The big difference here between MoH and Six Days is that the multiplayer section in MoH has absolutely no moral ground to stand on. It's not saying anything, it's not passing any messages, so obliviously it's harder to defend. Nothing is further from real war than a bunch of dudes bunny-hopping and zigzagging their way through a nicely laid out battlefield.

Six Days was aiming at a faithful recreation of the experience of war, and while I cannot comment on the singleplayer portion of MoH, I can understand why someone would be upset over a FPS multiplayer experience based on something that is still going on and that may affect them deeply.

I'm reminded of a brief Kotaku article a week ago by Luke Plunkett, and his frustration at an MoH interview snippet of them brushing aside the potential incoming controversy with "Its just a game."

At the very same time, I'm also reminded of PBS's recent documentary "Digital Nation," where they showed their fare share of soldiers playing Modern Warfare, alongside the existence of recruitment centers and the controversy around that.

Frankly, I'm kind of tired of hearing what these mothers who have lost their children through this war has to say against these games, but instead I'm more curious what the stance is of soldiers who are on active duty who are reported as playing these games to relax, or even returning soldiers who use VR or these types of games to deal with their PTSD. Don't get me wrong, I sympathize with their suffering, but its not necessarily adding to the discussion when someone before you has said the same thing.

I find this argument and controversy redundant. There are always going to be war games and shooters-they have been coming out since the beginning of gaming and many of them included real life references.

But what I find someone hypocrytical is why can we include them in the game to kill them, but not to play as them. Honestly whats the difference if a game includes nazis, russians, japanese, vietnamese, as enemies, don't some other countries think of Americans as being enemies? I understand the past warring nations have less sensitivity than currently, but is that just what the problem is...sensitivity. I don't know anyone that is in the war and therefore my sensitivty to it is minimal, while a mother who lost her son might have a high sensitivity to it. It just seems wrong to say one kind of killing in a game is OK while another kind of killing in a game is wrong. (I agree with EA--it is like cops and robbers--humans and aliens--good guys and bad guys--its the same thing over and over...Kane and Lynch is on the brink of release--what do you play as--two criminals fighting against who? cops...And as a player you take a role of a criminal--very similar in nature to war scenario--but sensitivity is decreased because its fictional--but does that make the killing any less wrong/or realistic in presentation?)

But if you look across almost all gaming genre...as sad as it is...almost all include an aspect of killing/destroying/beating the opponent. It is obviously something in human nature.

What we need to admit to ourselves, is that these games are a form of militaristic echo-chamber cultural propaganda. With about as much realism as John Wayne filming Vietnam movies among pine trees, today's fps combat genre's serve the not-very-obfuscated purpose of increasing recruitment rates. I actually prefer Medal of Honor's step in connecting itself to a real military conflict because this sews the game's morals proudly on its sleeve. Removing the last of the thin layers of fiction has promoted such controversy because the genre has finally admitted openly what it is all about.

I am not speaking from an echo chamber myself, but have personally witnessed the path which begins at COD and ends with recruitment. I also saw my twelve-year-old nephew playing COD on his DS this weekend. This is a discussion we need to have openly, because children and impressionable young adults play these games constantly and the construction and reinforcement of these heroic memes have much more influence over future behavior than any recruitment poster or commercial. Interactivity is the king recruitment tool because these children allready see themselves as trained soldiers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Green_Berets_%28film%29

First of all it is just a game. Second of all I see no reason why a mother should be complaining about a videogame. Her son went to a real war and was sent probably to eventually kill somebody in the line of duty. She has no place to deride anybody.

@Jacob : Do you really think Activision or EA give a rat's ass about recruitment? These games sell so they continue to be developed. It's fine to acknowledge that there may be some effect on recruitment (are there any legitimate studies to support/refute that link?), but I am 99.9% sure that neither CoD nor MoH are produced for that reason.

Just because I'm too lazy to use Google, are military enlistment rates significantly higher now than they were before the release of military shooter video games, and can those increases be isolated from other factors such as increases during wartime and increases due to economic hardship?

