The Medal of Honor controversy surrounding playing the Taliban in multiplayer has died down recently but managed to pull in a pair of foolish foxes – Fox News and Defence Secretary Liam Fox. Now EA is going on the offensive to defend Medal of Honor and it’s first target is the media. Hey, don’t look at us!
EA CEO John Riccitiello says: “The controversy kind of caught me by surprise. No one noticed until a journalist decided to put the game box in front of a mom who’d lost her song in Afghanistan to create some kind of controversy. I think that says more about the newspapers than it does the game industry.” He may have a point. Remember the Grand Theft Raoul Moat, non-story?
Riccitiello continues: “We’re incredibly sensitive to the challenges that a non-gamer who doesn’t really understand…when a journalist who also doesn’t understand a game describes it to her. It tends to excite a little bit of angst.”
Sure the so-called Medal of Honor controversy was overblown (and yes, we did cover it pretty fully) but we’re not so sure that EA was totally surprised that including the Taliban stirred up some comment. A more cynical person might suggest that it know a good publicity stunt when it sees one…
Find out what we thought of the game with our Medal of Honor preview and let us know: where do you stand on Medal of Honor? Did EA know what it was doing and did the mainstream media deliberately fan the flames?
Out October 12 | £varies | EA (via GamesIndustry.biz)
