“Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA”, a documentary on terrorism that aired on the British ITV network last night, appears to have mistaken video games for real life. In a clip (since removed from internet circulation) discussing trunk mounted machine-guns shooting down British helicopters, a gameplay segment from 2009’s ArmA II was broadcast in the stead of actual documentary footage. First discovered on the forums of ArmA II developers Bohemia Interactive, the mistake was quickly apologized for and claimed to be the result of human error.
“The events featured in Exposure: Gaddafi and the IRA were genuine but it would appear that during the editing process the correct clip of the 1988 incident was not selected and other footage was mistakenly included in the film by producers,” an ITV spokesperson told The Telegraph. “This was an unfortunate case of human error for which we apologize.”
A Bohemia Interactive staff member has since responded to the question of whether the use of the gameplay clip was legal, stating, “Absolutely not, we’ve had requests in the past to use Arma2 footage for scenes in a documentary and the request was turned down because of the possibility it showed Arma2/Bohemia Interactive in a negative way, now using our game to show the actions of terrorists is potentially a very negative and damaging use.”
Marek Spanel, CEO of Bohemia Interactive, recently spoke to Kotaku about the matter, saying, “We were not aware of this at all. It is very weird to see our game used this way especially considering the journalists were simply unable to tell difference between reality and game footage and described a short film clearly made using our game Arma II with what they call real IRA footage from 1988. Our games offer a great level of freedom to our users to create all kind of things but in this particular case, it is very misleading. Plus it is surprising ITV did not seek for permission to use our game in this way.”
(via 1UP)
Was this a simple case of human error, as ITV suggests, EGs? How could two-year old gameplay footage have made it onto the editing board in the first place? Do you think Gaddafi was/is a gamer? Comment below!