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| ARMA 3 (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
A set of contrasting reports caught our attention on Tuesday morning here at HellasFrappe concerning two game developers who were apparently arrested in Limnos last week on charges of espionage. According to the reports (the links of which are at the bottom of the article), two Bohemia Interactive developers were arrested on the island of Limnos on allegations of espionage, with officials claiming that they were spying on certain military structures within the Greek island. The same reports added that the developers, namely Ivan Buchta and Martin Pezlar (Wikipedia has them listed as David Zapletal and Pavel Guglava), had entered restricted military bases in order to improve their upcoming title Arma 3 game, which is set to be released in 2013.
Through Wikipedia we discovered that Arma 3 is an open world tactical shooter video game developed by Bohemia Interactive and expected to be released in Q1, 2013. The game's storyline takes place in the near future, during Operation Magnitude, a military operation launched by NATO forces, who are fighting in Europe against "Eastern armies" led by Iran. (Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARMA_3)
The game takes place on the islands of Lemnos and Ai Stratis (shortened to Stratis in the game). The developers of Bohemia Interactive are apparently planning to feature photo-realistic terrain and water environments. Limnos will be the largest official terrain in the Arma series with ground area covering 270 km. The smaller island, Stratis, will expand over an area of 19 km². The islands will feature over 50 villages with buildings that are both enterable and destroyable.
Scrolling down the page we also discovered this little bit of news...
Greek media reports said on September 10 2012, that two Czech nationals were arrested on Limnos and charged of espionage;they have claimed to be working for Bohemia Interactive collecting pictures and video footage for the development of Arma 3;their names are David Zapletal and Pavel Guglava, their employee status under Bohemia Interactive has been confirmed but the company has later officially stated that they were on the island "with the sole purpose of experiencing the island's beautiful surroundings".
Source in Greek
in.gr - http://news.in.gr/greece/article/?aid=1231212511
Proto thema - http://www.protothema.gr/greece/article/?aid=222418
Source in English
ceskenoviny.news - http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/zpravy/greek-police-arrest-two-czech-men-over-suspected-spying/838780
It has to be noted that according to Greek law taking photographs and/or videos, etc., of military installations or airport buildings and hangers is strictly prohibited for reasons of national security.
We also discovered that the issue of this game causing potential threats to Greek national security had also been brought officially to the Greek Parliament and discussed therein already in 2011 !!!
On its part, Bohemia Interactive shut down access to a thread named Greek Military started on August,1st 2012 on their official forum warning them and discussing legal and other problems concerning inter alia photographing and realistic depictions of Greek military installations;a google cache of it as it appeared on September,4th 2012 though is still available.
On Monday Bohemia said in a statement that the allegations against its two developers who were arrested were "completely false and without substance", and that the developers had been there purely for personal visiting pleasures triggered from their Arma 3 development.
Jay Crowe from Bohemia said that many media outlets immediately suggested spying and, only one day later, specifically referenced Arma 3.
And we say... Excuse us sir... even Wikipedia says espionage... are you kidding us!
Indeed... this is a very suspicious -and if proven true - serious story.
We do not know what to believe, nonetheless we trust Wikipedia most and we trust the opinion of Greek security forces who are well trained on such matters. Nonetheless we promise to look into this story further, and if we find something on the Greek blog sphere we will add a link for a follow-up story.
Also, we really want to know what their real names are. Are these two separate incidences... or is this all the same story. And if so... then what are their real names???
Stay Tuned Frappers
Check out the stories as featured from the two sites below.
- AUSGAMERS - http://www.ausgamers.com/news/read/3242916/latest-on-arma-3-devs-detained-in-greece
- VGTODAY - http://vgtoday.net/2012/09/arma-3-devs-detained-in-greece-say-situation-is-absurd-misunderstanding/#.UFhPPK5vDbE
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