Just for the sake of rambling I remember reading an article recently that details the low military enlistment rates in the present day and the fact that the military has had to lower their entrance standards in order to keep troop levels high enough for all theaters of operation. Your argument, while valid it seems in your personal experience, doesn't (at first glance) extrapolate well to the entire population.

Doesn't the military have a game where one side plays terrorists? America's Army or something. The same concepts are there. The mother is obviously just to touchy over a subject. You don't understand cops and robbers, but there are plenty of mothers whose sons have died to gang violence and can't be compared? Get a grip lady.

I think ESRB and PEGI need to be shuved down the throats of ignorant parents everywhere. Buying adult content for your child is your own problem ('you' being the parent). There's a rating clearly visible on all game boxes and advertisements.
For parents who do actually regulate their children's gaming, the problem exists where kid A's family cares about the ratings, kid B's family doesn't. Kid A goes to visit Kid B and the intelegent family's efforts are tumped.
So I belive a year long ad spamming on all mediums shuving esrb and pegi down everyones throat so that you and I can stop reading articles about people moaning about games that clearly have an "M" rating.

As for adults who don't like the content, apply the same logic you do to other media you don't like. Don't like it? Don't play/watch/listen to it.

@George: "First of all it is just a game."

'Birth of a Nation' was just a movie, but that doesn't mean it didn't have real world effects.

I'm not saying we should limit what we say in games (far from it, I want to see deeper gameplay), I just find the "just a game" defense silly.


@Aaron: In America's Army (at least the first one, I don't know if they changed this later), there were two sides but both sides saw themselves as the Americans and the OpFor as the terrorist. Kind of a neat way side step the controversy and more effective as a recruiting tool (there is no way to sympathize with the enemy).

I think there's an interesting subject everyone has overlooked regarding this story. The mother during the show talks about how MoH is more realistic, and the old MoH games about WWII were not. She literally says that... the game is no longer set in World War 2 (therefore not important), and is disrespectful because it was set in modern times where she is "hurt" b/c of her dead son or w/e.

No offense lady, but that is both ignorant, hypocritical and even more disrespectful. You cry over the death of your son, yet you ignore, and push aside the sacrifices of his predecessors that allowed the US to continue to be strong. If it were not for the sacrifices of WWII, real soldiers might I add, the US would be full of Japanese RPGs :P (THE HORROR).

I think it's funny how it's okay to make "Historical" games from a longer period ago, but the idea of making a "Present" day game is offensive. Get a grip. That's such a silly concept, it's as if society is content in living within a bubble of ignorance and selfishness.

This Mom's argument has no validity whatsoever. She also knows nothing of War, why? Because she has NOT served in one... obviously with her flippant disregard over WWII and the notion that it's offensive to families (?!), it's painfully clear.

You know who the real opinions should come from? Soldiers. Not just retired ones, but current, active, in the thick of it Soldiers.

So where are these opinions?
Exactly.

@Mark Well said. And if you want to find a military recruiter outside of his office, after you check the local high schools your next stop should be the juvenile detention facility, and after that try your local criminal courthouse. Yes, standards have fallen.

@ Mark
You don't have to corelate recruitement numbers to FPS games, this is not how propaganda works. Many of the Captain America Comics in the 1940s were propaganda, that doesn't mean Timely Comics didn't made a lot of money with them. Propaganda can be very profitable if you are making the right propaganda during the right time.

The involvement of the US militaey in every realistic military FPS in the last years can't be underestimated. Just look at the credits of all the MoD, CoD or Rainbow Six titles.
Full Spectrum Warrior was originally devloped for the PC and XBox with funds from the United States Army and even the free download in 2008 was sponsoredby the United States Army.

After 9/11 the US military tried to get into Hollywood movies be openly saying, they will try to convince the studios to develop movies, that are showing the american side of a conflict called "War on Terror", this move failed, Hollywood resisted. So the US military tried the second and third best businesses comics and games and here they succeeded. The number of titles from a purely military perspective in comics and games has risen enormously since 2001. From this perspective, I think, military FPS are a tool of propaganda.

