking about here. It's a wonder it ever made it there.

 

[thepyrethatburns]

Remember when Russia invaded Washington in MW2? Remember all the trouble that caused? Good times!

I think it would have caused more trouble if the Russians were presented as the good guys in that one ^^

and detonated a thermonuclear weapon on U.S. soil.....or, at the very least, attacked New York in less of an ass-stupid manner.

 

[Andronicus]

I just understood what the picture meant.

...
...
...and you're a horrible, horrible man.

OT: Poor Middle East. They just can't catch a break, can they? Hell, they can't even play videogames without being shot at by Americans.

 

[octafish]

Why is there what looks like a picture of Malcolm Mclaren accompanying this story?

Because Andy Chalk is a lover of terrible puns? (Hint: Flock of Seagulls, not Malcolm McLaren).

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Battlefield 3 has a single-player campaign?

 

[Moosejaw]

Unfortunately it seems the youth organizing that petition are as ignorant about the people buying that game as we as a society are about Iranians in general. The truth is that we've been conditioned to view the entire Middle East as a cauldron of evil boogeymen who want to blow us up because (and ONLY because) we don't make our women wear burkas.

So, they're a convenient enemy to put into a video game. Blowing up Tehran has exactly as much meaning for us as being in a game where you kill demons in hell. That's the simple of it, depressing as it is. That's why we don't care about indiscriminately bombing civilians in the Middle East for poorly justified and antiquated reasons, because it's not like they're people anyway.

 

[brazuca]

The men who gives the orders to blow shit up, the men and women who command the world do not play or care for video game. In fact I do not recall seeing the Ayatollah Musavi Khomeini saying anything about weapons. What about the restrictions to the coalision for attacking a country and desrespecting international laws?

See world politics works in two standards. Video games do not set them. It's just a stupid ban, Iran should be more concerned with things like not allowing terrorist hide in their territory so the US do not blame Iran and invade them.

 

[Sixties Spidey]

I'm unsurprised, given that the people that run that country are, for lack of a better term, nucking futs.

 

[Zach of Fables]

You know, I hear there aren't any gays there either.

 

[geizr]

Sometimes, there are things you just shouldn't do at particular moments and under particular circumstances, particularly because of how others may be affected. Being able to discern when such moments and circumstances occur requires empathy(not the same as sympathy), which is the ability to understand and account for another person's perspective on things.

 

[Moosejaw]

Iran should be more concerned with things like not allowing terrorist hide in their territory so the US do not blame Iran and invade them.

That is certainly NOT why they're saber-rattling at Iran and illustrates my earlier point.

 

[Dutch 924]

"We understand that the story of a videogame is hypothetical... [but] we believe the game is purposely released at a time when the U.S. is pushing the international community into fearing Iran,"

Yes Iran, you're right. This is all a massive conspiracy to make the world declare war against you. Gold stars for everyone

 

[Zetatrain]

These games dont make me fear Iran, or Russia, or North Korea (although that one doesnt need a game to be scary), these games just make me understand how USA sees the world.

Really?...I think you're taking these games a little bit too seriously if that's the case.