Video Game Pulled Globally From Military Stores Over Taliban Inclusion

[LazerFlash]

Video Game Pulled Globally From Military Stores Over Taliban Inclusion (http://kotaku.com/5628741/gamestop-pulls-video-game-from-military-stores-over-taliban-inclusion)

All stores located on Army and Air Force bases around the world will no longer be allowed to sell EA's newest release in the "Medal of Honor" series. This is solely because the multi-player mode requires one side to assume the role of Taliban fighters... an arguably necessary component of the game's play. In an email to employees, GameStop says the decision was made "out of respect for our past and present men and women in uniform".

So, I have to ask: If this is a matter of respect for those in uniform, how is this 'feature' any different from any of the dozens of other first-person-shooters that allow (or require) the end-user to play from the opposing side? There are games apparently acceptable to the Army and Air Force Exchange Services where the player can kill Americans as everything from a Nazi to a Kamikaze to a Confederate raider. So, what's different about the Taliban?

[Tony]

Clearly just a publicity stunt. MOH has never had a decent multiplayer component anyway.

[LazerFlash]

Clearly just a publicity stunt.On whose part? Although it certainly makes some sense in hindsight, I doubt anyone at EA thought this through ahead of time. If anything, this close to the 9th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of 9-11-2001, the publicity could easily be more negative than positive.


MOH has never had a decent multiplayer component anyway.Clearly that's irrelevant... If anything, that observation would tend to bleed support from AAES.

[Kensey]

There are games apparently acceptable to the Army and Air Force Exchange Services where the player can kill Americans as everything from a Nazi to a Kamikaze to a Confederate raider. So, what's different about the Taliban?

Well, Confederates were arguably Americans, so... And all of those other wars were at least a generation ago. Even if the only difference between fighting Americans with the Taliban and fighting Americans with Nazi Germany is 60-odd years, it's still a significant difference in offensiveness quotient.

There's also the fact that in none of those three cases did the fighters want to wipe out America as a nation -- all were fighting us only to pursue other aims in the respective wars (keeping Europe, holding on to East Asia and the Pacific Islands, or just trying to leave the US).

[Tony]

There's also the fact that in none of those three cases did the fighters want to wipe out America as a nation -- all were fighting us only to pursue other aims in the respective wars (keeping Europe, holding on to East Asia and the Pacific Islands, or just trying to leave the US). WTF? I guess you might argue the American South just wanted to secede in peace, but I think you're mistaken if you don't think both Japan and Hitler fully expected to take over America eventually.

Anyway, it's just a game. Someone's gotta play the Bad Guys. It's just a different set of weapons and models.

[Kensey]

WTF? I guess you might argue the American South just wanted to secede in peace, but I think you're mistaken if you don't think both Japan and Hitler fully expected to take over America eventually.

Japan, at least, knew better (or their upper-echelon military did, at any rate). The plan was to hit us hard at Pearl as a delaying action to keep us down long enough for them to consolidate power across the western Pacific. Then by the time we were ready, they'd have (in theory) dug in enough that we wouldn't want to get into it. In other words they were counting on our natural isolationism that kept us out of most of WWI.

Unfortunately for Japan, nobody holds a grudge like us -- I fully expect that if America is still around in 3000 AD, there will still be Confederate-flag decals on cars, people will still talk about Europe not speaking German because of us, and we will still be making surrender jokes about the French. Yamamoto knew this, and advised the Japanese high command that if they insisted on their nutty plan, he could "run wild" for 18 months, but that was about the limit and if we pressed the war beyond that, we were guaranteed to win eventually. In fact it was about 18 months after Pearl Harbor that Yamamoto himself was killed in action as a result of US decryption of pretty much all Japanese "secure" communications, including Yamamoto's itinerary.

Hitler was increasingly nutty as time went on, but he had several near-miss internal assassination attempts originating in his own officer corps as it was. If he'd actually tried to invade the US in force, it's likely large elements of his military would have openly revolted.

Personally, I think it's likely we would have stayed out of WWII entirely if Japan hadn't bombed Pearl Harbor -- there was certainly tension between Japan and the US but it hadn't broken into a shooting war yet. If something had motivated us to get in, it's quite likely that Hitler would have developed transatlantic rockets by that point, giving us a strong incentive to stay out of "Europe's internal affairs".

[LazerFlash]

Well, Confederates were arguably Americans, so... And all of those other wars were at least a generation ago. Even if the only difference between fighting Americans with the Taliban and fighting Americans with Nazi Germany is 60-odd years, it's still a significant difference in offensiveness quotient.

There's also the fact that in none of those three cases did the fighters want to wipe out America as a nation -- all were fighting us only to pursue other aims in the respective wars (keeping Europe, holding on to East Asia and the Pacific Islands, or just trying to leave the US).I picked those three only because I knew for a fact that there were historical FPS games allowing side-switching in those wars. My nephews, who are REALLY into the genre tell me that there are games that take place in virtually every war from Roman Legion times well into the future - including such recent fields of battle as Bosnia and Somalia. While not all allow the user to play against American forces (or allies), many do.

While I get that there is some level of difference between an enemy our parents or grand-parents fought and the Taliban. But, it's not *that* big a philosophical difference. Personally, I think that it has very little to do with respect for men and women in American uniforms. Rather, I'd put money on it being just one more example of Islamophobia.