It’s common knowledge that entertainment has taken a dramatic twist into action thrillers these days.  Movies and TV shows are filled with gun fights and blood spattering everywhere; the intense visual effects of explosions are non-stop in our entertainment lives. The search for a good story or comedy is overshadowed by all this violence. The game industry is no different, the majority of games published each year revolve around violence, with dozens of shooters hitting the market each month. However no one, outside of maybe Jack Thompson, has had a problem with it - until now. Has the recent acts of Call of Duty and Six Days to Fallujah taken it too far?

Six Days to Fallujah was being developed by Atomic Games and slated to be published by Konami. The title took on Operation Iraqi Freedom, making it the first title to tackle the controversial subject. The story focuses on one squad of soldiers throughout the biggest six day campaign of the war to this date and was described to be as much of a survial horror title as it was a first person shooter.

However, controversy errupted when soldiers from the armed UK forces didn’t agree with the title being made. It started with one argument and when production proceeded, it turned into several larger arguments before being dropped by Konami. Critics argued that the game was being made too soon, as the war in Iraq is still going on. Critics also feared that it made light of the severity of the campaign, and that it shouldn’t be retold for enjoyment.  Concerns were also levied that Muslim buyers can easily get their hands on the game and retaliate in angry ways.

Looking at these arguments you can easily find counter points to the issues. This leads to my first point that video games held to higher standard than other entertainment mediums. The first issue, that the game was being made too soon after this tragic event, is non-existant in Hollywood. How fast did we see 9/11 based movies hit the market and no one had a problem with it? How many war drama movies have we seen based in similar or more tragic events? These are all built for the exact same reasons as the game, to tell a story and entertain people while they tell the story - and it is in this specific area the video game industry is having trouble catching up.