@Lincoln Li

I'm gonna suggest that, perhaps, a parent that has lost a child to war has an all too keen understanding of, at least, the effects of it. And, a society where only the opinion of soldiers counts probably isn't one that any of us would want to be a part of.

I get where you're coming from, Christian, but I think it's a bit of a stretch. The reason you need a correlation is because it doesn't do any good to label something "propaganda" when it has no measurable effect. I suppose if you argue from the point of view that anything painting the US military in any kind of favorable light is propaganda, then sure, but if it doesn't significantly increase military participation among your population or at least increase positive sentiment toward wars in general then it's shitty propaganda and doesn't warrant mention. I see no evidence of either effect. I'm open to being proven wrong, as always, when I see legit data.

Consulting actual members of the military is pretty standard practice when creating a military shooter, and you can't use that as a blanket endorsement by the military for the game or vice versa. More often it's consultation about creating (somewhat) realistic engagement situations, the feel of a firefight, weaponry, tactics, etc. and rarely about making sure to propagandize the role of the US in any given situation. Granted, as Americans we tend to see our side as the good guys, but that isn't propaganda so much as a standard national viewpoint reflected in pretty much every culture on the planet.

Where I think there may be some disconnect is that I don't think we have to label every piece of military outreach as propaganda. By pure definition we can say that these games are propaganda but that word has a connotation that doesn't really apply here. The military has just as much right as any other organization to market themselves to the public. These games may increase awareness of military efforts but not all of them paint the US military with favorable colors (MW2 is a recent example). Just making people aware of the military, what technology they use, what situations they face, etc. doesn't have to be shoved into the propaganda bucket. It's marketing, sure, but the term propaganda has taken on a sinister brain-washing kind of tone that I just haven't experienced with military recruitment campaigns.

I haven't played America's Army so that may very well be heavy handed, actual propaganda in the colloquial use of the term. However, having played a good number of military shooters over the last decade or so I can assure you that term does not apply (in my opinion).

I see your point Mark, but when you say "as Americans we tend to see our side as the good guys, but that isn't propaganda so much as a standard national viewpoint reflected in pretty much every culture on the planet", you are right, but this standard national viewpoint is called Propaganda, when observed from outside.

The iranian FPS "Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue" let the player fight against US american and israeli soldiers, who kidnapped some iranian scientists. I would call this propaganda and I would call a MoH set in afghanistan and Cod: MW propaganda too.

You say "Consulting actual members of the military is pretty standard practice when creating a military shooter", again you are completely right here, but you have to watch out, that you don't adapt the viewpoint of the person who is consulting you, and in games, I think, this line blurred away a long time ago.
It is true, the word propaganda has a connotation here, but the support for the war in afghanistan is falling in the US (according to the regular CNN polls), so I would say, people who oppose the war in afghanistan in general, would label a game, that puts you in the boots of a US soldier OR an taliban soldier as war propaganda.

I am reading a book by Sebastien Junger called "War" right now. In it, Junger follows a tight-knit Airborne company into the Korengal valley of Afghanistan. There is a lot of violence and dark humor in it. It's a harrowing read and one that gives a pretty vivid description of what it's like to be fighting at an advance position in Afghanistan. At times, Junger even speculates as to what it must be like to be a Taliban soldier, and how their is a begrudging respect amongst the U.S. soldiers for their enemy. It's also being made into a movie called Restrepo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DjqR6OucBc&feature=player_embedded

By Karen Meredith's logic, we should also be questioning the appropriateness about entertainment that portray's members of the U.S. military fighting modern wars in ways that don't conform to her expectations? Shouldn't we be appalled at the notion of putting yourself in the shoes of a Taliban fighter?

I'm stretching this a bit, but hopefully the answer is clearly "no"

Christian, I think at this point we've boiled it down to semantics. Some of the things you define as propaganda I wouldn't, and vice versa. Agree to disagree there, just a matter of application of definition.

Mark, again, I agree with you we seem to have a different definition of propaganda, just wanted to say, I enjoyed the discussion.

