The makers of combat video games have unwittingly become part of a global propaganda campaign by Islamic militants to exhort Muslim youths to take up arms against the United States, officials said on Thursday.
Tech-savvy militants from al Qaeda and other groups have modified video war games so that U.S. troops play the role of bad guys in running gunfights against heavily armed Islamic radical heroes, Defense Department official and contractors told Congress.
The games appear on militant Web sites, where youths as young as 7 can play at being troop-killing urban guerillas after registering with the site’s sponsors.
One of the latest video games modified by militants is the popular “Battlefield 2” from leading video game publisher, Electronic Arts. “Battlefield 2” ordinarily shows U.S. troops engaging forces from China or a united Middle East coalition. But in a modified video trailer posted on Islamic Web sites and shown to lawmakers, the game depicts a man in Arab headdress carrying an automatic weapon into combat with U.S. invaders.
“I was just a boy when the infidels came to my village in Blackhawk helicopters,” a narrator’s voice said as the screen flashed between images of street-level gunfights, explosions and helicopter assaults.
Then came a recording of President George W. Bush’s September 16, 2001, statement: “This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while.”
Somehow, I think Congress and the White House were surprised to learn Islamists can use computers. Are the corporate types in the gaming world so dumb, so anxious to take advantage of populist stereotypes they didn’t realize they could be turned around?
“Are the corporate types in the gaming world so dumb, so anxious to take advantage of populist stereotypes they didn’t realize they could be turned around?”
Well what do you want them to make the game about? Red Force vs Green Force? US vs Canada? If you are making a modern FPS wouldn’t Terrorists vs USA be the most logical choice?
The story is bogus!!!
See here:
http://cagematch.dvorak.org/index.php/topic,130.0.html
This is interesting as I bought Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter off Direct2Drive and it states specifically that the game is only available for purchase in North America. At first I thought it was such because the game is released to North America before the rest of the world. Now that “Islamic” modification makes sense as the game can be modified, so that the terrorists are the “good” guys and the Ghosts are the “bad” guys. It might be released as “Allah Recon: Protect Islam”
Wait until you see the FPS games on a PS3!
It makes me wonder if these terrorists “training” on these games are slouches fermenting on a couch playing hours and hours and hours…
I mentioned this on my blog last night – awful article, it could be taken apart from so many different angles, but I’d only be preaching to the converted, since anyone knowledgeable enough to connect to the internet would know that this is sensationalist tabloid crap.
Re: #1 – Andrew, US vs Canada would be a laugh – our navy up north here just bought 4 USED, DEISEL submarines from Britain … fairly inicative.
So is America’s Army. They have their own first person shooter: America’s Army.
Are the corporate types in the gaming world so dumb, so anxious to take advantage of populist stereotypes they didn’t realize they could be turned around?
Yeah, I’m sure none of them have ever heard of some Half-life mod called “Counter-strike”… 🙂
And, my gosh, it lets you play as a terrorist or a “good guy”. What decent, law-abiding American would want to play on the side of the terrorists?
Why wait for the PS3 when a terrorist can get an X-Box 360… if they’re lucky.
With the terrorists running around the desarts looking for the US, and the US running around looking for them. Its interesting to (MAYBE) learn that SOME of them have a computer, TIME, knowledge, to either MAKE a game, or a MOD for a game that reverses its concepts.
IF this has happened, I would start looking for some REAL bored kids, on a major fiber line, with a DECENT computer…
“Live by the pixel, die by the pixel”
Those darn terrorists, haven’t they ever heard of copyright law !!! Don’t they know they are supposed to be the losers ???
US copyrights end at the border….
WE acknowledge other countries but they DONT have to acknowledge ours.
John,
I was wondering. Don’t you think we (aka, the government) should be doing something about this? As we have tons of tech-savvy people here in the US, couldn’t someone just hack the database, get the names of those who have signed up and start a propaganda campaign of our own? Why haven’t we done this yet?