An ITV documentary screened last night presented footage from Arma 2 as a secret IRA film from 1988.
Speaking over the footage, the narrator says: "With Gaddafi's heavy machine guns, it was possible to shoot down a helicopter, as the terrorists' own footage of 1988 shows."
Responding to the programme, Marek Spanel, CEO of Arma developer Bohemia Interactive, told PC Gamer the company hadn't been approached by ITV about using the footage.
"We are going to try to get some explanation from ITV how this could have happened," he said.
"Sometimes creativity and realism in our games lead into crazy results and this is one of such example. I just briefly watched the entire documentary and I still can not believe it as it is overall very serious and lengthy feature.
"We are surprised our games apparently may look real enough to some users already that they can not tell it is not real life footage."
Comments
34 comments so far...
mogel94 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Oh god thats so damn funny, I bet someone is gonna get fired at ITV for that one!
gmcb007 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Haha! Trust ITV to report stories without checking their source! Just shows the quality of journalism that comes out of that petty excuse of a news outlet.
Here's the video from the show if anyone wants a laugh:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6r-kNct ... _embedded#!
Bryanee1983 on 27 Sep '11 said:
lol jesus.
capsule_toy on 27 Sep '11 said:
Update, ITV pulled the ITV Player version as I was watching it...
IbanezLewis on 27 Sep '11 said:
I lol'd, hard.
pRM8 on 27 Sep '11 said:
That is f**king brilliant! Well we can safely say them lot over at ITV are complete noobs.
Gaughranorama on 27 Sep '11 said:
I wonder how much play this will get in the media, 'cause, you know, when the Chinese pull a stunt like
this everyone has a good chuckle and goes on and on about it ad nauseum. Oh those poor naive Chinese...
EvilDog77 on 27 Sep '11 said:
The Government will probably use Battlefield 3 to fill in the gaps in their next dodgy dossier.
Masked_Bunny on 27 Sep '11 said:
News update...
Iraq DID have weapons of mass destrution as the next CoD will prove!
I seem to remember an article last week saying gamers had trouble figuring out the difference of real life and computer games.
Maybe its not gamers that have the problem but mainstream media?
altitude2k on 27 Sep '11 said:
If they were struggling for footage, they should have tried to get some from the CCTV at the Choristers club in Norwich.
lonewolf2002 on 27 Sep '11 said:
I would expect more Anti-aliasing in real life tbh.
gmcb007 on 27 Sep '11 said:
IbanezLewis on 27 Sep '11 said:
Haha the REAL IRA!
altitude2k on 27 Sep '11 said:
Oooooo-it's a good paper...
pinkie 2 on 27 Sep '11 said:
TIOCFAIDH AR LA
timewarp1 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Perhaps its because life is the game we currently play ?? Matrix stuff
timewarp1 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Perhaps its because life is the game we currently play ?? Matrix stuff
spaceman_DOUG on 27 Sep '11 said:
DEJA VU!
A GLITCH IN THE SYSTEM!
THEY'RE HERE!
altitude2k on 27 Sep '11 said:
It's a shame that black cat reappearing was not an example of deja vu, really.
KesMonkey on 27 Sep '11 said:
I assume you mean Tiocfaidh įr lį.
I do hope that some day, our day will come i.e. the re-unification of Ireland (explanation for the benefit of our British friends), but I wouldn't hold my breath.
kimoak on 27 Sep '11 said:
Yeah. The irony is strong in this report.
starsail on 27 Sep '11 said:
I hope not, lets keep Norn Iron as it is. If there is a unified Ireland then congrats, wev just added another chunk to the ailing Euro zone. Im happy with the sterling currency, converts brilliantly when headn to the US.
NEO_SUPERMAN on 27 Sep '11 said:
Hahaha!
Hahahahahaaaaaaaa!
Idiots
gmcb007 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Actually as living in Belfast myself, I can honestly say we're f**ked anyway it swings in the future. Irelands still suffering in the recession and those c**ts in parliment are carrying out more cuts than a butcher so either way we get the back end of the deal. That's the wee beaut of Norn Iron. The only place that contains a city that people argue over it's name...
freds1 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Holy sh!t.....they thought that was real? My God...
They should watch Avatar, they'd be blown away
gmcb007 on 27 Sep '11 said:
On a sort of related note: Did anybody ever see the news piece about that Air France crash back in '09 where they used pictures from LOST believing they were captured by a passenger?
freds1 on 27 Sep '11 said:
Wait a minute...no, I take that back. They must've known it wasn't real, they just couldn't find any footage to support their claims. So they looked for footage from the gaming world that looked as real as possible, thinking no-one would be the wiser. And if it cast games in a bad light, all the better.
I don't know what's more pathetic.
tbomb on 27 Sep '11 said:
Friends, this marks the Artistic validation of Games.
Noobsaibot on 28 Sep '11 said:
I don't think it paints games (or gamers) in a bad light. Only ITV look stupid. As for ARMA 2, couldn't ask for better publicity
They should use this story when promoting their next Arma game.
rbt2 on 28 Sep '11 said:
Wot makes me larf is the fact that ITV keep announcing that they are 'Channel Of The Year!!!'
Must've been a pretty s**t year then!
Bazcube85 on 28 Sep '11 said:
And they say gamers can't tell the differents between gaming and real life.
dogfoody on 28 Sep '11 said:
I don't think you should get fired for hatin video games....Here's a little video p**s-take I did that celebrates the documentary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnKcPWTgpWM
TheDragonDoji on 30 Sep '11 said:
A fantastic example of the attention to detail and journalistic process at ITV. Whats next, a film about car jacking utilising Grand Theft Auto?
Genius.
ladycroft142 on 1 Oct '11 said:
Haha yeah they should start doing research into the dangers of how not playing video games can make you lose touch with reality!