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Post-War Iraq And Videogames
DarkBlackFox writes "MSNBC has an article on how gamers relate to the rebuilding of Iraq, and how current world politics influence strategy and action games." A slightly odd article, but it begs the question - considering there are already games based on the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, how soon will it be before the Operation:Iraqi Freedom shooter or RTS, and how delicately should recent wars be handled in games?
It wasn't long after the first gulf war fiasco that they started cashing in on it. If I recall correctly, 3D0 released a Gulf War themed game the same year that it ended.
Add to this that the US government has recently embraced interactive media as a form for spreading propaganda (Americas Army) and training troops for the field. It's a great way to convince another subculter who's "right" and who's "evil".
They put on a straight and sombre face when talking about it, but in reality it seems it's a disgraceful race to the money tree...
Stage 1: Create an atmosphere of distrust in the global community so you can be the only one to have to split the spoils with.
Stage 2: Immediately declare the war already over, then invade. Ruthlessly crush your enemy using your advanced weapons technology while holding press conferences warning of the enemy's really big, scary weapons.
Stage 3: Threaten all of the neighbors of the country in an attempt to spread the war without having to go through all the nasty 'diplomacy' this one took.
Stage 4: Capture Iraqi cities, stage the toppling of previous ruler's statue using paid Iraqi stooges.
Stage 5: Capture Iraqi cities, occupy them, set up roadblocks.
Stage 6: Shoot anyone who approaches roadblocks without stopping, just in case they're a suicide bomber.
Stage 7: Declare war over from the USS Abraham Lincoln, again, even while grenade attacks and suicide bombings continue.
Stage 8: ?????
Stage 9: Profit! Stage 6: Contain protests by shooting into the crowds 3 times in two weeks.
"The fires along Baghdad's Euphrates River waterfront had barely subsided when Sony registered "shock and awe" with the U.S. Patent Office. (Sony then quickly retracted, proving that even game companies have limits.)"
I would say 5 years.
He alluded that Sony tried to register the name "Shock and Awe" with the USPTO just after we withdrew, and then decided against it. I thought Sony was in the process of registering it already?
::blink::
Anyway, the idea of a video game that involves practicioners of political science to implement their policy in a virtual world does sound interesting. But it remains to be seen how valid such a (relatively) simple model can be used to predict something so complex.
I want to see that sort of idea tried on a smaller scale. For example, residential planning, college boards, business deals, etc. Of course, the starting point will be "studies" staged by shrinks, think tank eggheads, pol. sci and comp. sci graduate students, where they get undergrads to brainstorm ideas to solve problems around campus using a virtual forum/interface. Then the let the thing chug and present the outcome to see how the kids react. Then maybe they let them implement one of the proposed solutions to the "problem" (which may not even be real...) and see how it plays out in comparison.
If that shows promise, excellent. But why bring in the game developers now? He doesn't seem to address that. In fact the article sort of drifts off into talking about upcoming games about Iraq.
Yawn indeed (oooh, Hollywood and video game designers look to real life for inspiration, how novel!)
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
If anyone were paying attention, they'd know that modders are already making games based on the war.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
How about a Civ/Sim type game where you rebuild Baghdad. Manage the building of new hotels, government buildings, markets... If the Iraqi's get out of line, send in more troops and what not.
Someone hates these cans.
...a really funny flash-animation: The Real Hussein :)
My other account has a 3-digit UID.
What would be wrong, for example, with a game wherein you're part of an infantry regiment/division in Takrit and your goal is to take the city with as few civilian casualties as possible? You could be penalized for causing civilian death and even end the game court-martialed because you didn't exercise good judgement in a firefight. Such a game would include all the carnage of a real war and, handled properly, encourage the player to think about the lives lost in the process of winning or losing the game. No doubt it would be rated "M" for Mature but it might be a game that actually deserves the rating for good reasons as opposed to bad.
