New York Game Designer Sentenced to Death in Iran

Previous

: Avalanche Studios Completes Senior Staff Recruitment

Next

: Arkadium Partners With Microsoft Studios
RSS feed for comments on this page
  • Bold Text
    Example: [b]Bold[/b]
  • Italic Text
    Example: [i]Italics[/i]
  • Underlined Text
    Example: [u]Underlined[/u]
  • Struck-out Text
    Example: [s]Struck-out[/s]
  • Colored text
    Example: [color=blue]blue text[/color]
  • Alignment
    Example: [align=right]right aligned[/align]
  • Website link: Link to another website or URL
    Example: [url]http://www.website.com/[/url]
  • Website link: Link to another website or URL
    Example: [url=http://www.website.com/]Some website[/url]
  • Email link: Create link to an email address
    Example: [email]you@yoursite.com[/email]
  • Email link: Create link to an email address
    Example: [email=you@yoursite.com]email me[/email]
  • Image: Show an image in your post
    Example: [img]http://site.com/image.jpg[/img]
  • Code Block: Unformatted code block
    Example: [code]Code block[/code]
  • Unordered list: Unordered list
    Example: [ulist][*]item 1[*]item 2[/ulist]
NOTICE: This post is an excerpt of much more in depth article on Gamasutra.
 
A U.S.-born game designer has been sentenced to death in Iran over charges that the CIA paid him to create games to sway public opinions on U.S. policies.

Iranian-American Amir Mizra Hekmati allegedly confessed to spying on the country and designing propaganda games, according to the ruling from the Islamic Revolutionary Court.

After the former U.S. marine was detained while visiting Iran in August (supposedly to visit family), local daily newspaper Tehran Times published excerpts from a purported confession in which Hekmati admitted to helping create games designed to "manipulate public opinion in the Middle East" at New York City-based developer Kuma Reality Games, under the CIA's direction and payroll.
 
The studio even released a Kuma\War episode titled "Assault on Iran," speculating on how the U.S. could respond to the country's nuclear weapons program. In the episode, players had to infiltrate an Iranian nuclear facility, "secure evidence of illegal uranium enrichment, rescue [their] man on the inside, and destroy the centrifuges that promise to take Iran into the nuclear age." 
 
The White House is demanding Hekmati's release, and has called on the Iranian government to grant him access to legal counsel via diplomats from the Swiss Embassy, which represents the U.S.'s interests in Iran.  
 
Please view the entire article on Gamasutra here: Video Game Designer Sentenced to Death in Iran Over Propaganda Charges 

Add to Digg LinkedIn del.icio.us Facebook Technorati Reddit Google
01/11/2012 by NYC_GI

No one has commented on this page yet.