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Iraq Game Sparks Outrage, Soldiers Have Mixed Reactions
We recently discussed news that Konami will be releasing a video game based on a 2004 battle in Fallujah. Many people have now had a chance to react to the game, and there has been a great deal of criticism voiced over the game's choice of setting. A group of families of soldiers who lost their lives in the war questioned "how anyone can trivialize a war that continues to kill and maim members of the military and Iraqi civilians to this day." Others criticized the game's glorification of the "massacre." Conversely, some soldiers and veterans have responded with optimism, hoping the game can raise awareness of the realities of war. Dan Rosenthal, Iraq veteran and long-time gamer, worries whether Konami will be able to do justice to the experience. Eurogamer posted a related story about the controversy over increasingly realistic war games.
military and Iraqi civilians ... and fucking bad guys !!! Yay !!!
..to all those other FPS war games where simulated humans get shot and killed. Clearly. Seriously tho, this is a case of someone feeling like the game is somehow directly targetting them and having a moan about it. Should we be mindful of veterens families? Sure. But just because a game is set in a warzone that someone you know happened to be near or involved in, doesnt mean said game is intended to slap their faces.
Yeah, those WW2 games are offensive too. That's why there are so many of them that hardly anyone complains about. Let's all stop playing FPSs set in a warzone, and make it all happen in a magic land with evil ponies that shoot lasers from their mouth.
If they think this is offensive, wait until someone makes a game where you get to eat babies.
The problem here is that there is always some relation about wars and heroes in common imaginary. People playing battle games feel like powerful beings. Is that acceptable? If in most cultures killing is not ethically accepted, should not everything celebrating wars be truly immoral?
If a war game is realistic, they will push people to avoid war if possible. However pain, disability, and choices that are bad either way (someone's firing from within a crowd, do we return fire ?) and their consequences (getting sued for saving 99% of the protestors (this means a few innocents dead by your bullets, for the idiots) for the terrorists' guns), they might actually get a realistic view of a bad situation.
But what are the chances of that ?
A bigger problem is unrealistic war games. If people start believing, even a tiny little bit, that you do actually respawn, that will be a sad day for world peace. Of course the same goes for people believing "god" rewards killing women or "unbelievers" after death. And the same goes for systems that encourage doing nothing at all very strongly, not showing the consequences of refusing to go to war when confronted with certain situations.
"If in most cultures killing is not ethically accepted, should not everything celebrating wars be truly immoral?"
There exists no such culture. Every culture has stories of heroes winning battles. I have yet to go to a country where soldiers are not immortalized for great deeds. There is no magic land where people say "Oh dear, yes there was that war, but it was unfortunate, and we certainly don't revel in our victory". Do you think society doesn't realize the cost of war? On the contrary, that's why soldiers are an important part of a society's folklore.
People are making a whole lot of assumptions about a game that hasn't even been released yet. Assuming for a moment that the game does not in fact glorify the war, but instead brings to the front the realities of it, why is this a bad thing? If anything, I'd say the American public needs to see what war really does, people need to know that there is a reason that "War is Hell", maybe if we saw what really happens we would be less likely to so carelessly throw people that volunteer their lives for their country into such a horrible situation. War should be the very last recourse in a diplomatic situation after all other alternatives are exhausted, war should be questioned hard and fought hard before it is declared. There should be no question at all whether it is a good or bad idea, such questions should be fully resolved before people are sent to kill and die. I know this position is probably ridiculously idealistic(ironically my CAPTCHA was "Delirium"), but I think that if this happened, the world would hopefully be a better place.
Just because it's a video game doesn't mean anyone should assume it can't be a serious, respectful work of art.
The only thing that's been announced is the game's setting.
I always noticed how they seem to know what the soldier would feel if he were alive. Families of soldiers still with us, who have lived through this experience, don't say anything, because the soldiers would tell them to shut the hell up.
I just remember how people used to treat Vietnam Vets before First Blood came out. My uncle credited that with a change in viewpoint that allowed him to feel human again. Considering it is the largest money maker in entertainment, maybe this game will allow people to get an idea what happens in combat, and what decisions you have to go through, split-second, every day.
For those "offended" by this, the game play is based on first-hand accounts by VETERANS. I think they have more of a right than any civilian to speak for themselves. If you are offended, fine. Everyone is allowed to have an opinion. It's in the constitution I swore an oath to protect and defend. Don't go dragging out the names of the dead, however, to support your own sensibilities.
I just hope they don't allow you to "save game". You don't get that option in war.
