Project Honor, an initiative to sell Medal of Honor-themed weapons to the public as a way to raise money for veterans came under scrutiny over the past couple of days when a Eurogamer article drew attention to the fact that the promotion is offering a real SOG Voodoo Hawk tomahawk.
EA responded by removing promotions from the official website, and executive producer Greg Goodrich told Eurogamer’s features editor Martin Robinson at Gamescom on Wednesday that,
“The Voodoo Tomahawk has since been removed from our website because of the article.”
Project Honor, which was announced in mid-June, involves the selling of weapon modifications to increase gun magazine capacity, as well as flashlights, nylon patches and other things thematically consistent with the videogame franchise. The tomahawk, however, was a very real weapon that Goodrich says he understands having to pull, despite being disappointed, saying,
"That was an effort to raise a lot of money for charity, and we were well on our way to raising a lot of money with that tomahawk, but I don't know what will happen with that now," he said. "That whole effort, we've been working with those partners because we wanted to be authentic, and we wanted to give back to the communities. Every one of those partners, none of them paid a dime for product placement – all the money generated went to Project Honor."
Goodrich claimed that both EA and developer Danger Close were striving for “authenticity” in the upcoming Medal of Honor Warfighter, which made the various partnerships for these products logical.
"We're making a first-person shooter and it fits. If we were doing Need for Speed we'd do something different. If I was doing FIFA it'd be something different. But we're making a first-person shooter about the warfighter. If we partnered with another brand it wouldn't make sense and it wouldn't be authentic,” he said.
EA and Danger Close have removed all the blog posts on MedalOfHonor.com related to Project Honor, but Goodrich indicated that the promotion itself was still going forward.
While the tomahawk has been removed, Goodrich said that the other items have not also been discontinued, confirming,
"Every partnership's still in place – that's just the one weapon, the tool that had the branding."
Via:Eurogamer
