And I was looking forward to not playing another silenced american soldier. 

Cool, so instead of killing American soldiers in Afghanistan as the Taliban, I'll still be killing American soldiers in Afghanistan as they same character models, but a different name. Where's the logic in this?

So what are they called now? Insurgents? Terrorists? Non-Americans?

Fucking pussies.  Man up and support what you do.

" So what are they called now? Insurgents? Terrorists? Non-Americans? "

I just think this whole thing was pointless. But its pry enough to get Fox News off their ass.

That sounds utterly pointless.

" @eroticfishcake said:

" So what are they called now? Insurgents? Terrorists? Non-Americans? "

Opposing Force. Which still means Taliban. "

It's only for the multiplayer, but it's still bullshit backpedaling.

This is completely ridicules. I'm actually offended that they don't even mention our real-world enemy by name.

" This is completely ridicules. I'm actually offended that they don't even mention our real-world enemy by name. "

" @EpicSteve said:

" This is completely ridicules. I'm actually offended that they don't even mention our real-world enemy by name. "

Okay, I have to say something because I've seen it so much.  It's "ridiculous"  :)  I don't understand how this is a bigger issue than killing American soldiers in the game. Doesn't make sense to me. I thought this game was at least trying to be somewhat authentic? "

" @EpicSteve said:

" This is completely ridicules. I'm actually offended that they don't even mention our real-world enemy by name. "

Okay, I have to say something because I've seen it so much.  It's "ridiculous"  :)  I don't understand how this is a bigger issue than killing American soldiers in the game. Doesn't make sense to me. I thought this game was at least trying to be somewhat authentic? "

Pretty much the only thing this game had going for it was the "controversy."
 
When you backpedal you are essentially admitting you were wrong. What a lovely precedent of caving to the hysterical 24 news cycle, EA.

" @natetodamax said:

" @EpicSteve said:

" This is completely ridicules. I'm actually offended that they don't even mention our real-world enemy by name. "

Okay, I have to say something because I've seen it so much.  It's "ridiculous"  :)  I don't understand how this is a bigger issue than killing American soldiers in the game. Doesn't make sense to me. I thought this game was at least trying to be somewhat authentic? "

Because Fox News said so.

I was pretty indifferent to the whole Taliban thing before, and I'm pretty indifferent to the whole name change thing now.
 
So EA buckled under the pressure, big deal, this kinda stuff can be real tricky to handle. It's easy for everyone here to say "they pussied out" because none of us have been dealing with, or any stake in it.

Don't blame EA, blame the culture.

Terrorists win.

Don't blame EA, blame yourselves. I saw loads of you guys saying, oh my god this is terrible, how can EA allow this to happen, oh no!

" I understand the choice but a name change just seems too simple.  You would think they could have saved time and money by doing a bit of research to see if the backlash would be bad. Who knows if this move will get the game on army bases now or not so is this choice worth the effort.  "

" @natetodamax said:

" @EpicSteve said:

" This is completely ridicules. I'm actually offended that they don't even mention our real-world enemy by name. "

Okay, I have to say something because I've seen it so much.  It's "ridiculous"  :)  I don't understand how this is a bigger issue than killing American soldiers in the game. Doesn't make sense to me. I thought this game was at least trying to be somewhat authentic? "

Because Fox News said so. 
  

"

@Onno10 
 
Because of Rupert Murdoch.

We still kill the Taliban in the singleplayer.

This is typical American bullshit. They are fine killing the enemy, but as soon as it goes the other way around... BAM!

I wonder if someone will ever make a movie from the Taliban's perspective, like "Letters from Iwo Jima"/The Middle East.

It was only a multiplayer skin.

It's called 'Self-Censorship', when you voluntarily decide or are coerced into a change, without the outright use of force, from the original intention.

In this case EA has decided due to PR reasons and external pressure to change its own vision in MOH and delete the Taliban from Multiplayer modes. In terms of end result it is absolutely no different to a ban on certain parts of the game, the result being that change would occur or the original intention stopped if a change did not occur.

Self censorship actually exists far more around the world than you would believe but has the same effect as a ban or clampdown. Different forms of which can be 'blacklisting', e.g. certain music artists voluntarily blacklisted from radio shows by companies or voluntary discrimination in not stocking the product. 

