Diablo III to include player-run auction house, but you shouldn't worry

Gabe Newell once said that games should be more of a service than a product, but it’s Blizzard Entertainment who is taking that mantra to heart. Blizzard released a flurry of details about their upcoming action-RPG game Diablo III. Among them was a required internet connection to play the game, similar to StarCraft II which released last year. The need for an internet connection is integrated into the game for Blizzard’s Battle.net service, which can share data and friends lists between StarCraft II, World of Warcraft, and other Blizzard games. Another new addition to Diablo III is the restriction of player-made mods. The restriction is a change in stance from Diablo II, which allowed for free reign of customizability when rearranging the UI and other systems.

PAX East 2011: The "Other" Us: If We're All Gamers, Does Our Gender Matter?

The topic of females and female characters in games has been a hotly debated topic for many years, but the subject was brought to the forefront last year when former G4 Senior Games Content Producer Abbie Heppe, now Community Manager for Respawn Entertainment, wrote her review of Ninja Theory’s Metroid: Other M. The review, which you can read here, points out the characterization flaws of Samus Aran, the main character, and her subservient attitude towards her former commanding officer, Adam Malkovich. Other M was the first game in the Metroid series to include a voice for Samus, and as Abbie put it, it sounds, “like a 12 year old girl scrawling in her Lisa Frank diary,” rather than a Bounty Hunter who saved the galaxy at least four times already.

Taliban Changed to Opposing Forces in EA’s Medal of Honor

Following the controversy surrounding the use of the name Taliban in publisher EA and developer Danger Close’s upcoming first-person shooter, Medal of Honor, Executive Producer Greg Goodrich posted on the Medal of Honor blog about an upcoming change to the game’s multiplayer component.

“...we have also received feedback from friends and families of fallen soldiers who have expressed concern over the inclusion of the Taliban in the multiplayer portion of our game. This is a very important voice to the Medal of Honor team. This is a voice that has earned the right to be listened to. It is a voice that we care deeply about. Because of this, and because the heartbeat of Medal of Honor has always resided in the reverence for American and Allied soldiers, we have decided to rename the opposing team in Medal of Honor multiplayer from Taliban to Opposing Force.”

So after only a month of EA defending the decisions to include Taliban in the game’s multiplayer, saying that when kids play cops and robbers, someone has to be the cop, and someone has to be the robber, EA decidedly buckled to the pressures and renamed it to Opposing Forces. This doesn’t change anything in terms of gameplay, players will still be able to play as each side in multiplayer and the game will still look the same.

In early September, it was reported that the commanding General of the Army and Air Force Exchange Services decided to have Medal of Honor pulled from GameStops on US military bases worldwide, due to “well-documented reports of depictions of Taliban fighters engaging American troops,” in the game. It is currently unknown if this decision will remain or not, due to opposing force change being implemented.

I’m a little disappointed in EA. I was glad that they were sticking with their guns and going using the name Taliban despite who or what groups may be offended. I don’t want to call into question our freedom do whatever we want, or say whatever we ant, but it seems ironic for a game to effectively censor itself when the game’s essence is about fighting for freedom.