But if you want, take a look at

http://www.medalofhonor.com/

There you find many videos for the upcoming game. In my opinion, it is hard to see the clip "The Catalyst" as anything else then US american war propaganda. It includes a scene. where a peacefully smiling grandmother, gives her grandson the medals of his fallen father (or grandfather, this isn't explained), the scene is blending into the image of a US flag. The medals seem to inspire the young fellow to enter the US army, to become a soldier himself. This video contains a strong and clear political message, that goes way beyond anything game related.

I think semantics or not, topics like this must be discussed much more intense inside the games industry, I really hope the new MoH gets much more attention from non gaming media, so that the developers and publishers of political games are forced to take a stand, instead hiding behind cops and robbers comparsions.

From the gaming community we will only hear "it's just a game", something, which really depresses me.

Man I'm sorry for that woman. It's hard to lose your child and then see an industry making money with games where other kids can play the guys who shot her son. BUT THEEEEN: aren't vietnamese/nazi-relatives and other people from "antagonistic" countries just as justified in being offended by the MOH's and CoD's of this world? Who the F*k are they then? Why do people have to whine now? Because their kids are humans whose dignity and sacrifice must be respected but their enemies not? So hypocritical and one-sided. But then, I wouldn't really expect different from a mother that lost her son (not meant in a mean way..)

Kind of reminds me about this artice a while back,

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=239791

I was told a story a couple of days ago about a mother who was in histerics that her daughter and been orderd to serve time oversea's in a warzone, and that the duaghter was just as hysterical as the mother...
Last time i checked when you join the armed forces these things happen, you know, you shoot them/they shoot you.
I enjoy games that take me as far away from this reality and i couldn't think of playing somthing more boreing than playing a simulation about RL. However that does not mean that should i encounter somthing that hurts/challenges me i am now entitled to pick up my squeeky toy hammer and cry hard till the good goodies fix the bad bad world. ( and i have experienced loss - my first born son at 2 months)

Yeah, Christian, Gama is one of the few places on the 'net where we can hold reasonable discussion. I agree that taking on controversial issues can be a good thing for the industry and at the very least it gets us all talking about not only the controversy, but how to deal with such things and how to tell mature stories about sensitive subjects. I'm excited to see how the MoH team handles this game in it's entirety and I look forward to the critical analysis we're sure to see on this site.

I just went and watched the Catalyst trailer and I came away with a different take. I can definitely see why you can categorize that as propaganda. However, just a couple counter points (just for kicks :p ). For starters, that could just be character exposition, some background on a Tier 1 Operator we encounter in the game. More importantly, perhaps much of our differing viewpoints on what constitutes propaganda in this situation comes from our different cultural backgrounds and unique life experiences. I'm obviously American, and from what I remember you're from Europe (Germany, perhaps?). I think I remember you filling me in on some of the idiosyncrasies of Germany's occasional censorship of cartoon violence not long ago.

Regardless, when I saw the scene you mentioned (the grandmother passing down medals which presumably inspire the young man to join the military) it didn't come across as propaganda to me at all, and I'll tell you why. That scene plays out nearly every day across the country here. Military tradition in American families is very often a badge of honor, and that sacrifice becomes part of the tapestry that defines familial culture. That scene isn't going to inspire anyone sitting at home to go jump into uniform, but it will bring back some memories for many Americans.

It's a very nostalgic scene for me personally, because I've been a part of it. When I was a young man my close friend's grandfather passed away. At his funeral his grandmother smiled at him as he took his grandfather's military medals from her and laid them on his grandfather's chest. He was proud, she was proud, his father (also a veteran) was proud, heck even I was proud. His grandfather put his life on the line to fight for freedom in Europe during WWII, and his stories were living history. I can't any more find that scene in the MoH trailer propaganda than I can view sitting at his grandfather's feet in front of a roaring fire listening to tales of fierce fighting in French towns as propaganda. Those were stories filled with emotion; regret, pride, fear, camaraderie, and conviction. This wasn't a man trying to recruit, it was a man passing along a piece of his life. I dunno, it brought back a lot of great memories, but nothing that made me want to head down to the local recruiter's office and live the same things he lived. That clip doesn't make me want to go to war, and it reminds me of exceptional positive memories, so I'm thinking it won't really push Johnny High School to join up.