We all know that war games (strategic, tactical, FPS, etc.) will be made. It would be good to see a high-profile war game, though, that tried to really address the negative side of war instead of simply glorifying violence and conquest without consequences.
For at least 100 years, wargamers have understood that to make their models accurate they have to include diplomacy and other subtle sociological factors. [great long history of wargaming]
More recently, when Chris Crawford did his breakthru nuclear-armageddon sim Balance of Power in 1985, he read all the basic texts on international diplomacy and found them almost completely useless-- his model ended up being entirely about 'saving face', which was something the texts hardly ever spelled out. (If you let your enemy get away with anything, you lose face, so to avoid that you have to rattle your nuclear 'sabre'.)
But what's most alarming is that as long as AI's been around (almost 50 years) and as popular as computer games and simulations have gotten, I'm not sure there's any university program yet that surveys how to do this kind of semantics, for games and other simulations. (I've been scouring the Web about this for my timeline.)
I like games a lot, which is why news like this worries me. Just like a GI-Joe, games like this always need to be less realistic to be fun, so why start with the pretense? Are games a good way to revise history, or do people know better?
An argument that improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to "beg the question." Here is an example of a question-begging argument: "This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless." The speaker is simply asserting the worthlessness of the work, not presenting any evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case. Since we never use "begs" with this odd meaning ("to improperly take for granted") in any other phrase, many people mistakenly suppose the phrase implies something quite different: that the argument demands that a question about it be asked--raises the question. If you're not comfortable with formal terms of logic, it's best to stay away from this phrase, or risk embarrassing yourself."
Source
I know, I know, telling a /. editor how to use his language properly is futile ...
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
There again, I suppose you could spend time trying to avoiding the missiles accidentaly shot at you by the 'broad coalition' of UK and US forces. 8P
Disclaimer: i watched Saving Private Ryan a few weeks ago and was seriously underwhelmed after the amazing immersive experience that is Black Hawk Down.
Have you ever played Medal of Honor: Allied Assault? The Omaha Beach scene in that game blows SPR away. Drop the assault ramp on the boat, you're dead. Try again, you're dead. Try again, you're dead. Make it halfway to the beach, you're dead. SPR didn't show anywhere near the level of death that occured at the real battle for Omaha Beach. MOH:AA does. Modern computer games that depict war can in fact do so much better than movies (in a sense) because YOU die. Not some guy off in the corner of the shaky-ass crappy camera, but right in your face. Blood, bullets, dead. SPR had one average scene (the beach scene) and the rest was a joke. Computer games are action all the way, much like the aforementioned Black Hawk Down movie. War is about lots of quiet bits and short, frantic moments of action. Computer games mirror this by having the action while you're playing and the quiet bits when you turn off your PC/console and do something else. Movies only really have the chance to show the quiet bits (a la Das Boot) or the frantic bits (a la BHD).
Not all games companies appear to have limits.
In America's Army, the enemy force (which is always the other guy) looks like terrorists in Soviet-style desert camo. Some of the maps are even set out in the middle of the desert, and some of the missions have a definite terrorist/counter-terrorist theme.
I'm proud of my Northern Tibetian Heritage
it would have to be a slaughter...
Misson 3. Hold the bridge.
You have orders to fire at anyone or anything crossing the bridge, unarmed civilians included.
(Hint: use your night vision goggles to insure nothing gets by.)
Sorry for the flame, but there's a reason why they don't make games about the Indian wars of the west. Because the U.S. calvary rarely had trouble decimating the native tribes.
The best war games are those were both armies were basically equal strength, and had to rely on tactics instead of raw power.
So I think that the only way to make a gulf war game interesting, is to make it seem like the Iraqis knew how to fight, or that most of those that fought back actually had distinct uniforms, which would be altering history....imho.
Hope that makes sense.
