I totally agree. This is going to generate hate. I don't care who towards, I don't care how, but this america/al quaeda thing really doesn't have a place in a situation like this. How can you be proud killing as part of an actual terrorist organization? similarly, how can you be proud killing "towel heads" like you said. the same immersive effect could have been attained through teams like the ones in BF heroes, but they decided to be contraversial and go with the real deal for no apparent reason at all, and all it's goin to do is generate hate and prejudice towards one or both sides, not to mention the dev

I can see your argument and respect it, truly I do. But here is how I see it. Whether as a cheap ploy or an actual design decision, the freedom of speech gives them the right to do this. It's the exact same right you have to rage against it but considering we have media shutting down Six Days in Fallujah and the current leader, Modern Warfare uses generic locations finctional faction names to "soften the blow" says the industry, as a whole, is not in the same position to allow such pieces like Apocalypse Now, Das Boot, or Green Zone to exist. Fact of the matter is if EA flinches on this, despite it being crass and tasteless, it's essentially the game industry once again bitching about how we don't get taken seriously while simultaneously refusing to man the fuck up and do the controversial statements.

I respect your rage and understand it. But how long does the game industry have to wait? Movies had shit rolling out Week 2 using the real factions. Books were already being authored the moment the first soldier returned home unable to walk but able to fight. Music has tackled this as well. Does gaming then have to flinch, hide, and run away from the realities until 10 years from now?

We live in a culture that's fascinated with villains. Billy the Kid is regarded as some sort of iconic figure in pop culture, when the actual Billy the Kid was a murdering psychopath. Joe Pesci's character in Goodfellas is considered by most to be the highlight of that movie, even though his character is based on a real person who actually committed a lot of the horrible deeds portrayed in the movie.

I don't think being fascinated with bad people makes you a bad person. It's just part of who we are as human beings. Even in fiction, we often glorify the villain. An example of the would be the Joker in The Dark Knight, who was easily the highlight of that film, but who would be regarded as a monster were he to actually exist.

I can't tell you to not be offended by Al-Quada being playable in a video game. Only you can decide what is or isn't offensive to you. What I can tell you is that you don't have the right to not be offended by something. People have a right to free speech, and we don't make exceptions every time someone decides that something is offensive. If we did, then no one could ever say anything.

You say that playing as real life villains is okay as long as it's part of the story. Some people would say that it isn't even okay when it's part of the story. Why should you be the one to decide at point something stops being acceptable? Why should you get to draw the line instead of the people who are against playing as the Nazis even when it's part of the story?

You say something about one of the reasons why playing as Al-Quada is a bad thing is that 14 year olds might play as Al-Quada and mock them. I'm not sure why that's a bad thing.

Basically, the solution is very simple. If you're offended by the content in a game, don't play the game.

@ mrplow8: I'm not even really offended by this. I just feel that there's no place for real life factions that are currently fighting real life wars in competitive online multiplayer.

But I won't be playing this game anyway. Why? Because it's clearly trying to jump on the back of the success of Modern Warfare, and so by nature it's most likely going to be highly derivative and extremely uninteresting to me anyway. Army game set in modern times? Been there, done that. Too many times.

@ mrplow8: That's fine. I'm cool with freedom of speech. But if I had my preference, I'd prefer that I be forced to play as Al-Qaeda during a single player campaign. Then perhaps there could be some artistic merit.

This just seems like they're doing it for the sake of doing it. I'm not that upset anyway, I just find it repulsive how so many people were assholes towards CTZ because of the way he felt. I felt like saying something. It's the morning now and I'm a bit calmer, though I still stand by what I said.

I thought terrorists were the we.

Yeah, playing as Al-Qaeda in multi-player is a shit idea, and will only work to strengthen the belief by the "maistream" that most videogames are worthless murder simulators created to appeal to ignorant, socially retarded young men with no interest in the real world.

I agree that Hamza took way too much unnecessary shit however I think you're giving 14 year olds too much credit. Most of them don't even know where Afghanistan is (roughly 70% of high school SENIORS cannot point it out on a map, great since we have been in a going-on 9 year war there) and I'm certain this isn't going to create an ounce of empathy toward Al-Qaeda. I have my own issues with what this game is doing but that is me. There's a whole other issue at hand about trivializing war and keeping people ignorant. Of course we care on these boards, we tend to see the bigger picture, most of us are out of high school and the youger posters seem to be on the higher levels of aptitude and understanding. Shit, you don't even start getting a real history education till you're in university or you get the time to start reading up on it yourself. 14 years olds don't care about geopolitics and they don't understand anything about terrorism beyond what our government has allowed them to think, which is that, "it is bad and we are good. End of story."

