Blog: BATTLEFIELD 3 was recently banned in Iran thanks to its depiction of Middle-Eastern conflict. But while censorship is always problematic, perhaps this will get us thinking about the real issues at play, writes Mark Ankucic.
As a society, we haven’t really made it past the Cowboys and Indians mentality. Opposites will collide, forces will be matched, and there will always be an ‘us’ and ‘them’. The conflicts in gaming have thus far been tame – Xbox 360 vs PS3, PC vs console, Modern Warfare 3 vs Battlefield 3 – not exactly arguments that will lead to anything other than some heated (and ungrammatical) discussion on some message boards deep within the realms of the internet.
Whether gamers like it or not, the rise of modern shooters and the themes players face during their campaigns has brought politics into gaming. While we still have every choice to ignore any controversy created by the titles, or to take the story in the game as ‘just a story’, there are those playing who are looking into a world that is tremendously close to home.
In recent news, BeefJack reported on the reaction of some Iranian gamers to the campaign of Battlefield 3, which depicts the US fighting insurgents, namely the People’s Liberation and Resistance (PLR). “Westerners can never understand our situation because they have never seen what I have,” said Kabed, an Iranian games developer.
Kabed has experienced first-hand conflicts that have been represented in games, something that many of us haven’t. A game like Homefront - written by the father of invasion porn, John Milius – can only give us the briefest taste of what it would be like for our familiar world to be suddenly turned into another nation’s war zone.
Homefront set out to play on our love of fear and our desire to feel like the rising underdog, and in doing so illustrated the very essence of why Battlefield 3 was banned in Iran: the game was seen to be devoid of any empathy or investigation into the conflict it presented.
A 5000-strong petition protested what people believed was a game deliberately designed to promote fear of Iran. While this may seem like a paranoid reaction, tension between Iran and the US has risen over the last year, with the US placing sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear proliferation programs. Whether one thinks it’s okay that the US is allowed to have thousands of nuclear forces and other nations can’t, Battlefield 3 features the nuclear threat quite heavily. There is still no proven link between gaming and aggression, but there is an undoubted link between what we’re exposed to in media and how we come to view the world around us.
Unhelpfully synonymous
To many, the ideas of terrorism and Islam have become almost synonymous in the current age – although this link has borne a range of unhelpful generalisations. All forms of media that tell a story carry with it the bias of their respective age, and while Battlefield 3 may be perceived by Iran to be using these current political themes to promote fear, the truth about how the game impacts on our decision-making is actually far less obvious but in no way less detrimental.
I had the pleasure of speaking to Daniel Matros, Global Community Manager of DICE, shortly before the release of Battlefield 3. He had told me that DICE had no intention of taking sides, aiming for neutrality, ‘like Sweden’. For me this was only half true: the US forces are shown very early on in the game as having only limited knowledge of the conflict, and thus personally unable to hold bias. However, when one of the soliders queries, “Have you ever asked yourself why this part of the world is so fucked up all the time?’ and is replied to with, “I only work here, Dave,” it becomes clear that ignorance is its own form of prejudice.
Conflict has occurred in the Middle-East because of its resources. Whether it’s oil, knowledge or culture, the Middle-East has been a beacon of human advancement for most of history. The birth and growth of maths, physics, biology and philosphy occurred here, and thanks to Muhammad’s ethical code for the treatment of enemy forces during war time, we had a basis on which to build UN policy.
The reason that the ban in Iran is ultimately a good thing isn’t because it is the right thing for Iran, or for gaming. It could be strongly argued that censorship, in all forms, is unhelpful in allowing us access to important information that helps to shape all our views of the world.
But in another sense, the ban is a good thing because there is the possibility that even the smallest percentage of the gaming populace will see that the game has been banned and ask why, and with a little research come to know the world they live in a bit better, to understand their decisions more thoroughly and be able to empathise with someone they intrinsically recognise as a ‘default’ enemy.
Every piece of knowledge and empathy breaks down our longing for Cowboys and Indians, for ‘Us’ and ‘Them’. It makes us more than monkeys: it makes us human.
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