In the midst of rising criticism from media and politicians surrounding the upcoming first-person shooter Medal of Honor, EA Games president Frank Gibeau has stated that the developer will not surrender its creative vision to these reports. Over the weekend, the British Secretary of Defence Liam Fox voiced his anger and disgust over the fact that the multiplayer aspect of the game allows players to take on the role of Taliban forces and do battle with ISAF forces.
In an interview with Develop, Gibeau stated that “the development teams care very much about what they’re building, and of course a bit of criticism from the media causes some to get demoralised, but at the end of the day we’re proud of what we’re doing.”
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“What’s really important for us is that we partnered with the US military, and the Medal of Honor Society as well. We’ve gone out of our way to produce the best story for the game.”
Additionally, Gibeau stated that he does not understand why movies or books that are set in Afghanistan do not receive similar criticism from these sources. As times evolve, the platforms that people use to tell their stories changes, and Gibeau indicated that he believes that games are becoming one of those platforms.
Medal of Honor will release for PC, Playstation 3, and Xbox 360 on October 12, 2010.
I am with Gibeau; all other forms of entertainment are not as criticized as video games are. I guess it is ok to play as a Nazi in any WWII game because it had been over 50 years since WWII happened and things were all good (MoH came out in ’99). People are just to uptight about things, especially video games. Well this will all blow over when a new game is picked on (and that is unfortunate).
Wow, it was like he listened to Elder-Speek and took the words right out of Randy’s and my mouth! Rock on Gibeau!