Will I play this? No. Will tons of other players? Absolutely.

This seems to be yet more controversy for the sake of it. It's a shame that this will be filed into "hard evidence" for all the Jack Thompson's of the world. This will be yet another thing to get them riled up and turn on the radars and when a game that is developed with something to say but a questionable/controversial way to say it, that will be one we never get to see.

Since I'm not gonna post in Hamza's 500 comment long article, I'll post here. Sorry to EDS for the rant.

I talked in my musing for E3 about the Vietnam War (<-not trying to troll for hits, just giving reference) as it applied to the new Call of Duty. My issue lied in the fact that these people are not soldiers or militia. Many were normal every day citizens fighting in guerilla warfare.

This can be said of Al-Qaeda as well. The only difference is that Treyarch is going to make a major single player system based around this which can potentially push a new take on a historical war like Vietnam (I doubt it will happen, but they could). Medal of Honor from what I have come to understand is skinning some avatars in multiplayer just for the fun of it. While it's a lesser experience, its more controversial because its going on right now. On something this controversial, it's just so careless its unreal.

Iono...I just have a problem with games about guerilla warfare. Combatants are almost always citizens and I just don't think many people can handle it properly.

All that being said, I don't have a problem with games using stuff like this. I for one have a traditional view of what I call art in that anything man can create can be deemed art. Whether its good or bad is based on taste. It might not be well done and it might be turned into something tasteless, but you don't have to purchase it. I won't buy these games. My issue is with a community that thinks they can bash someone for taking offense to something that we can all see is a little offensive. People have different views of what is or isn't offensive. Grow up and learn to accept other people.

Kudos to Hamza for this simple line: "I will defend Electronic Arts’ right to make this game, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it." It's the only line that people who skim the article should read.

I don't see how you can argue that its OK for single player but not for multi. Seriously. It's not "free speech when its convenient or socially accepted". Its just "free speech".

That's really all I have to say. I have an opinion about whether this is SMART or NOT for EA, but I just wanted to leave that bit above.

@ Crunshii: What the fuck are you talking about?

@EternalDeathSlayer,

You're missing the fucking point, man. You're out of order, the whole damn system is out of order. *cough* Excuse me.

Anyway, what I mean is this. Take Nazis. Histories most infamously fabulous dressing monsters. Were you aware that 60%-65% of the entire Nazi army did NOT know the death camps existed. 30% of Nazis didn't even know the Ghettos existed. A whole lot of them were ultra nationalistic idealist looking at the raw deal from WW1, struggling to pay bills, and deciding Germany had a manifest destiny. Many even signed up simply for the food. These are not child scarfing necromorphic daemons, these were real people. Real people reduced to a Zombie mode on Call of Duty 5. There were children, the Hitler youth (one is the Pope now), who had neither malice nor hatred, just racism presented as scientific fact. Trained not to hate, but simply to ignore or eradicate those lesser beings. Yet THAT face of Nazis are never shown in video games either. What are Nazis to the industry despite being on of the most innovative and ambitious armies the world had seen since Persia? Spiders in an RPG. A Generic beast thrown in because who will bitch. Hell, who even KNOWS what I typed above that was actually true? The point? Imagine you're an 80 year old man, you signed up to feed your new family, you fought the Russians and felt pride in your work, and here you are... 80 years later, and you're lining up next to Dracula as far as society is concerned. This is what gaming has done and our culture has done. We've trivialized real life people and a real life war to a bonus mode in multiplayer.

So what does this have to do with anything? Believe it or not, a LOT of Al Qaeda are NOT terrorists just like a lot of our militias in the US are not actively dangerous. Many in that region of the world see our presence there as an invasion and many have taken up arms, using guerrilla warfare, not unlike the US used to win our independance, to fight against what they see as an invading army. This too is not here nor there because it makes it sound like I'm trying to defend them instead of ask the question, "Why do people join and are they all terrorists?"

