Atomic Games' Tamte Defends Six Days' Relevance

Atomic Games president Peter Tamte is speaking out at the Triangle Game Conference in North Carolina this week, defending the artistic merit of Six Days in Fallujah in the wake of the game's abandonment by publisher Konami. "Every form of media has grown by producing content about current events, content that's powerful because it's relevant," Tamte said, according to the News & Observer. "Movies, music and TV have helped people make sense of the complex issues of our times." Konami announced it would no longer publish the game after its real-world Iraq war setting garnered questions and controversy. Tamte has said Atomic was "caught by surprise," and still plans to develop the title. The conference marked the first time Tamte addressed the issue publicly in such depth, however, as he queried: "Are we really just high-tech toymakers, or are we media companies capable of producing content that is as relevant as movies, music and television?" Tamte maintains that Atomic was approached directly by Marines returning from Fallujah who "asked us to tell their story." "They asked us to tell their story through the most relevant medium of the day -- a medium they use the most -- and that is the video game." Tamte is quick to stress that Six Days in Fallujah stays away from opinion or commentary on the right-or-wrongness of the Iraq invasion; "It's an opportunity for the world to experience the true stories of the people who fought in one of the world's largest urban battles of the past half-century," he says.