As many readers are aware, the Russian government has been on a recent censorship tear, including talk of banning off-color and proudly offensive animated TV imports such as The Simpsons, Family Guy, and South Park (oddly, Venezuela's Hugo Chavez has already done the same).
No reason to stop at TV shows. Today we're seeing reports that the government has ordered Russian retailers to pull the video game title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 from its shelves while a ban on the game is considered. The game, which pits players in bloody gunfights in a slew of imaginary international conflict zones, is already being called one of the decade's most successful product launches - hitting $310 million in one day alone.
It's not too hard to see what irked the Duma, according to PC Magazine:
No reason to stop at TV shows. Today we're seeing reports that the government has ordered Russian retailers to pull the video game title Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 from its shelves while a ban on the game is considered. The game, which pits players in bloody gunfights in a slew of imaginary international conflict zones, is already being called one of the decade's most successful product launches - hitting $310 million in one day alone.
It's not too hard to see what irked the Duma, according to PC Magazine:Apparently the thematic content of the controversial "No Russian" level in which players must choose whether to fire on innocent civilians in a Moscow airport managed to escape broad public notice before launch. It's not clear whether the threatened governmental ban came about because of the level's play mechanics (the compulsion to shoot and terrorize innocent civilians) or the fact that you play a CIA agent pretending to be a Russian ultranationalist pretending to be an American terrorist. Presumably someone's decided Russia comes off looking badly, and that America comes off looking nobler-than-thou (albeit, per the level in question, pretty single-minded about it).Yikes ... let's take a second to recognize that this isn't really a freedom of expression issue. Russia certainly wouldn't be the first to call for bans on video games (Hillary Clinton, years before rising to Secretary of State, was once spanked by the Economist for her proposed censorship of games), but I'm still surprised that the state would bother calling more attention to such a popular title (no doubt this will become one hot item of digital samizdat). After all, the Kremlin is way ahead of the curve on this one in terms of embedding politics into entertainment products ... remember that there's even a Georgia war game in the works.
But business is business, and I think we can expect the game's developers to happily reproduce an edited version of the game which could hit shelves in a month.
Oddly enough, I actually support this action of the Kremlin. By banning it, the Kremlin only supports the development of a massive samizdat-style revolutionary movment, which is exactly what Russia needs right now. If the Kremlin thinks it's powerful enough to control the flow of video games among those who want them, it should think again.
"massive samizdat-style revolutionary movment [sic]"
Is this statement intended to be a joke? It's a video game, not a book about the gulag. Not to mention the irony of using a video game which glorifies senseless violence against Russian civilians as a hammer against a regime accused of senseless violence against Russian civilians. Three cheers for cognitive dissonance.
Also, the article you quote gets it wrong to some extent - the player isn't given the 'choice' to participate in the killing of civilians.
When i played video games , the first ones , i always wondered why you couldn't destruct the American fleet in Pearl Harbor ( Even if it was seriously endomaged ) and it was always the " good guys " who were winning the war .
After that , i studied that in these games it was MATHEMATICALY impossible for a " vilain " to win but for some games you could set your own parameters , with the assistance of your child who knows that better than you does , and even reverse the victors and the vainquished !
My best video game was " Republic ! The Revolution "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic:_The_Revolution
I guess it's a game Mr Kasparov is playing each day .
Jesse, it's just Phoby, who has predicted 5 out of the last 0 Russian socio-economic collapses, and who really gets spun up from the frustration that they don't happen.
RKKA:
Morons like you also thought the USSR was indestructible, they even sang about it and the scoffed at predictions that it would collapse. Your ignorance, to say nothing of your dishonesty, is truly epic (that is to say neo-Soviet) in scope.
JESSE:
In a nation as wretched as Russia, beggars cannot be choosers where revolution is concerned. Russia is so pathetic that sometimes even a lunatic like Eduard Limonov looks good. By the total absence of alternatives you can offer, you betray your fundamental, childish ignorance and your total lack of interest in the fate of the people of Russia. Whoever is willing to fight the power is a better Russian patriot than the filthy, lice-ridden likes of you where Russia's survival is concerned.
"In a nation as wretched as Russia, beggars cannot be choosers where revolution is concerned"
Phoby, Phoby, Phony....
Wretched is so 1999, you know, when Russian wages were around $20/month paid years in arrears, central bank currency reserves of ~$12 billion, oligarchs freely stiffing the taxman, and the people dying off at the rate of !750,000/year. But you liked that, because the RF president was a drunken incompetent comprador buffoon who sold his country out on the slightest Western demand.
Russia now has a President and Prime Minister that defend their country's interests, ad Russia is getting better.
That's what really sticks in your craw, and it shows.
People thought it was getting better under Stalin, too, you ape. It wasn't then, it isn't now.
Those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it. And they deserve their suffering.
Your ignorance of basic economic facts is characteristic of your lowly ilk: The ONLY reason Russia has improved economically is that the price of oil spiked. Even the Russian government itself admits this:
http://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/editorial-the-russian-economy-enslaved/
That you can't only shows you have a mushroom instead of a brain. That you still think you can fool people with such childish and idiotic Soviet style propaganda is just plain silly. I pity you.
Phoby, Phoby, Phoby...
It took until 2004 for the oil price to break $40. Russia was growing fast before then.
Poor Phoby, exposed as a clueless buffoon who has no memory for stuff that happened more than a week ago.