Simple fact of the matter is the game is just a game and placing this in multiplayer is essentially putting a "faction name" on the opposing side. You feel it doesn't have a place because the war is current. That's a pathetic fucking excuse and you know it. Why are video games the ONLY media not allowed to do this then? Why do even board games and war games use the real names of these factions (and yes, I HAVE played a chit based war game as Al Qaeda) and yet it's a step too far for video games? I ask this NOT because I'm genuinely curious. I ask this simply because YOU should be asking this. Why do we, as gamers, fight for the legitimacy of our medium against a man who sold hardcore violence to children for 30 years (the Guvanor) when we, as gamers, self defeat our own medium at every stepping stone to legitimacy? Your argument that it has no place in multiplayer is the very same as "It has no place in gaming." You're just a different level of the censorship, but it IS censorship, make no mistake about that.

A very good read!

WAAAIT.

You can play as Al-Qaed in multiplayer? I thought it was just a story thing, which is why I didn't care at all. Now it just sounds like something EA did to get more free publicity. I mean, I still don't care much (I won't play the game anyway, and I didnt plan to before this whole thing got out), but this is just kinda silly.

And whatever your stance on the matter may be, Hamza is not wrong in any way, he's just stating what he feels about the whole thing. The huge amount of people getting mad because of an opinion is just... weird to me. This sort of thing should not happen in Destructoid.

To those comparing Hamza to Jack Thompsons: Hamza isn't the same as those people because I'm pretty sure Hamza would have a problem playing a board game where you play as terrorists. He's not attacking gaming or even the game itself.

He's attacking the stupidity of having a currently operating terrorist group in the game for no reason. Something that should be attacked.

@sheppy

As for films:

"Besides, movies and books feature narratives from the point of view of terrorists all the time. "

[i]"
And you see, that's just fine, at least when it pertains to a fucking story. But when you bring something that has the potential to hit that close to home into online deathmatches, you're just being irresponsible."[/i]

^THIS.

Just to play devil's advocate for a bit here, don't you think the game as a whole would be disjointed if the single player specifically said, "Hey, you're an American fighting in Afghanistan," but then the multiplayer was like, "Don't worry about that any more, now you are a fictional brown person fighting against a fictional white person"? For the game to have any chance at having any artistic merit (which, admittedly, is a pretty low chance), I would think it would have to be consistent throughout, rather than having different representations in the single player and multiplayer.

@GoldenGamerXero,

Nope, sorry. Not buying it.

First things first, nobody aside from people at Dice have played completely through the single player. You're assuming there is no content like that.

Second thing, you're drawing a line. Saying when it's okay and when it isn't. You're pro censorship, just on your terms. As W.C. Fields once said, "Your rights to swing your arms, dear sir, end when they impact upon my nose."

@sheppy

If there is a single player reason for it then I'll do a complete 180 and start supporting their decision 100% till then I will continue to believe that it's a dumb move by DICE. Oh and no I'm not pro-censorship. I never asked for the game to be banned or anything like that in fact no one did. Saying pro-censorship for not liking something in a game seems like a stock argument to me.

@ mrplow: I dunno, never said this would teach people to hate. That's just silly.

I started reading this blog, decided to go ask my parents about it. We had an interesting discussion. I come back here, and... well.

There's a legitimate argument to what you're saying. You're not the person to make it. With all due respect, you don't have the brains or the stones to think about what you're saying, which is why you come out with nuggets of wisdom like this:

"Dude, get your bleeding heart liberalism out of my fucking blog."

Ha ha ha. Now insult me so you don't have to think.

@ UglyDuck: What are you talking about? The only reason I'd insult you is because, well, you've just insulted me.

You must be missing the point of this. It was just a rant. I was upset because of the response to Hamza's article. I really just wanted to throw my two cents in and show another side. I'll now go back to my normal American life where I pretend that Al-Qaeda barely exists and everything is wonderful.

And then I'll play some games. Probably a Mario game, actually.

But seriously, that guy who I called a bleeding heart liberal, well, he was a bit ridiculous in his defense of terrorists. He called them human beings.

I call them asshats who give muslims everywhere a bad name.

If not now, when?

There's only so many times you can rotate between German, American, British, Japanese, and Russian forces. Throw a couple more in there. They're just character skins and if one takes offense, don't partake in it.

Simply? Sheppy gave a spectacular response. Intelligent, articulate, relevant and goddamn honest. You cut him down with a fucking label.

These developers have balls, I like it.

Sheppy nailed it IMO.

Regardless this is Hamzas personal decision, and I don't think o can add anything to the conversation because, well, it's HIS opinion, and he has a very serious reason for it.