"I only speak the truth"
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It really disturbs me to read all the comments made about this topic. Almost all of them are extremely biased, politically. The question posed by the article wasn't "How would you feel about games based on Operation: Iraqi Freedom", the question was when those games will be made, and so far, I've only seen two people even attempt an answer. I understand that many of you are against the war, and some of you are for it, but this isn't the forum to discuss whether the US forces killed more civilans than Saddam would have, or whether the Iraqi people are better off with the US than they were with Saddam.
Granted, I was still a young lad when it happened, but I know it didn't take too long for games based on the first Gulf War to come out. Sierra released A-10: Tank Killer (one of my favorite combat flight sims of all time) the same year (I think). It had a campaign dedicated to the Gulf War. Of course, Sony started to register Shock and Awe, but then backed out... but I wouldn't be surprised if they try again in a few months, after everybody's attention is on something else.
I think a video game company, like all other media, has the ability (and some might argue, responsibility) to provide people with diversions from their own lives and focus on more universal concerns (even things like aliens invading, or killing demons). In this case, I would think it's almost unethical NOT to make a game based on the war. People seem to enjoy something about the war, whether protesting against it, advocating for it, or just watching it all unfold. A good video game would take all of those ideals into consideration. For instance, if we had a FPS, you could have points deducted for killing civilians, but points added for killing soldiers hiding in civilian clothing, or using them for human shields (and I'm obviously not a game designer, so I don't know how they would differentiate between them). Or, even better, lots of bonus points for finding hidden places with WMD's, or capturing one of the 50+ Iraqi government agents that are missing. For a RTS, how about a technology tree that would let you create more precise missiles, and also deduct points for hitting civilian targets? I think there are lots of good ideas that neither side of the political debate would argue with.
To more directly answer the stated question, I think it'll be less than a year before games based on Operation: Iraqi Freedom come out.
"It's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it." ~ Christian Slater, True Romance
The american campaing is based on the invasion of bagdad.. atleast one of the missions (actually a multipart mission) where you rescue pow's shoot suicide bombers .. shoot angry mobs attacking.. snipers... all units on the terrorist faction. They make no reference to actuall iraqi troops/goverment but insinuate that the goverment/troops of iraq are the terroist faction.
And if you din't like the "patriotic" ending to spiderman (spiderman swinging to the top of a building with an american flag on it) you won't like the usa is #1 ending...
Realize that the video game business is pretty new. Only recently, relatively, have games been mature enough (technologically and theme-wise) to really handle wars. Sure, there were strategy games but those are abstract, and there was the odd Nintendo war game, but again, hardly immersive. Now, just in the past five years, we have incredibly realistic and immersive games, and they're using wars as themes - World War 2 primarily, but also a couple of Vietnam games and now a lot of Gulf War/Somalia games.
So the influx of Gulf War games wasn't because "enough time had passed" - it was because the technology really wasn't there yet for the immersive wartime experience. The game "Black Hawk Down" came out within months of the movie of the same name, and what, 8-10 years after the actual Somalia conflict? Since most companies designing war-based games already have a desert tileset, if any Gulf War 2 games are to come out, they shouldn't take more than a year to pop out. (Realize though that due to the nature of the war, the only games worth playing would be special ops ones, or maybe a defensive game as the Iraqis) I wouldn't be surprised if a POW rescue game came out in the next 12 months.
Basically, it's not the time after the war that has made the difference, because all these great, immersive games (Delta Force, Battlefield 1942, etc) needed a certain power to drive them.
After all, the quickest turnaround for a war to game I can recall was Super Battletank for SNES, where you commanded a tank in the Kuwaiti desert, and that came out in 1992 I think. So time after the war didn't matter then. It might matter more now, however, since the game experiences can be much more visceral and less abstract.
This post rambles but that's basically my point - The turnaround from war to game is probably going to shrink, and any previous long-time lag was because the processing power didn't exist during that war.
