EA suspends online conspiracy game

Citing the recent tragedy in New York, video and PC game publisher Electronic Arts has temporarily suspended service on its online government conspiracy game, Majestic.

The company said that players will be contacted concerning resumption of the game, but gave no time frame.

An interactive thriller involving murder and corporate intrigue, Majestic is considered by many to be a groundbreaking game because of the way it draws players into unscrambling a far-reaching conspiracy. Throughout the game, players are given a series of puzzles to solve, each of which advances the plot.

A spokesman for Electronic Arts maintained that no one had asked the company to suspend the service. "Some elements of the game may be objectionable to some people considering the current circumstances. It just did not seem appropriate to keep it going while this tragedy was taking place," he said.

Separately, Sony's Everquest allowed players to continue with Lineage but said the game's message boards were overflowing with reflections about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Two other popular action gaming companies, Quake and Doom, took quite the opposite stand by not mentioning news of the attacks on their sites.