The hypocrisy of this of course being that whilst outright bans are frowned down upon, self censorship is seen as almost perfectly acceptable. And in the case of MOH you will get very little backlash from the wider populace because their sensibilities have been protected. The same sensibilities that they rarely give due regard to in others. What I'm trying to say is that some forms of speech are deemed more acceptable than others depending on who/what is offended.

" We still kill the Taliban in the singleplayer. This is typical American bullshit. They are fine killing the enemy, but as soon as it goes the other way around... BAM! I wonder if someone will ever make a movie from the Taliban's perspective, like "Letters from Iwo Jima"/The Middle East. "

First Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age got their sex scenes tamed the fuck down (especially DA) and now this? Yeah, EA is ran by a bunch of pussies. I don't believe one bit that the enemy being named "Taliban" would have reduced the game's sales. A couple of butthurt rightwing motherfuckers probably would have refrained from buying it, but no more than that.
 
It really sucks that Fox has that much influence. I hate those fucks.

It's BS how publishers like EA listen to stupid news organizations like Fox News even though they don't even play games and instead ignore the people who actually give them money.

" Cool, so instead of killing American soldiers in Afghanistan as the Taliban, I'll still be killing American soldiers in Afghanistan as they same character models, but a different name. Where's the logic in this? "

I can see why they did it, but I'm still kind of disappointed that they succumbed to exterior pressure instead of making the game they wanted to make. It was just the multiplayer component - if someone's the cops, someone has to be the robbers. People still play cowboys and Indians. In WW2 games you play as the Nazi's. It's only "controversial" because the media made it so "controversial." I found the airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 to be way more controversial than "playing as the Taliban," but Activision didn't self-censor that.

" I can see why they did it, but I'm still kind of disappointed that they succumbed to exterior pressure instead of making the game they wanted to make. It was just the multiplayer component - if someone's the cops, someone has to be the robbers. People still play cowboys and Indians. In WW2 games you play as the Nazi's. It's only "controversial" because the media made it so "controversial." I found the airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 to be way more controversial than "playing as the Taliban," but Activision didn't self-censor that. "

Well, that was expected. EA likes to try to keep its image clean as much as possible now, so they're a bit more erm, "responsible" with their image. 
 
Its really just a simple name change. What we have to blame isn't the publisher since they're trying to keep their image together and make some money, but the god forsaken stupid media.

" @Jayross said:

" We still kill the Taliban in the singleplayer. This is typical American bullshit. They are fine killing the enemy, but as soon as it goes the other way around... BAM! I wonder if someone will ever make a movie from the Taliban's perspective, like "Letters from Iwo Jima"/The Middle East. "

Single player is telling a story about American soldiers, who really are killing Taliban.  If someone decided to create a Taliban perspective campaign with American soldiers being killed, I'd be fine with it because that's they story they're telling, and I think most other people would deem it acceptable as well, if not be entirely comfortable with it, because it's telling a story.The issue with MoH's multiplayer is that unlike single player, multiplayer neccessarily trivializes its subject matter in favor of fun.  How is it bullshit for Americans to be uncomfortable with real events really killing other Americans being trivialized and sold? I'm Canadian, and I'm sure as hell not comfortable with it. "

I don't think I can support a developer that decides to stunt its own creative vision for some neo-con fucktards who don't realize that their kids went into the military by CHOICE. Sure they didn't change any actual content...all they did was change the word Taliban to Op-For, but I guess it's about the principle. I might check it out later on down the line when it drops in price for single player, but as they would say, "This straw broke the camels back." At least for me it did.

Looks like the Terrorists won. 

God damn republicans and Fox news.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but since the game comes out on the 12th wouldn't it have been printed already? If the games were printed already are they just going to patch this in? 
 
What I'm trying to get at is that couldn't this just be a bunch of bullshit and they were going to be named Opposing Force all along and this Taliban thing was just to gain media coverage?

Lost free publicity by doing this, because any publicity is good publicity. Especially because the type of people who were criticizing this game seem to be the type of dopes who lead even more people to come out and support it. 

Awaiting the Brad Nicholson news article because BRAD NICHOLSON IS THE ONLY VIDEOGAME JOURNALIST I CAN TRUST!!!

Lame. 

Free publicity ho!

Really I'm just sad that a controversy stirred up for the large part by a lady who's argument breaks down to "WW2 games aren't about real people" actually managed to change something.

" Fucking pussies.  Man up and support what you do. "