Like most things in life, people only take offense when the subject matter hits home. They don't try to view the world objectively - it's always subjective with them. Most of these families would cry foul if this were a WW2 game that people were objecting to. They'd make comments about "growing up" and about how "it's just a game". But, of course, as soon as it's something that they themselves are familiar with, it's suddenly "offensive" and "trivializes war". Where is their outrage over something like America's Army? Or is that OK because it's promoted by the very same organization that they revere? Isn't the stance that the right (aka, most military families) always takes that the market should decide whether a product should be sold? How about seeing how well the games sells. If it's a hit and "trivializes" their kid's deaths, then so be it. The market will have spoken.
Freedom Fight: Fallujah. Defend your city from the Ferenghi (foreigners). All methods acceptable.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
and as I recall Black Hawk Down was an entertaining movie first, and then a video game. How exactly is this different? I think the excuse "because we're still in Iraq" is exactly why this game needs to push on to release date.
When you get wounded, your team mates have to transport you to a hospital or you die. When you have been mortally wounded, you die anyway. When you're dead, all your $49.95 software shows from then on is a cross on a military graveyard. You have to buy another copy to join the game again. If you don't fight, you can go to concerts and strip shows and hang out with your friends. I wonder how much fighting would be going on in that game.
People who 'outrage' at the realism and graphic nature of art, in a hope that such a reaction does anything but reenforce the purpose of its exhibition, obviously have no idea what the point of art is. So... maybe someone should tell them. The point of art, is to evoke emotion. The more you 'outrage' at art, the more effective said art is. You cannot really argue with art by outraging at its exposition. All you do is affirm its effectiveness and the reason we have a need for such art to exist.
If gore and realism are repulsive... then how is depicting it 'glorification' of some situation in which it takes place? People play the games because it gets them close to something they normally would never get the chance to experience. I am more offended by the war movies of the 50's and 60's that took most of the gore and realism out of war. If you want to talk about glorification, THAT is a more fitting example.
If you want people to understand the ramifications of violent behavior, then censorship is very counter-productive. You protect noone by throwing a rug over the bloodstain. You simply doom people to repeat the same mistakes by taking from them the wisdom of experience, however detached such experience may be.
I think what offends the majority more than anything, is the fact that other people revel in violence. Unfortunately for them, humans have, and always will, find entertainment value in the suffering of others, most of all those that 'outrage' at things they do not have the depth to comprehend. Concepts like justice, which very few people have ever had much of any issue with at all, hinge on the administration of human suffering. Be thankful that we live in an era when there are more avenues available to satisfy our inate bloodlust than ACTUAL acts of cruelty.
For those "offended" by this, the game play is based on first-hand accounts by VETERANS.
And no one ever paints themselves in a better light than what really transpired?
I'm not offended by a videogame, but those guys obviously have a biased view of the events, so I'm a tad offended by your inappropriate use of quotation marks and by your flawed belief that a first-hand account is equivalent to an objective view of events.
You can't take the sky from me...
Interview with 'Grandpa' on 12/6/07 about WWII and Gaming:
Damn. I can't add anything meaningful to that. You said it all and said it very well.
The purpose of this (and other) video games is to desensitize people to violence and make them believe war is necessary and ok. Why do you think mainstream media loves to report on violence and other more trivial things, rather than keeping us up to date on what the Congress and/or Senate has been doing(such as the Patriot Act)...it is to keep us as dumbed down sheep while those at the top continue their agenda for greater power and control over the people and the world itself. How many people have actually read the US Constitution? According to the recently leaked MIAC report, the Feds are trying to convince local police that having a pocket Constitution and/or a Ron Paul bumper sticker is a sign of domestic terrorism, and that the original founders of the US were actually the very first terrorists! I suggest those who play these types of games spend more time in reality, look around, and make our leaders responsible for what they have done. I'd suggest starting with the illegality of the PRIVATE Federal Reserve and the IRS. Those at the top think of the general populace as nothing more than a somewhat useful commodity and nothing more, see: Interview with George Green, and open your eyes!
~ awaiting spiritual enlightenment ~
as an objective view of events. Anywhere. Ever.
+1 informative, from where I'm standing...
Allah was gay, and Mohammed was his playtoy.
He may be a troll, but I laughed my dick off at that...
What do you expect?
Those using pirated Tinysoft signatures(TM) are a real threat to society and should all be thrown in jail.
They already created a game with all the heartbreak and sense of permanent loss of a hellish war - Diablo II hardcore mode.
So, of the people who are currently going frothy at the lips with outrage at this game, exactly how many of them have actually seen it, let alone played it?
Something tells me this is the usual rent-a-rage that the conservative press wheels out whenever they get tired of being outraged at immigration and welfare.
I always wondered if there were any such ethical qualms within Hollywood when they made films about WWII while the war was actually going on. "Does this strike to close to home?" "Should we be 100% accurate?" "Should we humanize the enemy?" "Is it OK to make a profit doing this?"
