Games president Frank Gibeau:
If an Afghan War film can win BAFTAs, why is an Afghan game condemned?
Publishing empire EA says it will not surrender its creative vision to the furors surrounding the upcoming Medal of Honor game.
EA Games president Frank Gibeau told Develop the game is a “creative risk”. He said he anticipated controversy, and he asked why films are immune to the denigration games routinely are subjected to.
The publisher is under fire from both MPs and the wider media for allowing players to assume the role of the Islamist political group the Taliban in the rebooted Medal Of Honor title, set for UK release October 15.
On Sunday Defense Secretary Liam Fox urged retailers to ban EA’s upcoming game, having expressed “anger and disgust” by its content.
But Gibeau tells Develop that the game will not be altered at the behest of politicians and media groups.
“We respect the media’s views,”
he said,
“but at the same time [these reports] don’t compromise our creative vision and what we want to do.”
EA’s long-awaited Medal Of Honor reboot is being co-developed by Swedish Studio DICE and Los Angeles-based Danger Close, and Gibeau insists the two groups are proud of what they are creating.
“The development teams care very much about what they’re building, and of course a bit of criticism from the media causes some to get demoralized, but at the end of the day we’re proud of what we’re doing. Bringing Medal of Honor back was no small feat.”
Gibeau, nearly in his third year as EA Games president, was philosophical about the fast-spreading denigration of a game that handles sensitive content.
“There’s a lot of furore around games that take creative risks – like games that let you play terrorists in airports mowing down civilians,”
he said in reference to Modern Warfare 2 – published by industry rival Activision.
“At EA we passionately believe games are an artform, and I don’t know why films and books set in Afghanistan don’t get flack, yet [games] do. Whether it’s Red Badge Of Courage or The Hurt Locker, the media of its time can be a platform for the people who wish to tell their stories. Games are becoming that platform.”
“Games have been set in Afghanistan before. We anticipated this [controversy] when we decided on the concept of the game – this is about being a special forces solider.
“What’s really important for us is that we partnered with the US military, and the Medal of Honor Society as well. We’ve gone out of our way to produce the best story for the game.
“The fact that it’s set in Afghanistan is the context, but the game is about you and your team going through a number of missions and feeling what it was like to be in a soldier’s position.
“That’s always been a Medal of Honor concept – we put you in the boots of a solider, whether it’s in the Pacific, Europe, Afghanistan; it’s always been the story of the solider.”
SOURCE
Seriously? Modern Warefare2, the biggest selling game in a decade, gets no flak from it’s locations. But MoH on the other hand, is getting slammed from multiple directions. Pitiful. Political involvement has now gone well past “BIG BROTHER” . They are telling restaurants that they shouldn’t use salt in cooking and changing the oils used. Ingredients now have to be checked on everything made. Now they will tell us what we as HUMAN’S should do with our spare time and our money. Now this? Do we really need the government to poke their heads in and tell us what we should or shouldn’t be doing? We shouldn’t play games because they have terrorists that you can play as. Hmmm … Nothing was said about any Civil War games, where the US in it’s infancy was beating back English. They say nothing of WW2 games when the germans were beat on.
Not terrorism you say?
Any action that inflicts terror is terrorism. It is without a doubt that at this juncture, we should be charging POLITICIANS with counts of Piracy, theft and terrorism. They do just as much as any person ( doesn’t matter what country, any country) who uses the net for personal gain. Their kids use P2p to not pay for songs, download movies for their Ipods, ipads, and Iphones or smart phones. They steal the public’s money in unfair maneuvers from within the government. And with smiling faces, attempt to tell us as consumers and Humans (who are given FREE WILL by the almighty -enter your name for “he who has no name”-) that we shouldn’t be allowed to purchase any game that is similar in concept to Medal of honor. Retailers should not sell the games! GO BROKE. DO NOT ALLOW PEOPLE TO PURCHASE THIS GAME!!! DO THIS AND SUPPORT OUR ARMED FORCES.
Support our armed forces? What in the world does not buying this game have to do with our armed forces? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Most of OUR armed forces are GAMERS. They joined the armed forces BECAUSE of the games they played. They have the advanced training they have BECAUSE of video games that helped train them! Now because we can choose to play an “alkida” like individual, you tell us we shouldn’t buy it.
STOP THE MADNESS. Get out of our music. Get out of our movies, oh wait, you aren’t in our movies. There has been NOTHING said about Military movies that take place in deserts. In fact, the public can speak pretty clearly on this themselves. Lastly, for the love of any dungeon crawler, any FPS shooter, MMorPG player or even people who play solitaire, STAY THE HELL OUT OF OUR PASS TIME. Educate the parents who buy their kids the games instead of inconveniencing the people who can make their own decisions and have been since they were considered old enough to do so.
If as a government you are going to ruin our ability to think, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, pay us what we are worth and figure out something else for use to do with our time. You have indeed gone too far.
