Controversial developer Kuma Reality Games, a studio that creates shoot-'em-up missions accurately based around real-life military situations, has whipped up more controversy with the latest addition to its Kuma/War game, US Attacks Iran. Here, gamers get to storm an Iranian nuclear facility in what Kuma claims is "an extremely plausible scenario for delaying or destroying Iran's nuclear arms capabilities without kick-starting World War III". According to CNN, however, Iran isn't best pleased, calling for the game to be removed from Kuma's website - there's even an online petition to the same effect.
Here, once again, is an old question. Can games be like movies - using an entertainment medium to explore real-world situations and to educate? Or does the interactive element immediately make such videogames exploitative? Iran would seem to sway toward the latter point of view. For their part, Kuma Reality Games are extremely careful about discussing the politics or intentions of their games (with good reason), repeating the mantra that the aim is authenticity. They prefer, it would seem, to leave it up to the general public to draw their own conclusions from the data. Come to think of it, that kind of thinking has no place in the real-world...
