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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
CONTACT: Gold Star Families Speak Out |
'The War Is Not a Game:' Gold Star Families Speak Out Expresses Outrage at Video Game Based on Deadly Battle in Iraq
NATIONWIDE - April 8 - Members of Gold Star Families Speaks Out (GSFSO), family members of those killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, are expressing outrage at two companies that plan to release a video game that graphically recreates one of the Iraq war's bloodiest battles.
Atomic Games and Konami plan to release "Six Days in Fallujah" next year. The game is based on videos, photographs, and diary entries from veterans of a battle that claimed the lives of 38 U.S. troops and an estimated 1,500 Iraqis between November 7 and December 23, 2004. Discussing the game, Atomic Games President, Peter Tamte recently told a reporter that "For us, the challenge was how to present the horrors of war in a game that is entertaining, but also gives people insight into a historical situation in a way that only a video game can provide"
In a statement released Wednesday, Gold Star Families Speak Out said:
"Gold Star families continue to live with the horrors of war every day as we mourn the loss of our loved ones. We question how anyone can trivialize a war that continues to kill and maim members of the military and Iraqi civilians to this day.
"The war is not a game and neither was the Battle of Fallujah. For Konami and Atomic Games to minimize the reality of an ongoing war and at the same time profit off the deaths of people close to us by making it 'entertaining' is despicable."
"Just as Sony abandoned plans to launch a video game called Shock & Awe in 2003, Konami Atomic games should cancel their plans to release 'Six Days in Fallujah' before they instill more thoughtless pain on anyone"
GSFSO member Joanna Polisena, sister of Army Staff Sergeant Edward Carman, Killed in Action in Iraq on April 17, 2004 added "When our loved one's 'health meter' dropped to '0', they didn't get to 'retry' the mission. When they took a bullet, they didn't just get to pick up a health pack and keep 'playing'...they suffered, they cried, they died. We - their parents, siblings, spouses, children and friends - absolutely find it disgusting and repulsive that those so far detached (and clinging to denial of reality) find it so easy to poke fun at such a thing."
Joan Maymi, whose nephew, Captain Ernesto Manuel Blanco-Caldas, was Killed in Action in Iraq on December 28, 2003 said, "Unless you have suffered the death of loved one like we have, or are caring for the ones who have returned wounded, either physically or psychologically, our country has removed the immediacy of this war from their daily lives. To trivialize it in a video game and continue to desensitize our society from the scope of violence war entails goes beyond words."
Members of Gold Star Families Speak Out are available for interview.
5 Comments so far
Show AllThese people have certainly suffered enough. ..and the outrages continue in recruiting stations like the one in Philadelphia where they have a large video room for our kids to play in while they learn to kill, where they are lied to by the vultures who need them to fill the rosters of troops for Obama's escalating Af-Pak wars...more joystick pilots for the drones they fly over any place the tactical planners of death want. Unconscionable!
The interesting thing here is:
1. There are little to no details about the game itself. So this is a "shoot from the hip" response to something these folks know nothing about.
2. Video/computer games are not merely for the purpose of entertainment. They are either used for: entertainment, education, expression. Or any combination of the three. To ignore this fact is another level of arguing against something they know little to nothing about.
3. Repeated arguments from soliders and their families to those who oppose the war have been "We're over there fighting for your Rights!". Yet, here we have individuals who wish to DENY other individuals their Rights. Facinating. Either this war is about fighting for the Rights of others, or it isn't. Which is it? Are the soldiers fighting for the Rights of Americans or are these families dishonoring their own families by attempting to take away the Rights of other citizens?
4. Efforts to "glorify" the military, to encourage people to join, didn't start with the advent of personal computers or video game consoles. "Join the Army, see the world!" How about, if you don't die in the military, they'll pay for some of your college? How about the patriotic rant? If you don't join the military, you must HATE America. How about books, music, TV shows, movies, whether they are fiction or non-fiction that "glorify" war? "Hogan's Heroes", "MASH", even "China Beach". And many others. They made things look "entertaining". But they were also educational to a degree. And presented an expressed view as well. Where are the protests for all those media products that "glorify" war?
5. Desensitize? The day we no longer could look our enemy in the eye when we killed them, THAT'S when we became desensitized to killing. Make no mistake, the day we could flick a switch and dozens, hundreds, even thousands or more of our enemies could be wiped out, that's when killing became unimportant.
Andrew
Apparently when it comes to a war that killed 60 million people, no one raises a peep over Battlefield Heroes but when someone tries to make a humble and insightful video game documentary of a recent event, it's evil and wrong.
"The idea for the game, called Six Days in Fallujah (The Times spells the name of the city differently), came from U.S. Marines who returned from the battle with video, photos and diaries of their experiences. Instead of dialing up Steven Spielberg to make a movie version of their stories, they turned to Atomic Games, a company in Raleigh, N.C., that makes combat simulation software for the military."
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2009/04/fallujahgamekonami.html
People need to read up on something before they criticize it.
Video games are arguably our society's most powerful and most popular medium.
War is something we need to understand, not ignore.
So why shouldn't we use this powerful medium to increase our understanding of what our friends in the armed forces have been through?
Movies, books, and television can be crass and trivial, or they can be sensitive and appropriate. Same goes for video games. They can be sensitive and appropriate, too.
From what I've heard, seems like the guys at Atomic are making a lot of effort to make sure the game is accurate, sensitive and appropriate:
http://trippenbach.com/2009/06/09/six-days-in-fallujah-and-the-dirty-g-word/