EA pulls Medal of Honor tomahawk promotion

EA has responded to concerns about its Project Honor initiative to sell Medal of Honor branded weapons to the public in order to raise money for veterans by removing the promotions from its official website.

"The Voodoo Tomahawk has since been removed from our website because of the article," Goodrich told Eurogamer features editor Martin Robinson at Gamescom on Wednesday.

Goodrich said he was referring to a Eurogamer article earlier this week that raised concerns about the promotion. That piece was written in response to an editorial on The Gameological Society that drew attention to Project Honor.

Although the promotion was originally announced in mid-June, it wasn't clear at the time that it involved selling weapons like the Voodoo Hawk tomahawk and modifications that increase gun magazine capacity, as well as flashlights, nylon patches and so on.

In the intervening period, Goodrich had blogged several times on the official Medal of Honor website about partnerships with different weapon and equipment manufacturers, including personal photos of him firing guns and talking about how close Medal of Honor Warfighter was to each company.

All those blogs have now been removed by EA, although the external companies still list the promotions - including SOG, which makes the Voodoo Hawk tomahawk.

Goodrich said he was disappointed to be shutting down the tomahawk promotion because it was going to raise money for charity, but said he understood concerns.

"That was an effort to raise a lot of money for charity, and we were well on our way to raising a lot of money with that tomahawk, but I don't know what will happen with that now," he said. "That whole effort, we've been working with those partners because we wanted to be authentic, and we wanted to give back to the communities. Every one of those partners, none of them paid a dime for product placement - all the money generated went to Project Honor."

He also claimed that the "authenticity" EA and his studio Danger Close were striving for in Medal of Honor Warfighter made these partnerships sensible and logical.

"We're making a first-person shooter and it fits. If we were doing Need for Speed we'd do something different. If I was doing FIFA it'd be something different. But we're making a first-person shooter about the warfighter. If we partnered with another brand it wouldn't make sense and it wouldn't be authentic."

When asked whether he was concerned that gamers wouldn't have enough experience to wield a real-life tomahawk responsibly, he said that games wouldn't influence the way people behaved in real life.

"It's an experience, and it's a video game, and they're going on that journey and learning about these group of people. It doesn't mean that they have any less respect for these. Maybe it's a cultural thing," he said.

"If I played Need for Speed, and I'm handed the key to a Porsche, does that make me want to get in it and drive like a maniac and run people over? No, I played a game, and now I'm drivng a car in real life but I'm not going to go crazy with it because I played a video game.

"In a first-person shooter we're not teaching someone how to shoot better or be a better operator just by playing a game. It doesn't compute, just like when I play John Madden football I can't expect win the Super Bowl just because I played a video game."

And while EA and Danger Close have since removed all the blog posts on MedalOfHonor.com associated with the Project Honor promotions, Goodrich seemed to indicate that many were still going ahead.

When asked whether the tomahawk coming down meant that the others were also being discontinued, he said no. "Every partnership's still in place - that's just the one weapon, the tool that had the branding."