Originally posted by: SunnyD
Alright - I'll officially weigh in my two cents after leaving this discussion alone.
It's a FPS - I have no problems with this. I'm sure Jack Thompson would, but who gives a rat's ass about him.
You'll kill people - it's a FPS - Same thing. Big whoop. Been there, done that.
The problem I can see with the title comes from a few different places. First, war can't be tastefully done unless it's posthumous. That's why WWII games and such are so popular, they become a history "tool" (so to speak) for newer generations, without nearly enough voices to mount criticism for what actually happened during the time. Is that why we haven't seen a new Vietnam game lately? Maybe, maybe not.
This game is already posthumous; the battle of Fallujiah took place. It's over.
Apocalypse Now came out only four years after the Vietnam War. The Battle of Fallujah was in 2004, ie five years ago. I'd suggest that we're well within historical territory here.
WWII games aren't popular because they're a "history tool". Using them as a historical tools is probably the least significant factor of WWII games.
The other side of it is that we still have folks over in Iraq. Humorously nuking Saddam is one thing, but when you have the possibility of going through a fairly accurately recreated hot zone where people still are dying in real life? Yeah, that's potentially a PR nightmare for the government (despite the fact that the "war" already is a PR nightmare). I'm not sure, given the "popularity" of the topic, how receptive the American public would be toward a game depicting a conflict that has nearly no popularity in this country.
Irrelevant. War never changes. War is unpopular no matter how many mediums may or may not portray it. Additionally, see Call of Duty 4, since many of its scenes are practically an "Iraq War" FPS already.
Also, American forces transferred control of Fallujah over to the Iraqi Army in 2006. It's not exactly a hot zone anymore.
In other words, the popularity (or lack thereof) of the war has no bearing on whether it should be considered for an entertainment medium.
Couple that with the idea that the game's design is premised around recreating actual accounts of situations from soldiers that were in the conflict... now this definitely sounds like the government would be very... VERY interested in what is being said here. My guess (again, just a guess) is that there was going to be some classified material and possibly conflicts that were not privy to the public that were going to be documented in the game. Remember - Iraq is still contested so to speak, and as such this game may be considered a security risk on top of a PR risk. Conspiracy theory hat mode: Don't be surprised if the government caused this project to die.
See Apocalypse Now. See Freedom of Speech. See... wait, who cares what the government is interested in what is being said?
Why are we talking about classified material? Are you seriously considering the idea that
game developers will steal classified documents and leak them through a video game? Is this a joke? Worse yet, any classified materials relating to the events in Fallujah would be completely irrelevant now, so it wouldn't even matter!
You're nuts if you think that the US government, or any government for that matter, gives two shits about this game
I just think that this particular title hits far closer to home than people would be willing to accept. Plausibly fictional games like the Tom Clancy games or James Bond-esque style games, or even Counter Strike, where there is a likely chance these things are happening in the world today, but the common public will never know it if it does happen - yeah, that's fine. I would draw the line at a conflict that soldiers may still be dying in tomorrow.
A tiny, insignificant fraction of non-gamers might be upset by this game. But they probably aren't playing games in the first place, so there's no loss there.
Do you seriously believe that the Battle of Fallujah is still going on today? It's a historical event. It's over. This isn't "Iraq War: the FPS" it's "The Battle of Fallujah", relating specifically to a battle that took place in in 2004.
There's no reason for anyone to be upset about this game but not upset about any game in the Call of Duty series.