Screw it: show EA where their money comes from

[bojac6]

Nope. They don't. Movies alter more graphic content to lower the rating. This has nothing to do with the rating. Or, alternatively, they change endings or smaller parts based on test screenings. Again, no the same thing.

Umm, that's exactly what this is. They're changing a small part of their game in order to appeal to a broader audience based on initial reactions. How is this any different?

Yeah, because the government passing laws is the only way that Constitutional rights have ever been infringed on, right?

Right, actually. That is exactly right. US Constitutional rights guaranty US citizens freedom from government interference in specific places. That's how it works. That's why the majority of the Bill of Rights starts with the phrase "Congress shall make no law," because that is all it guarantees. That Congress will not make a law infringing on the enumerated right. After the 14th Amendment, select other rights (including freedom of speech) were applied to State governments as well, so that State Governments cannot infringe these rights either. That's right, the state government of any US State could actually pass laws against, for example, Freedom of Press until 1929. Because until that year, the constitutionally guaranteed right only applied to the Federal Government.

Have you never heard of Segregation Academies? They started up in the 50s after Brown v Board required all public schools be integrated. So, some private schools declared themselves Whites Only, and as long as they got no government money, there was nothing the government could do to shut them down. Most of them have closed down or changed policies, but a few still exist today. It's not illegal. Any parent can choose to send their kid to any school they want so that they do not meet other races. They just cannot receive any public money for this.

I really want you to stop for a minute, take a step back and think. Because here is what you are doing. You are saying that public outcry is akin to government interference by invoking a Constitutional argument. You are saying that something illegal took place when people expressed offense by EA's decision to use the word Taliban. You are saying that it is wrong for a company to follow the market.

But even worse, you are comparing the publishing of a game to civil rights struggles. You mention the Muslim Community Center in Lower Manhattan, you mention Rosa Parks. How can you compare these issues? You're coming across as a really spoiled brat with no real world knowledge. Rosa Parks spent time in prison for not moving on the bus. She spent time in prison. You're bitching about a word change in a video game.

You're calling it art, but most famous artists died in poverty because they couldn't sell their work because nobody wanted it. Van Gogh sold one painting in his entire life because his stuff was too weird for the time. That was not a violation of his rights, even if he lived in modern America. You can't sell what people won't buy. That's the cost of artistic integrity. And EA isn't in the business of art, they're in the business of selling video games.

Please, take a civics class and an economics class and then come back. It's embarrassing, frankly.

EDIT: Fixed the quotes

 

[ProfessorLayton]

This is just as silly as the other one going on. They didn't want to offend people. Sure, it's dumb that they just got rid of it when the controversy they had been digging for just falls into their laps, but no one's "rights" are being broken here.

 

[NoseDigger]

US gamers? What about the European ones? There are European forces in the Middle East you know.

 

[Steve Butts]

If Medal of Honor and games like it are art, they are art based on a lie. Games could say some powerful things about war and mortality and conflict. But game designers know you just want your respawns and your headshots, and your badass all-American heroes saving the day in exotic locales around the world, so that's what they give you.

If games about wars (that claim to be realistic portrayals, at least) were art in any significant capacity, they wouldn't be so much fun to play.

I don't know that I care whether or not art is based on lies or not, but the rest of your points are spot on and I think this is where I diverge from many of my gaming brethren. Many gamers seem to assume that a game's content, and the artistic disciplines used to represent it, automatically qualify it as art. My own admittedly personal defintion requires more of a piece of content before I consider it capital-A Art. It has to challenge my perspective by presenting a commentary, insight, or association that reveals something true about the world, even if it is, and stick with me here, an imaginary truth. I think games like Grim Fandango or BioShock do that. So can Medal of Honor.

Shooting the Taliban is the "what" in this equation, but it can't be the "why" if supporters want to protect it as art.

 

[Jonny49]

Yeah sure they lost my respect, but if the games good I'm getting it. Its as simple as that.

This is the third time I've said it in this thread, and it's becoming an alarming trend: that flies in the face of the concept of boycotting. Censored things can still be good in their own right, but that's how censors are able to get away with what they do. At the expense of taking Godwin's wang in my face, do you think that the Nazis came into power and just threw all of Germany's Jews, gypsies, retards, etc into camps on the first day? Again, not saying that it's going to lead to the Holocaust by a long shot, but they're both things that are played as games of inches.

Allow me to break the ice:

We are talking about a game. A game that for all intense and purposes, doesn't even look that great. I won't argue about the constitution or any of that stuff since I know nothing about it but mentioning Nazi Germany in a thread about EA changing the name of the bad guys in Medal of Honour is just ridiculous.

As for me! Black Ops is the way to go for my generic wartime shooter fix.

 

[AndrewC]

Never enjoyed MoH to any extent, ever. So I won't be purchasing it.


I'm just happy I don't have to put up with all this stupid PC bullcrap.

