Pointlessness

Or, At least they succeeded at getting rid of them.

So at the end of last week EA announced suddenly that they've gone and removed the Talibans from the mulitplayer section of their latest Medal of Honor game to honor the men and women who serve in the military. And the executive producer releasing a long and rather cliche statement about how he lost sleep over the whole thing.
Not to mention them getting yanked from Gamestop stores on military bases and coming under fire from various places for it.

So now that they're called by the generic moniker of Opposing Force and all should be fine and dandy now right?

Nope.
Turns out the game still won't get stocked in military stores despite the change. So the whole thing turned out to be rather pointless.

The whole thing is really just a convenient move to try to cover their behinds and play nice with everyone else. Not to mention it has rather big implications on the matter of free speech, a matter that is going to be taken up in the US Senate very soon.
In reality the problems with this is several. Firstly, why use Talibans as an enemy if you can just re-purpose them into something more generic? Especially when they have stated that the change is nothing but a cosmetic one and will not in any way actually change the way the game is played.
And on that note, why then even use Afghanistan as the playground? Would it not be simpler to just invent a fictional country and have the game take part there instead? Something which Bohemia Interactive Studios has repeatedly done with their Armed Assault franchise and in particular the first expansion to Arma2 which does take place in a country very much similar to Afghanistan in terms of environment and inhabitants.
  
In my eyes the whole usage of Afghanistan just seems horribly pointless since its nothing but a decor. As they've also said that they've willingly shied away from making any statements or messages about the war from a geopolitical angle. This of course to avoid attracting any more ire. Which strikes in comparison to other works pertaining the conflict in Afghanistan or Iraq such as Restrepo or Hurt Locker, who while trying to downplay that angle does not actively say it was not irrelevant to it. But here it's nothing but a simple and generic message of supporting the troops by invoking a recent conflict.

In a way I think EA has sorta brought this upon themselves.
There is a lot of people with open wounds remaining and then they suddenly sees red when something suddenly goes and opens them somewhat. Even if they are very much over-exaggerating and forgetting it's all fiction.
Playing as the Taliban in MoH never really mattered. It's all a simple graphical choice you do when you start up a multiplayer session. Just as simple as picking to play the American side. Nothing but a simple marketing tag on a website or a box as a unique selling point to attract attention or publicity.

A similar example can be found in the storm that happened during the Six days in Fallujah game that was announced at the end of last year/early this year. Even if there was a slight difference there with the developers wanting to tell an actual story of what happened instead of in a way just making something up. Even if apparently the developers were about to ruin that chance as well judging by what was heard about the game before it disappeared due to the publishers dropping it due to pressure.
Which is a shame, because if anything an accurate depiction of the current on-going conflict would've been interesting to see and experience.
Generation Kill both as a book and series did provide with a very interesting and good view of the early stages of the Iraqi conflict and it would've been interesting to see if the same could be capable with the game medium.

Will such a game happen? Who knows.
Would I want to see it happen?
Yes. Yes I would.