Konami Pulls out of Fallujah Due to Mounting Public Pressure

Posted 04/28/2009 at 11:08pm | by Nathan Grayson

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One step forward, two steps back. After talking up reality-based shooter Six Days in Fallujah as its next big thing – not to mention potentially opening the door for other games to actually sneak behind the lines of wars that aren’t WWII – publisher Konami came down with a case of cold feet. The publisher’s reason for the startlingly snappy about-face? Controversy.

“After seeing the reaction to the videogame in the United States and hearing opinions sent through phone calls and email, we decided several days ago not to sell it,” said a Konami rep.
 
Surprised? So was the game’s developer, Atomic Games.

“We were informed on Thursday night that Konami had decided to pull out of Six Days in Fallujah,” Atomic Games president Peter Tamte said in an official statement. “This caught us by surprise. Development of the game had been progressing very well and on schedule.”

Six Days in Fallujah has not, however, bitten the big one. As of now, it’s merely without a publisher, though finding one with the stones to take a jog through the PR minefield that this game presents probably won’t be an easy task.
 
Our guess: Six Days in Fallujah will end up spending a smidge more than six days in publishing purgatory. Maybe that’ll give Atomic Games some time to think about giving Fallujah a slight revamp. We can only hope.