War Bad, Torture Good
Konami created a flurry of controversy when it announced that it would be publishing Six Days in Fallujah, a game based on the bloody battle from the War in Iraq. Too insensitive! Too disrespectful! Too violent! Too soon! Once again those who love to denigrate videogames were up in arms about a game they’ve never seen or know nothing about .. and they won. Konami pulled support for the controversial game shortly thereafter. Now here’s the part that strikes me as odd. At the same time Konami announced Six Days in Fallujah, it also announced Saw, a game based on the movie series of the same name, and yet it didn’t generate a peep. On the one hand we have a game based on an historic event, which makes it deeply offensive, while on the other we have a game based on a movie series starring a psychopath who tortures people for his own amusement. I don’t know how you can protest the first while not even being phased by the second. And if you would have asked me a couple of weeks ago which game I thought would have the videogame morality police up in arms, I would have guessed that it would have been Saw without giving it a second thought. I really don’t get it. I guess I’ll leave the policing of videogame subject matter to those who know what they’re doing…
