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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Gleaning potential controversy from Konami's 'Six Days in Fallujah'

Making a game about the Iraq war?  While it's still going on?  Not to mention one of the most controversial and violent battles of the war?  Probably not the most intelligent or sensitive decision.

Besides being the bloodiest battle of the Iraq War, the battle is controversial mostly for the Americans' use of White Phosphorus as an offensive weapon.  While not considered a chemical weapon by the Chemical Weapons Commission, many other groups consider it to be so.  At first, the Department of Defense denied the use of the chemical as a weapon, then later admitted to using it during the battle.

The point of a video game is to tell a specific story through the audience interacting with the world itself; they are, in effect, living a specific fantasy designed by the developer of the game.  The publisher of the game (Konami) state in the article that they want to make a "piece of entertainment", and that's how it's going to read: The on-going war as entertainment.

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