The 11th-hour renaming of the playable Taliban fighters as the âOpposing Forceâ in this monthâs forthcoming Medal of Honor game is upsetting some gamers who say publisher Electronic Arts isnât standing up for games or free speech.
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âThe reason weâre posting the multiplayer demo next week is so people can judge for themselves,â EA spokesman Jeff Brown told Kotaku. âDoes changing one word in the menu screen have any impact on the actual play of the game that takes place in Afghanistan? If they think we shouldnât have done that, I urge them to play it.â
Medal of Honor, which will be out for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC on October 12, is a war game set during the modern conflict in Afghanistan. Itâs been known for many months that players will control the single-player portion of the game through the eyes of forces allied to the United States. Itâs also been known that, in multiplayer, gamers were going to be able to choose to control U.S. or Taliban fighters.
The inclusion of the Taliban riled some people and caused the game to be blocked from sale on most U.S military bases worldwide. After defending that creative decision for weeks, EA today said it would rename the multiplayer faction.
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The change was made public this morning in an online statement by Medal of Honorâs lead producer Greg Goodrich. He cited âfeedback from friends and families of fallen soldiers who have expressed concern over the inclusion of the Taliban in the multiplayer portion of our game.â While Goodrich said that majority of feedback was âoverwhelmingly positive,â the studio decided to change the word Taliban from the menu selection screen in multiplayer. He added that âthis franchise will never willfully disrespect, intentionally or otherwise, your memory and service.â
Goodrich said in his statement that the Taliban name change would not affect gameplay. Brown added that it wonât affect the look of the game either.âThe only thing that has changed is one seven-letter word in the menu screen,â Jeff Brown, a spokesperson for Electronic Arts told Kotaku today. âThere is not a single pixel or frame that is changed.â
The Taliban remain part of the enemy fighting force in the gameâs single-player mode.
Earlier this summer, divisions of the U.S. Armed Forces which determine what gets sold on military bases declined to allow Medal of Honor to be sold due to its inclusion of playable Taliban characters. Brown said that decision was not a factor in the renaming change and that retail concerns didnât compel this switch.
Despite the minimizing of the Taliban name change, EAâs move today nonetheless is a shift from prior statements which had more aggressively defended its range of expression. Only weeks ago, Brown had likened the option to play as the Americans or Taliban in Medal of Honor multiplayer as akin to choosing sides in a childhood game of cops and robbers
Even today he affirms that EA desires the same freedom of expression enjoyed by other forms of entertainment. âIf you could place a fiction in Afghanistan in a book or in a movie or in a TV show or other contemporary work , then why draw an artificial distinction of âbut not in a video game?'â he said. He called it âkind of interestingâ that the United States Supreme Court will be hearing arguments early next month that will involve that question about whether video games should be given the same speech protections as other forms of entertainment.
By calling them the âopposing forceâ in Medal Of Honor, the gameâs developers now ensure that players will no longer be able to choose to be a Taliban fighter in the game. But, said Brown, âThe game takes place in Afghanistan. Itâs pretty clear who is fighting who.â
Play the multiplayer demo, he urges, and see for yourself, if the name change is a big deal or not.
