Battlefield 3 Banned In Iran 248
dotarray writes "Iranian gamers hoping to get their hands on Battlefield 3 will be sorely disappointed, as the country has officially banned EA's latest shooter. Why? The game features an American war force launching an assault on Iranian capital city Tehran."
Not surprising... (Score:5, Interesting)
I mean, they would probably want to ban a Chinese game that allowed the player to kill American citizens and destroy American landmarks.
Not saying it's right, but it's probably what would happen. Personally, I'd love to play a game about the United States from a Chinese perspective. It would probably be hysterical...
KH2002 License (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to know if EA/DICE paid money to the Iranian government.
All weapons appearing in the game (sp and mp) are licensed, meaning the owners got paid for permission to use the guns likeness. The KH2002 is a bullpup assault rifle designed and produced by the (government run ) Iranian defense industry which appears in the game as a usable weapon. Who did EA/DICE pay to license this gun? Is this in violation of any embargo, considering there is a complete ban on any weapons exports (presumably including designs) from Iran?
Re:Not surprising... (Score:5, Interesting)
I've always wanted to play a serious World War II shooter from the perspective of a German soldier. I mean, we've stormed Omaha beach so many times... it'd be interesting to defend it. And we'd get to participate in some really unique content that hasn't been completely done to death by every shooter ever.
Or even an alternate history, something like Modern Warfare series, but in World War 2 where some critical decision -- such as Hitler not deciding to turn the ME-262 into a bomber and mass produce it -- causes the stop of round-the-clock bombing, which leads to a revitalization of German industry, and a swing of the war against the Allies...
That'd be interesting.
Re:Not surprising... (Score:4, Interesting)
interesting would be how they pitch a game that in the end you lose, no matter what.
What do you think happens in war? End the end, no matter what, you lose (particularly for the kinds of people you play in these video games, the front line grunts). Your friends are dead. You might be wounded. If you aren't, then you are certainly going to be plagued by nightmares of some kind (whether reliving your friends dying, or seeing the faces of those you had to kill), as well as other emotional trauma. You've lost several years of what would be the best, most productive years of your life. Your country has spent millions, if not billions of dollars, and your or someone else's country has suffered a large amount of damage.
I play these war games all the time, I enjoy them a lot. But I worry that games such as these desensitize people to war. I personally think war is a legitimate and useful tool of statecraft, but should be used sparingly, and never lightly. To quote a man that was a hero and great man in every sense of the word (he loved his country, the land of his birth, his family, and the men he commmanded): "It is good that war should be so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." Sometimes, I feel like we have forgotten how terrible it is, partly due to games such as these, and partly because soldiers have in a way become domestic political tools.