Infinity Ward has made many mistakes involving Modern Warfare 2. They irresponsibly marketed their Fight Against Grenade Spam, they neglected to put in a colorblind option, and angered Pakistanis by showing their ignorance to Pakistani culture. Their biggest mistake of all though? Excluding the much anticipated N0M4D feature. However, the publisher got things right with C.O.D.E. The Call Of Duty Endowment was started by Activision Blizzard to "provide our former service members with job placement, training, and educational services in their post military careers." Back in November, C.O.D.E. pledged to donate $1 million from game sales toward various programs that help military personnel return to civilian life. Along with this pledge came an initial donation of $125,000 to Paralyzed Veterans of America, a Congressionally chartered veterans organization dedicated solely to serving the needs of SCI/SCD veterans. This past Thursday, C.O.D.E. announced that it will donate $100,000 to Wounded Warrior Project," to establish a Transition Training Academy. TTA provides training to veterans to pursue a career in IT. It's nice to see that Activision Blizzard has their heart in the right place. They are one of the few gaming companies that are trying help veterans return to civilian life. Perhaps when EA launches Medal of Honor next year, they will also start a veterans fund.
Infinity Ward has managed to infuriate a number of communities between their lack of features and their insensitivity. They angered gamers by excluding the highly anticipated N0M4D feature, by excluding a colorblind option (which its predecessor, World at War, had) and by their ill conceived “Fight Against Grenade Spam” advertisement. Well it’s time to add another group to the list: Pakistanis.
The game features a map in the city of Karachi. To add authenticity to the map, Infinity Ward wrote the store signs in Arabic; and that’s the problem. Pakistan’s native language is not Arabic, rather English and Urdu. Both Arabic and Urdu use the same alphabet, but the words are different.
Kotaku reader Saad stated that “Infinity Ward probably thought, ‘Oh hey it’s a Muslim country so Arabic is the language.’” He went on to explain that, “To someone who doesn't know urdu won't be able to tell the difference. It's like Spanish and English. Some letters are same, some are different but the words are completely different.”
This is just another case of Infinity Ward’s insensitivity to their audience. If they were hiring someone to write the Arabic in the game, perhaps they could have just checked Wikipedia beforehand? Is that really too much to ask?
