Today, Danger Close Games (who designed Medal of Honor’s single player campaign) is explaining their take on the Taliban name controversy.
During the beta, the name change was not in effect, allowing thousands of players to play as the Taliban and kill U.S. soldiers. After the enemy title was announced, the Army-Air Force Exchange Service banned GameStop stores from selling the title on military bases.
Craig Owens, marketing director for Danger Close Games, explains why the change had been made - and the reasons shouldn’t surprise you.
It is hard to disagree with the Taliban name change - considering we’re currently in conflict with the group today. Although, I do find it hard to really get behind, considering the upcoming Battlefield 2: Bad Company ‘Vietnam’ addition and Call of Duty: Black Ops including Viet Cong as enemies and playable character. Current events in videogames aren’t something we often see, especially something that has been so imbued within our society. It’s definitely rattling when a group like the Taliban enters the picture - given the tenor of the current conflict.
So we basically just changed it to ‘Opfor’ – which is a term they [the US Armed Forces] use, some of our competitors use – more out of respect. Later that soundbyte kinda caught wind and got taken out of context, really."
Personally, I’m somewhat ambivalent to the matter. In the end, Medal of Honor is just a videogame with one group of people shooting against another group of people. Ideologies aside, it’s not much different than the content in other first person shooters.
Medal of Honor is in stores today for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.
Source: Joystiq
