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It seems that the country of Iran isn’t too pleased with the way it’s depicted in Battlefield 3. This week, the Iranian government decided to ban BF3 in the country, which is slightly amusing since EA has no authorized resellers in the area—meaning all of the copies are illegal. Several shops have reportedly been raided by government officials and the shop owners were arrested. Mind you, they weren’t arrested for selling pirated software, which is apparently fine, they were arrested for selling a banned game. Apparently it’s not only the government who is frustrated by Battlefield 3. A group of “Iranian youths” has collected nearly 5,000 signatures in an online petition against BF3. The petition reads: “We understand that the story of a videogame is hypothetical … (but) we believe the game is purposely released at a time when the US is pushing the international community into fearing Iran.” I find it hard to believe that DICE and EA had any political agenda when they made BF3, but obviously some folks in Iran don’t trust them. 
EA sounds a little miffed, but I can’t decide if it’s because an entire country banned their game, or because they weren’t going to make any money there either way. If I know EA, it was the second one. By Josh Engen |