With the incredible amount of free press Six Days in Fallujah is getting these days, you would figure some publishing house would have the balls to step up and put out a game that brings some much needed social commentary on what playing war based games means in the broader spectrum. I mean we hear plenty of complaining about how violent games breed violence. And yet there are TONS of games in the Civil War or WWII era that are played heavily. What this is really means, is that for soem people, this game is too soon. For those people, it may well always be too soon. For many of these people, the sacrificies of their sons, brothers, or fathers may be a wound that never closes. But that doesn't mean that others should not be allowed to be exposed to the situations in question.
The statement about staff reductions at Atomic Games is posted below.
"The further question this begs is how long until games, like movies, television, books, or other mediums are seen as an art form used to examine historical events, and raise questions or even just heighten awareness to the situations we as a nation send our fighting men and women into?
Due to a mixture of fears about the edgy subject matter of Six Days in Fallujah, as well as low videogame sales this summer, we have been unable to secure full-scale funding from a major publisher for Six Days in Fallujah. This has caused us to reduce the size of our studio today.
In the words of Marine officer Chesty Puller, "We're surrounded. That simplifies the problem." Development at Atomic will continue with a smaller team that will be funded by our sister company, Destineer.
We wish to assure the dozens of Marine veterans who have collectively invested hundreds of hours in this project that, while we have been badly wounded, we will fight on. The stories of your brothers' courage and sacrifice in Fallujah must be shared with the world.
All of the 75 people in the Atomic studio have stayed with us until this week. This is a testament not just to their commitment to Six Days in Fallujah, but also to their character when faced with adversity and personal financial risk. We encourage videogame development studios wishing to speak with the many talented and loyal staff who are affected by this situation to contact the jobs page on the atomic.com web site."