I do realize, however, that they're developing this game for a diverse worldwide audience that doesn't necessarily have the same life experience that I do. For that reason, among many others, your take on the game, the trailers, et al is a very important benchmark. Hopefully if the MoH team can give us the same complete picture of a soldier that I received as a young lad it won't come across as propaganda.

@ D PH

Clearly the answer is no, but there is a big difference in between Sebastien Junger's "War" and Restrepo, and a MoH deathmatch. Karen Meredith's personal issues aside, shouldn't we be concerned that videogames still cannot treat the war in Afghanistan as something more than a backdrop for multiplayer maps or worse, just dance around the subject without ever acknowledging was is happening. That is, in my opinion, the truly disrespectful thing.

Interesting points Mark. You are right, I am from germany, so my cultural backdrop is in deed different from yours.
I found the Catalyst clip very disturbing, the scene I mentioned was one thing, another thing was the music by Linkin Park, that played in the background and the pictures of the fighting soldiers and explosions, always placed exactly over the beat.
The intention was clear, it should look cool, but don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against stylish videogame optics, but when you come this close to photorealism as in MoH and you are placing your game in a real world conflict and you try to show it as "cool" as it is shown here, you show the real conflict as "cool" as well.
I don't want to break down the crtitic to the ethnical stereotypes, that are always present in the graphics, this isn't the important point here, it was the whole presentation of the war in afghanistan, that disturbed me. In the clip war looked awfully like fun and excitement to me.
And here I see a difference between a WW2 shooter and a game set in a ongoing conflict in the real world. WW2 is over, nobody has an interest in an propagandistic take on it, cause the roles are clear, there were winners and loosers and. apart from some hard to die fascists nobody has any doubt, that the axis was wrong and the allies were right. In the afghan war the worldwide discourse isn't so clear, there are questions regarding the war on terror, the military solution is not as accepted as it is in WW2 today.
Don't get me wrong, if somebody wants to make an afghan shooter, it is his own right, but as in other media, films, books, comics, I would apreciate it, if people say, to make this shooter is also a political decision, it's a decision to support the war in afghanistan in a propagandistic way. Instead of this EA is hiding behind a cops and robbers analogy.

I think that's why I'm so anxious to see what they do with the actual game narrative. The trailer is to promote the game, which they want to sell well, so it should make the game look cool and fun and interesting. Where EA has a real chance to break some "rules" is in the actual game presentation. They don't necessarily have to explore who is right and who is wrong, since I don't think that debate will ever be fully settled and agreed upon worldwide. However, if they can give us just some feeling about how the conflict is playing out then perhaps we're headed in the right direction.

Some of the trailer gives me hope that there may be some decent treatment of the material. There seem to be some situations where your protagonist survives out of sheer luck, not some overpowering US uber soldier superiority, where he unexpectedly loses allies and friends, where he feels fear and not just determination. At the end of the day it's still a game, so you can't be too exceptionally true to life or it wouldn't be any fun at all. Playing through hell isn't any more fun then living through it. However, even with our regenerating health and ability to restart from a checkpoint there is room to give us a better feeling of combat, to give us a glimpse into the lives of soldiers, show some of the impact both good and bad.

I think that in this day and age, with the wealth of information available at our fingertips, that military shooter video games aren't a useful propaganda tool. However, I do see how they can easily be propagandized to the point where they marginalize any of the more important and interesting themes also contained therein. I'll give MoH the benefit of the doubt until we see the entire game, so I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll see something a little deeper than the usual.

@Nick Marroni

Sorry, I think you might have misunderstood (not to be presumptuous), I'm not saying that families don't understand what it's like to have a child, family member, etc... in the military, but they do not have first count experience with the actions of the military, or the situations that soldiers have to deal with. That's why it's so common for people to not be able to do much for soldiers with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). It is just physically and logically impossible, they were not there.

Nor do I mean to be disrespectful in saying she does not have a reason to mourn for her son. She has every right, but she's taking it out on a piece of entertainment media, and if she really wanted to do something to honor her son's memory, there are plenty of other things she could do.