 

[bojac6]

I don't know that I care whether or not art is based on lies or not, but the rest of your points are spot on and I think this is where I diverge from many of my gaming brethren. Many gamers seem to assume that a game's content, and the artistic disciplines used to represent it, automatically qualify it as art. My own admittedly personal defintion requires more of a piece of content before I consider it capital-A Art. It has to challenge my perspective by presenting a commentary, insight, or association that reveals something true about the world, even if it is, and stick with me here, an imaginary truth. I think games like Grim Fandango or BioShock do that. So can Medal of Honor.

Shooting the Taliban is the "what" in this equation, but it can't be the "why" if supporters want to protect it as art.

I had to comment just to say I agree with this view entirely. No one argues that Film, as a medium, cannot be Art. But is every movie Art? No, that's ludicrous. Same goes for books, poems, paintings, etc. They can all be art in the sense that they have an author who is expressing himself, but to be true Art, they need to do more than satisfy the author, they need to appeal to the reader as well.

I think this holds true for games as well. Some games, I would argue, qualify as Art for their narrative, that they built a structure equal to some great films or books. There are very few games(I can only think of Deus Ex as meeting this requirement as a whole. Though moments in other games, such as the ends of Red Dead Redemption and Reach come close) that are Art because of their interactive experience. Where they work solely in the medium of game, and the message would be lessened in film.

 

[ninetails593]

I would've just put a petition and a shimmering FUCK YOU to the raving power-obsessed retards that have stuck their noses into something that isn't their territory in any conceivable way.

 

[dancinginfernal]

I'm not getting it anyways.

The only Modern War game I was actually interested in was Six Days in Fallujah, and that was canceled due to whiny bitches.

 

[Xero Scythe]

Ugh. I can't argue with two of you babies at the same time.

Topics like this make me want to buy TWO copies of Medal of Honor.

So in other words...you're fleeing with a frantic backward sling of feces rather than trying to actually argue my point?

No, he's saying it's not worth arguing with an idiot over the internet. Since he can't beat the crap out of you over the web, you can troll forever with no thought to your health. Being a hardass on the internet isn't that difficult; being one in real life is.

 

[dragonburner]

I didn't really see the big deal with the whole "Taliban debacle." I don't know if I will buy MOH. COD Black Ops is going to be really popular (so I can play with friends!) and will have zombies.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I appreciate the sentiment, but I wasn't going to buy it anyway. Also considering the results of previous video game boycotts (MW2 anyone), I'm pretty sure most gamers don't even know what the word "boycott" means.

 

[Wes1180]

As many people have said, I'm not going to get it, but not because I want to be part of a boycot just because I don't want it.

Yey no contribution?

 

[Jzolr0708]

Listen, this isn't EAs fault totally. They shouldn't have caved just because someone was pressuring them. But yknow who we SHOULD be angry at? Jack Thompson. And yknow how we can stick it to him?

Give him no attention. When a dog barks for food, do you give it? No, you hit it on the nose. When an attention whore goes around begging for sympathy or fishing for compliments, do you give in to them? Nope, you ignore them. And thats what Jack Thompson is. He's a dog begging for scraps, and he's certainly an attention whore.

So forget about him. Buy MoH if you were going to. Don't buy it if you weren't. Don't send him letters or spam his email, just ignore him. If we sit there and act peacefully while Jacky goes around spouting about how we're the children of Satan, how smart is he gonna look? How sane?

Take the Ghandi approach.

 

[mjc0961]

I had no intentions of buying this game, but now I sort of want to just to spite the TC. He clearly has no idea how free speech works. It's a violation of the first amendment for people to pressure EA by saying they shouldn't have the Taliban in the game? And because EA caved, you want us to turn around and pressure them right back.

1. You're doing the same thing that you're saying other people shouldn't have done. Basically you're no better. People weren't going to buy the game because the group was called Taliban. Now you're not going to buy the game because it's not called that. Different sides of the same coin.

2. It's not a violation of free speech to begin with. Both you and anyone else are within their rights to not buy the game for whatever reason they want.

 

[SpiderHam666]

It may have already been said BUT very likely 9 out of every 10 people who talk about not getting any game just because of a single point (e.g. they removed the taliban, it's too colorful, it's just another halo, etc.) will STILL end up buying it day of release.

 

[Sexual Harassment Panda]

It's a distasteful thing, but who really cares?...

"Taliban" or "Opposing force", a rose by any other name. To get upset to the point of boycotting what looks like a solid game, is just as petulant and reactionary as the fools who protested "Taliban" being in the game to start with...it just doesn't matter.

We're all talking about MoH. If this was an anticipated reaction, it was a brilliant publicity stunt.

 

[Singularly Datarific]

I agree to this proposition by doing exactly what I was already going to do: Not buy it cuz it doesn't interest me!

 

[lostzombies.com]

I was buying it simply to pass the time before blackops/fable 3 but now I'm not going to. Purely because it a game dev doesn't stand by their product neither will I part with my money to support it.

 

[Korey Von Doom]

I might buy it if they tone down the shotgun, yes I know it is realistic, but realism isn't fun, and be able to put a limit on the number of snipers.