first off, i dont believe this needs to be made into a partisan issue. however, political points of interest must be brought up in order to clarify on this issue. while i cant find the reuters piece either, the news.com piece you sighted i believe, while politically bias, gave a decent insight into the actual story seeing that its the first i have seen put into text. there were a few misconceptions about the actual make up and game interface for example "...'Battlefield 2,' which usually shows U.S. troops engaging Chinese or Middle Eastern forces." which in single player yes. however i got bored of the single player but in multiplayer you are given a choice between forces, four in all. understand the news media is defined and depicted by the left in the united states. some of examples of printed mass media publications such are the ny times time magazine and for the most part the wall street journal, except for its editorial page so i believe. why they didnt jump on this and make it a huge deal i do not know. for some reason earlier today my cultural crusader michael medved brifely brought this to my attention. as for the type of attention it has been getting, i had at least heard about a kid modding the battlefield 2 game to depict the "terrorists" as the "freedom fighters" and the "americans" as the "bad guys" which when it comes down to it obviously is just another mod or whatever he decided to do with it, maybe similar to how counter strike was crreated from the half life engine in particular but there are obviously more examples which i know you all are aware of. i mean, in many first person shooters both sides are depicted and playable such as nazis vs us soldiers and the japanese vs us soldiers etc. withe the current state of the conflict, im not particularly suprised to see something like this pop up and get at least this news.com attention. whats important is to interject some clarifying points into this issue. taking a few moments to research we must clarify that while eric micheal (whom i couldnt find any info on mind you) does, according to the article, apparently work for the saic or Science Applications International Corporation. he isnt paid seven million dollars and is one of 43000 employees in 150 cities across the country. some names i did find cited though were as follows: Dan Devlin and ea spokesmen Jeff Brown. google those or whatever. this corporation, however, is not associated with any branch of government but rather is under contract so to speak. seeing that according to its website ranks as the largest employee owned research and engineering firm in the united states. so it isnt attatched as to say the dept of argriculture, for example. secondly, the dutch boy did not cancel his trip to the us. the exact term he used was "thinking twice" because of a fear of being interogated on during his trip to NY. that point is crucial. to make a point come across as truthful as possible to your readers is quite important. i believe the reason for the hype and excitement, whether or not justified, was only to take a preliminary precaution. anti west pieces arent necessarily uncommon when dealing with radical islam, which thanks to the media is hopefully widely known. terrorist recruitment camps throughout the middle east arent made up unfortunately. just as saddam hussein would award suicide bombers families money for carrying out atrocious acts and just as there are propaganda like terrorist cartoons for jihadists to persuade young children into hating the west or other infidels. and just as saudi arabian text books project the ideology of inferior humans being that of christian or jewish faith and to push the mindset of islam into the world in the form of written word or another medium such as websites or live videos. a little bit of information, these same textbooks are used in academies around the world and particularly one in washington. anyway, these last few points are critical in the correct context that as you know the war put forth by the current administration is both obviously the product and responsibility of it. just as tapes from osama bin laden are interpreted and websites across the internet are monitered each to its own. every potential threat must be deciphered to further protect the us. i dont believe if this had nothing to do with videogames any of these gaming sites would even bring it up. this weak excuse to alarm people by american media claiming not take something like this seriously may be innappropriate on everyone but the administrations part.

understand that erik michael or somebody else was just doing his or her job. its as if at my job, i work with printer cartridges, were to consider making a cartridge with an excessive amount of toner which would make it work improperly and to think that without knowing clearly about the situation iw ouldnt bring it up is just absurd and if gone undetected could get me in trouble buy most importantly my employer whom i admire quite dearly. conservatives may get hysterical when it comes to mods ont he internet, but luckily the right isnt trying to impose governmental regulations on videogames such as hillary r clinton and joel liberman. both whom are respectably elected officials of the current liberal movement.

please read this article http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5c05%5c07%5cstory_7-5-2006_pg4_9

also read the opposing viewpoint

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/5/7/3874

and then watch the freakin video!

go here http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2006/5/7/3874

decide for yourself!

Wow. Long reply. I agree that my writing was not clear enough about SonicJihad cancelling his trip to the US. My excuses, I'll fix it.

Apart from that, I am not sure if some of your points are directed to my coverage or to readers in general. I never said that a single consultant was being paid millions of dollars. My point is that they are being paid for a job that they are not doing well. And sorry, but working in the intelligence field has more serious consequences that building print cartridges. So, yes, they must be extra careful, in the same way that a children's neurosurgeon has to be more careful than a game developer.

