EA pulls ‘Taliban’ detail from game - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

EA pulls ‘Taliban’ detail from game

Video gamers no longer will be able to fight and kill American troops as members of the “Taliban” in the upcoming first-person shooter “Medal of Honor,” Military Times has learned. Instead, they’ll fight and kill American troops as “the opposing force,” a response to criticism from service members’ families and others.

The bad guys in the multiplayer component of the game, in which gamers square off online for virtual shooting matches, will keep their Afghan looks, Pashtun dialogue and Kalashnikov weapons, but be called “OpFor.” The game designers’ change means the word “Taliban” will disappear from the game’s internal menus and titles, but actual gameplay will otherwise stay the same.

Greg Goodrich, executive producer of “Medal of Honor” for video game giant Electronic Arts, told Military Times the company made the change in response to “feedback from friends and families of fallen soldiers who have expressed concern over the inclusion of the Taliban in the multiplayer portion of our game.”

Initially, programmers didn’t think anyone would be offended by having the word “Taliban” be a part of the game, he said, because they considered that a part of making the experience as realistic as possible.

“‘Medal of Honor’ has always been about authenticity and respect for the soldiers, telling the soldiers’ story from their point of view — that’s one of the core tenants of the franchise, even though setting has changed,” he said. “This ‘Medal of Honor’ is no different in that regard … when you’re talking about creating an authentic experience, creating authentic weapons, environment, dialogue, characters, all the things you do to achieve authenticity, part of that is calling the enemy what the enemy is. And we did that.”

Even though game designers heard no complaints in initial tests, mainstream news organizations began reporting the “Taliban” detail this summer, which sparked a backlash from the families of fallen troops and even U.K. Defence Secretary Liam Fox, who said he was “disgusted and angry” by what he called “a tasteless product.”

Of just as much significance for active-duty troops, all the military exchange services announced they would not sell “Medal of Honor.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether EA’s “Taliban” deletion would prompt the exchange services to lift their ban on the game, which is slated to go on sale Oct. 12.

Goodrich said his team had contacted the Army and Air Force Exchange Service to explain their philosophy behind the inclusion of the “Taliban” term, but hadn’t heard back; he said late Thursday they hadn’t notified AAFES or the other exchange services about the deletion.

Although the flap took off in the mainstream media, the dedicated gamers who form the “Medal of Honor’s” core audience knew that pretending to fight American troops has been around for a long time. For a decade or more, games have let players become Nazis, Russians or dark-skinned, obviously Middle Eastern fighters for the purposes of online battles — although earlier games, such as last year’s “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” used the “OpFor” term.

Goodrich and other EA officials had defended their decision to use the term “Taliban” by comparing it to childhood games of cops and robbers, pointing out that somebody has to play as the robbers. Moreover, a match in a first-person shooter is as much sport — about points and competition — as it is about violence or death, he said.

“It’s about one guy going against another guy; it’s not about embodying a character and assuming their identity,” he said.

EA announced Thursday that the upcoming edition of “Medal of Honor” has gotten the most advance pre-orders of any title in the 11-year history of the franchise.