"In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, 'Make us your slaves, but feed us.'" -Dostoevsky
Any game based on the war in Iraq with any semblance of realism would be too easy to be fun for the American side. Bombing Baghdad with only scattered AAA and no air opposition? That'd be no fun.
Too bad there isn't a grammar tutorial you can play on the HUD of the Harrier.
The problem with this theory is that computer games have ALWAYS had situations where you (the player's avatar) "die." I like Donkey Kong but I don't consider it particularly "immersive" even though I, as Mario, can be killed by a barrel. Pac-Man is cool but I don't feel emotionally invested in his character because the ghosts can get me.
Player/avatar death has become even more meaningless since the advent of unlimited continues (or game saves) - it's something that sets a game like Steel Battalion (crazy controller+game from Capcom for Xbox) apart since if you die, you lose that pilot's save, whether you're one or twenty missions along in the game.
The point I was making was that, in order to get across the horror of war, the player needs to care about the deaths of OTHER characters in the game.
The real question is whether entertainment should have boundaries. Is a mass murder FPS acceptable? How about a rape simulator? Or a kiddie porn strategy game?
.. And yet, the game is fun, kicks serious ass, and is a major seller.
Excepting the kiddie porn example - which I can't find a way to implement without running afoul of established laws regarding the depiction of minors in sexual situations - the answer to those questions comes by way of normal free market economics. People will buy things that they enjoy, and not buy things that offend them too deeply on a personal level.
Case in point: Grand Theft Auto, a game where you can beat civillians with a baseball bat, roast police alive with a flamethrower, and pick up prostitutes. Each act in itself illegal, beyond the realms of good taste, and morally unacceptable in any kind of company
I'll put that down as a "No Thanks."
The skinnies even throw rocks at you, which do damage, and you're still not allowed to kill them. Well a lot of them. Of course the real challenge in that game is keeping the stupid computer squad members alive.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
A short list of cool things that wouldn't exist without war.
Godzilla
The Death Star
99 Luftballoons
All First Person Shooters
Time Life's Music of the 70's would be all disco were it not for war
Any movie with Nazi's as villians
Any spy movie
Any movie that features nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons
Any movie about the morality of war
Any movie about the fraternal nature of men at war
Any movie about people suffering injustly durning war
The History Channel
And if a game about the destruction of Saddam's regiem would make the Iraqis sad, perhaps they should decline to import it when they form their government. Or perhaps Iraqis would like to try their hand at shooting up all the fedayeen and Hussien. There could even be a shoe code. Time Splitters has bricks, Shock & Awe could have shoes.
State Of Emergency. But when the civilian penalty is in effect, you lose 1000 points, out of millions, for each one killed. And all offenses are punishible by death, especially being a cop.
Rape and child porn simulators? Try Japan.
So now that you know about these things which you think shouldn't exist, what are you going to do? Is yours a smaller life now? Your humanity diminished because people are participating in activities that you find objectionable? Of course, not. And a game that involves shooting up old soviet hardware, and assholes with rpgs doesn't either.
--Jimmy has fancy plans; and pants to match.
(Side note: one might argue that GTA is not based on actual recent events, and therefore not as morally repugnant. Even so, for many people outside the gaming hobby, this distinction will seem trivial.)
What I'm trying to say is that - although free market economics might deem an Operation Iraqi Freedom game viable - the developers should still consider whether it is in good taste. My personal belief is that it isn't, but like you said, I won't buy something that offends me. However, the publishers should at least consider the impact of the content they are releasing. If they choose to release the game anyway is up to them, but at least they've given it serious thought.
To me, many publishers (including Rockstar Games of GTA fame) are giving off a bit of a "if it sells we'll release it" vibe, and this lack of self-control - or self-censorship, if you must - in the gaming industry has me worried. I believe the question about the boundaries of entertainment should be asked and asked again, if only to keep our conscience in check.
Hee-hee. Dying tickles!
Or a spell checker, you dumb cunt.