About turning this into a partisan issue: I hoped I was explicit enough by saying that either if you agree or not with the government, this is an unexcusable situation. As for myself, who does not agree with this government, I have all the right to say "I told you so" (I literally wrote on my first post that I would not be surprised if the evidence was false. This was before anybody pointed out that the video was comedy). I don't see how my opinion would interfere with the coverage, as long as it does not twist the facts. Once again, my apologies on the SonicJihad travel fact and thanks for pointing that out.

Gonzalo,

I think you were quite clear in your point and not at all partisan. This is sadly a mistake I can see being made by any administration because it has to do with a cultural misunderstanding about games and the relation of games to lived experience. They are conceived of as simultaneously innocuous (just a game) and manipulative (training kids to kill). From this mash-up they are both inconsequential, incapable of carrying an argument and while still being dangerous, so close to reality that they can cause confusion.

It is the latter that gets reinforced by this story, games are threatening because they can be so easily mistaken for reality. While this misconception remains the dominant perspective, stories like this will probably keep cropping up, as people will, as you say, think it is just an "honest mistake"

I'd be interested to see the byline of the piece. To my ear, it sounds like a different reporter, but I could be wrong.

Everytime a new Osama Bin Laden video is released, it is subjected to countless of hours of verification by government agencies, independent consultants, just about anybody with a computer. The video is examined at the most granular levels for content and context. Though they probably wouldn't describe it as such, the examiners are vigorously engaging the medium to understand the message.

If, as the Defense Department believes, the messages in these video games and mods are equally pernicious, they have an obligation -- made only more urgent by the importance of national security -- to engage the games with the same rigor and clinical exactness that they bring to bear on messages in other media. To do anything less (regardless of party affiliation, paid or unpaid), is irresponsible as hell -- particularly when it's being reported to a handful of congressional representatives charged with acting to ensure national security.

If you don't engage the material seriously you will draw bad conclusions. Bad conclusions make for bad actions. Bad actions bring bad results.

Reading that transcript was like watching a caveman try to tune a Maserati with a club.

thanks for replying this is unarguably one of the best insights into gaming and its ideology and other characteristics. my assumption that you had put forth the idea that erik michael made seven million dollars was unclearly said in the article you sighted. i shoudl have probably made that more clear on my part. my analogy of printer cartridges to national security was merely just interpreted wrong just as i believe the analogy of neurosurgeon to gamedeveloper to national security, i guess, while unique, seems also very unclear. the problem i had with your report was with this line: It is presented as the story of a poor guy who made a video and got in trouble. while it was presented in that way according to news.com, which is a fair assumption on your part seeing as every article i had read seemed to depict this guy as just another harmless kid making just another harmless videogame. the only question i have for you is this. if you were put onto the congressional floor and this video was brought up, what would your reaction be knowing before hand the assumption that this is truely a video geared towards young muslims in a requitment like style expressing consent and legitimacy towards wahabism? if it was your job to monitor these things regardless of political association, would you be concerned? it appears to me that first, judging from the article you decided to sight and lines such as "If a whole country was destroyed because of false evidence about WMD, who cares about a little mistake on a Congressional Hearing" that this is just another outlet set to outlash towards the bush administration and its policies. which is completely fair mind you, but i do believe an acknowledgement of that fact is sincerely appropriate here. please also consider correcting the idea that prince of persia may contain terrorist like messages and that the bust administration has people picking it apart. when put into a context suggested by the hearing, to be alarmed by something like this battlefield 2 mod os definitely relavant and is most important on unarguably many levels. if that is true, in its own right, maybe it could be one of the many reasons that america hasnt been hit with a large terrorist attack since 9/11. but really it is because the fact that the administration takes things like this seriously, which hopefully everyone can conclude that it should. thank you.

I'm a journalist in the mainstream media, in Norway, and my story on this some weeks ago actually made it to the front page of my mainstream-left newspaper Dagsavisen (only in print though, so no link). However, as far as I've seen, our story wasn't picked up by any of the other Norwegian media.

I think the reason is pretty simple: In most of Europe, journalists have reported a lot of the shocking stories about the failures of American intelligence for so long, that this is simply not big news anymore. Gonzalo: "If a whole country was destroyed because of false evidence about WMD, who cares about a little mistake on a Congressional Hearing?" Sadly, I think this pin-points the attitude exactly.

BBC Collective has published an article about this debacle and other internet-based parodies of Yes Men/RTMARK, including the superb whitehouse.org