ArmA III developers arrested in Greece for spying on military base

Two Bohemia Interactive employees were accused of espionage on Sunday, but the Greek government has other issues with the ArmA III studio.

Czech developer Bohemia Interactive has had a solid 2012 so far. The runaway success of DayZ, the zombie apocalypse themed mod for its military simulators, brought massive mainstream attention to a line of games that has catered to a supportive but small audience. The company is hard at work on both the full version of that game as well as ArmA III, but the company’s smooth seas have grown choppy. Two developers from Bohemia’s ArmA team were arrested for “spying” in Greece.

The two unnamed employees, aged 28- and 33-years-old, were scouting locations for use in the next game on Lemnos, a small island in the Greek archipelago with a small population, some tourist trade, and one military air base. ArmA III’s primary setting, in addition to the Ai Stratis, is Lemnos and the developers were photographing that military base when they were arrested on Sunday under suspicion of espionage.

“We can confirm that two Bohemia Interactive employees, our colleagues and friends, were arrested during their holiday trip to Lemnos,” said Bohemia CEO Marek Spanel in a message on the developer’s forum, “They visited the island with the sole purpose of experiencing the island’s beautiful surroundings.”

“Since its establishment in 1999, Bohemia Interactive has created games based only upon publicly available information. We always respect the law and we’ve never instructed anybody to violate the laws of any country. The same is true for ArmA III. Currently, all our effort goes towards supporting the guys over there, as well as their friends and families affected by this difficult situation. We sincerely hope that this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of their passion as artists and creators of virtual worlds.”

The arrests may be more than just a misunderstanding. In 2011, the Greek government protested Bohemia’s use of Lemnos in ArmA III, claiming that its appearance in a war game might interest the tourist trade that keeps the island’s miniscule economy running. The game could also pose a security threat by realistically recreating the terrain.

 ArmA III definitely has the potential to reach a wider audience than past entries in the series. The popularity of DayZ drove sales of ArmA II, necessary for playing the mod version of the zombie game, up a purported 500 percent in May.

CTK reported on Tuesday that the men have been transported to the island of Lesbos where they will be interrogated by a Greek prosecutor. The Czech government’s Greek consul Blanka Kovacsova is working to help the developers.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Gamescom 2012: Hitman: Absolution “Saints” content changed in wake of controversy

After the "Saints" trailer came under fire for depicting wanton violence against women, IO Interactive confirms it's changing Hitman.

Hitman: Absolution has been in the works for a long time, so long that the its predecessors are now considered retro. The series it’s born of is fondly remembered, but the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia can cause problems. Truth is the Hitman games were always exploitive, as violent and dumb as a Mickey Spillane novel. Its cerebral, improvisational challenges were sophisticated but that didn’t change the fact that you were still a murderer working for a secret order spouting absurd dialogue. The pre-E3 2012 trailer for Absolution that showed Agent 47 gunning down a squad of lingerie-wearing nun soldiers wasn’t a new low for the series. It was the same old low.

The only thing different is the audience, whose outrage over that trailer’s brazen misogyny has actually spurred developer IO Interactive to change the content of its game. Speaking with Eurogamer at Gamescom 2012, director Tore Blystad said that the level that trailer was based on had to be altered in the wake of this spring’s controversy.

“The Saints trailer is based on a level within the game. One way to go about that level is to in all guns blazing but of course, it’s not the smartest way. We learned from the trailer that we really needed to give these characters some context and some back story,” said Blystad, “We’re working within the game—within that level—to build these characters up before you meet them. That way you know what you’re getting and you aren’t put off by them.”

Know your sexy nun before you fight her, player!

Blystad explained that he was surprised by people’s reaction to the game. “The game is inspired by Grindhouse-style movies, so for us the trailer was a natural way to deal with that subject matter,” said the director, “We’ve been trying to find out, y’know, how could we not see this happening? If we knew it would get such a negative reaction we would have done it in a different way.”

He shouldn’t have to though. There is room in video games for the exploitive, for the grindhouse. There’s room for dirty subjects, just like there is in books, movies, music, painting, literally every form of human expression. Hitman is a grindhouse game, and that’s just fine.

Hitman: Absolution though is coming out at a time when the people of the world are, after thirty years, sick and tired of 99 percent of all video games being grindhouse games. They’re almost all exploitive, all exaggeratedly male. There’s just not enough balance.

Changing the sexy nuns won’t help IO Interactive because sexy nuns aren’t the problem. The problem is that the majority of big-budget video games are made for 15-year-old white boys and are built around their tastes. It just so happens that Blystad’s game was the right target at the right time for the audience’s ire.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com