Option To Play Game As Taliban Member Gets Video Game Banned From Being Sold On Military Bases

The upcoming Electronic Arts title Medal of Honor?a refresh of the first-person shooter series that first launched in 2002?has been banished from 49 Gamestop locations and all Post Exchanges on U.S. military bases worldwide, according to a report by PC Magazine.

What’s the problem? Within the game’s multiplayer mode, one can play the role of both the “good guys” and the “bad guys,” or coalition forces and Taliban insurgents. That hasn’t exactly sat well with those related to soldiers who have lost their lives in the real-life version of the Afghanistan conflict.

“I don’t see how shooting soldiers based on real Americans is entertainment while people are dying every day for this country,” said Karen Meredith, in an interview with the San Jose Mercury News late last month. Her son, an Army lieutenant, was killed in Iraq in 2004.

“How can they say it’s OK for someone to play the Taliban? You’ll have people sitting at home, drinking beer, shooting at American soldiers, maybe missing, then starting over. Well, Ken didn’t have a chance to start over.”

The commander of the Army & Air Force Exchange, Major General Bruce Casella, recently issued a statement on the decision. According to Casella, the game was pulled as a result of sensitivity concerns for the AAFES’ core audience: namely, “Soldiers, Airmen and their families around the world,” reads the agency’s website. It’s a group that has a likelihood of seeing the very kind of combat that Medal of Honor depicts, suggests Casella.

Read the full article here.

Learn more about the video game at its official site here.