Second, no, you're right, a world where we only listen to one side will never exist. But I never meant that. What I meant, out of all the criticism & "outrage", for these controversial games; Where are the opinions of the soldiers?

I mean, these games are portraying them, their comrades, their Brothers in Arm, and yet, it's not them, or the military that say they think these games are controversial, it's the people who:
1) Aren't even fighting alongside them.
2) Have never been in a war.
3) Are speaking on the behalf of another person.

I would not want to live in a world where other people speak for me. Might as well go back in time to the Feudal Ages.

Sorry if my original posting was unclear, but hopefully this clarifies my more "enthusiastic" first post.


PS: On a totally random thought, a lot of military guys (I bet including this Mother's son, if he were alive) would play this game once it came out and enjoy it. I know a lot of guys in the military who already play games like MoH and CoD whenever they've got free time.

It feels like the people who voice their opinions the most, always happen to be the people whom the issue aren't even referring to and find it in themselves to want to speak for others (because apparently the other people can't?).

@ Lincoln

"I mean, these games are portraying them, their comrades, their Brothers in Arm, and yet, it's not them, or the military that say they think these games are controversial, it's the people who:
1) Aren't even fighting alongside them.
2) Have never been in a war.
3) Are speaking on the behalf of another person."

Yes the games have soldiers as protagonists, I wouldn't go as far as you and say the games are "portraying" them, this would be like saying CSI is portraying police men and women. All I want to ask you, if you don't forget something to mention, when you say the people who are criticizing the approach on MoH
"1) Aren't even fighting alongside them.
2) Have never been in a war.
3) Are speaking on the behalf of another person."?

In the real world, civilians are the greatest group of victims in every war. In Afghanistan, Iraq or former Yugoslavia much more civilians then soldiers were killed. So I think, it is the right of any civilian to criticise games portraying real war as a cops and robbers game.

So maybe instead of asking the soldiers, what they think of the game, we should go and ask the people in the streets of Afghanistan, what they think of the game, cause MoH is portraying the war in their country.

@Lincoln Li

Thanks for the reply. I understood you.

"It feels like the people who voice their opinions the most, always happen to be the people whom the issue aren't even referring to."

How is someone who lost a loved in the war not being referred to in a game about the war? Even if she didn't lose her son, her opinion is just as valid as anyone else's. This war affects every single individual on the planet, especially Americans and Afghanis--some people experience these effects, unfortunately, much more viscerally than others, though.

Deriding her for expressing an opinion is as legitimate as me deriding you for expressing an opinion about a parent who lost a child in the war's opinion, while you are personally not a parent who lost a child in the war. In war and opinions, ridiculousness comes all too quick.

Christian speaks some sense below as well.

Well I'm a few days late for this discussion, but it intrigued the hell out of me.

First of all, I am so thankful there are intelligent, sensitive people with solid opinions on the 'net (unlike the comments found on a certain TUBE site made just for YOU) and second of all @Justin Jackson, I agree that games based on "reality" get incredibly boring (or subsequently way too disturbing) for me.

I don't have much to add to this discussion except that I strongly urge everyone to set aside 21 minutes to watch this video:

http://current.com/shows/vanguard/91546300_remote-control-war.htm

For those who don't have the time/patience, there is a segment about a soldier in Iraq who controls a robot mounted with guns and cameras, designed as a scout to lessen human- pardon me, ahem, American casualties. He explains that the original control scheme was cumbersome, so he had the tech guys hack an Xbox controller to the unit because he felt it was more natural for him than the standard military equipment. This tells me a great deal about how well I, an untrained civilian, would do if you gave me a remote weapon to control. Predator Drones anyone?

@Jacob Pederson and Mark Harris, whether or not Activision or other companies intend on using their games as recruitment tools or not, the fact remains that they are recruitment tools. Any of us here who excel at FPS games, or even RTS games for that matter have invaluable military skills just waiting to be translated. The secret to good propaganda is to convince us that we are all potential soldiers and that's what truly scares me about modern war simulators.