Let's ban Taliban game

[Castout]

http://latestnews.virginmedia.com/ne...ban_video_game

Gamers are apparently instructed to stop the coalition "at all costs", and receive points for every allied troop they kill.

Dr Fox said: "It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the Taliban. At the hands of the Taliban, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands.

He's forgetting one important factor,

that people could play as the British forces too.

Let me rephrase what he said from the British forces side in MOH(no offence to British people just trying to make a point that a game is a game and should not be brought into politics or politicized)




Gamers are apparently instructed to stop the Taliban "at all costs", and receive points for every taliban they kill.

Dr xoF said: "It's shocking that someone would think it acceptable to recreate the acts of the British Forces. At the hands of the British Forces, children have lost fathers and wives have lost husbands.


And the Taliban would now ban this game too!




Tuuuuuupid is what stupid does.

[Flaxpants]

I agree 100%. In my opinion, allowing you to play as the Taliban as well as the British shows neutrality on the part of the game producers, and frankly, more open mindedness than this 'Dr'.
Games are for fun, what they have done is remove all doubt that their game is in anyway a piece of propoganda. I think they have actually de-politicised their game by doing this. Good for them.

Fair's fair and all that.

[Takeda Shingen]

I don't know about boycotting and whatnot, but it does seem to me that making a game when you can play as a faction such as the Taliban at this time does strike me as poor marketing decision. Maybe a better idea in 10 or 15 years, but now is too close to a lot of people's hearts.

[Dowly]

There's plenty of games out there that have taken the basic layout from the 'war on terror', the faction just isn't called "taliban", but 'insurgents' or 'x' rebels.

Big deal, it's a game.


Didn't we have something similar about Battlefield 2, year or so ago?

[TarJak]

Originally Posted by Dowly

There's plenty of games out there that have taken the basic layout from the 'war on terror', the faction just isn't called "taliban", but 'insurgents' or 'x' rebels.

Big deal, it's a game.


Didn't we have something similar about Battlefield 2, year or so ago?

and in the BF1942 mod pack as well IIRC with the Iraqi campaign.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Dowly

There's plenty of games out there that have taken the basic layout from the 'war on terror', the faction just isn't called "taliban", but 'insurgents' or 'x' rebels.

Big deal, it's a game.


Didn't we have something similar about Battlefield 2, year or so ago?

I'm not saying that it is unacceptable; just that it is probably not a good idea now. Could you imagine a Vietnam video game being released in 1975?

[TarJak]

No my IBM 5100 portable wouldn't run it due to an error in the basic compiler.



Seriously though the difference here is that in the 20 years of the wars in Vietnam, computer games were not really part of popular culture until the last couple of years of the conflict. This war has been going for 9 years and computer games have been there all the way through. Opportunity + time = product.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by TarJak

No my IBM 5100 portable wouldn't run it due to an error in the basic compiler.

You Sir must be bloody rich to afford one of those devil machine

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

Could you imagine a Vietnam video game being released in 1975?

Ow hell no! Who'd buy a game with the graphics of that era?! Was there even home gaming systems back then?

EDIT:

[Takeda Shingen]

You guys know what I meant.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Takeda Shingen

I'm not saying that it is unacceptable; just that it is probably not a good idea now. Could you imagine a Vietnam video game being released in 1975?

Sssshh I've been wanting an Israeli-Hizbollah ArmA 2 expansion.

I hope peace would work its way out so that I can get my game

[Safe-Keeper]

Project Reality has had both the Taliban and HAMAS as playable factions, complete with suicide bomber cars and trucks, for quite a while now. Nothing new under the sun.

[Castout]

Originally Posted by Safe-Keeper

Project Reality has had both the Taliban and HAMAS as playable factions, complete with suicide bomber cars and trucks, for quite a while now. Nothing new under the sun.

Let me google that and see if they got Israelis too

Edit: yes they have among many others . . . too bad I don't have BF2. I'll wait for their ArmA 2 version which I understand is under development.

[Skybird]

Poor taste, but what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. When you add to a shooter a sense of reality by inclduing names and faces from reality, then you also transport parts of the content of the fighting side'S ideology as well as an invitation to identify with one of the sides. And then it is not just a shooter like Unreal anymore. If the side to identify yourself with is in explicit defence and use of terrorism, then at the latest I think the morals of such a release becomes absolutely questionable. Some say its free market, and anything goes. I say: No, not anything goes, and not anything must go. And "anything goes" should not be allowed or tolerated. There are limits to everything.

Could I have a "hostel movie" simulator where I am realistically torturing and killing bounded victims - maybe with optionally available digitally recorded enhanced screams sound package and a small plastic vial with guaranteed original human tears fluid as special gadget in the surprise special edition for the first 200 customers? Or a stoning-simulator? we could have realisistic physics for calculating the correct flightpath of the stones, depending of power used, throwing distance and size of ther stone. Advertising with a slogan of helping to battle adultry? the faces of the victi... I mean the cheating women, are covered in reality and so realism could be claimed for covering them in the sim as well. This would make it a non-troubling experience even for younger players.

Business is not neutral on morals. And it should never allowed to be.

[Flaxpants]

Originally Posted by Skybird

If the side to identify yourself with is in explicit defence and use of terrorism, then at the latest I think the morals of such a release becomes absolutely questionable.

But from a Taliban point of view, the Americans are terrorists, so to be fair, you would have to ban the game outright, or any wargame with 'real world' sides.