If they did have such qualms it didn't prevent them from making dozens upon dozens of such films. Is this just a case of "new era, new medium" or are games fundamentally different from film?
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Here's an idea for all the people bitching about there loved ones being over in a war still. Tell your government to stop this bullshit "war" that was only a real war for 48hrs.
The person responsible for starting the Iraq war considered the whole thing to represent nothing more than "a comma in a history book". This must be one hell of a game if it can manage to trivialize the war any more than that.
As a combat vet in the (USMC), instead of just lurking like usual I feel I should input my thoughts on the subject. I was in the mideast when Operation Phantom Fury started, and volunteered to go replace guys the were wounded like a good Marine, but didn't get to. So while I don't have Fallujah experience directly, I have lots of buddies who did. One thing you have to understand is the difference between the first and second battles, the former of which was basically a complete failure, and then that damned Mr. Conway fucking GIVES the fallujah brigade (read: insurgents pretending to be US allied) a supply of US weapons, hoping they would control the city, but then of course they just run away with US supplied weapons ready to kill US soldiers. This is what spurred the Second battle. The school incident just created more insurgents, and on top of that Al-Zarqawi was suspected to be there too. So we started warning the city, basically get the fuck out if your a civilian, and if your an insurgent go ahead and stay but were coming for your ass with extreme prejudice. Supposedly about 80+/-% of the civilians actually left, and then we started. I was fucking intense and fast, and more or less everything that moved got shot for the most part. We kicked ass and took names, but, and its much more complex than this, your have to distinguish the difference between nonlocal and local insurgents, and what we called martyrs and guerrillas. What happened was that with our warning, most of the non-local guerrillas left the city as civilians, and we were left with mostly local martyrs and guerrillas. This is what destabilized the anbar province afterwards because they figured out that if they just left what ever new area of operations we set up, they could continue their work. So ramadi, haditha, hit, ect turned into new insurgent holdouts. Okay, I could keep going on, but in regards to the game, its just a fucking game. I am an avid gamer, and have played counter-strike since beta 1.2. It's a game that helps me relieve stress and have fun with buddies online, usually trash talking in ventrilo. Its for fun. That being said, I think what people are missing the most is that this game is mostly being put together with the help of veterans that want to tell THEIR STORY. Stories you hear from vets are guaranteed to be more interesting and singular than you ever hear on the news. Many of the vets doing so are very similar to the ones who gave the ultimate sacrifice, and I willing to bet they would approve just as much. The question is, is the main purpose to be fun, tell a story, or be realistic. Whatever it is, they need to do a good job of it. Now, all that being said, war is not pretty and I don't think it should be portrayed as such. How about a game where you start in boot camp being all patriotic and kill kill kill, and progressively learn that the real world doesn't work like that, that you do things that will haunt you for the rest of your life for some faceless politician who doesn't even respect the same constitution you swore to uphold, you realize war is just a racket (and one you were a part of) for rich men to get richer while poor men get "deader" and that your country is going down the drain faster than if someone just cleaned it with drain o, and now you, a true patriot, are even ashamed sometimes to call yourself American and even are considering moving to another country because of how helpless you feel to do anything about anything because you think that anything short of a real revolution and we are doomed... Well, for lots of young veterans, that's not a game, its called life.
"It's ok, I'm completely secure as long as my iron is off"
While I understand your point and agree that the entire iraq war is illegal. You have multiple facts wrong. 1) The response to the killing of the 4 contractors was the First battle for falluja, which barely did anything to the city but was a catalyst for the second battle. 2) ALL civilians were allowed to leave during the warning period, and only military age males were not allowed to leave DURING the battle. 3) Truly many people died, but they were shooting at us too (the argument that they had every right to defend they're country is out of the scope of my response, but if I were an Iraqi in Fallujah I probably would have done the same thing.) So again, I see the frustration, but it seems to me your facts are wrong and you are not being objective.
this reminds me of an article printed in Harpers some years back discussing the then current war movie Jarhead and the idea if it was ever possible to create a truly anti-war film that didn't in the end glorify war. The main argument being that the film Apocalypse Now - probably the most famous "Anti-"War film is referenced in the film Jarhead - and apparently this is a true story - the Death from Above Scene where they play Wagner and destroy the unarmed village from helicopter is used psyche up the soldier and get them ready for combat in Iraq War 1991.
I know a lot of computer geeks like to take the free speech line of reasoning that says we can't blame the messenger and that censorship is evil. However, (and I am not arguing in favour of censorship) it really is a shame that we have such a black and white morality where you either have horrible censorship or you have media which promotes barbarism. The stories we tell are what define us and are what we refer to when we imagine solutions to how we need to act in the real world. There is a definate relationship between violent individualistic storytelling and the type of morally abhorrent behaviors (normalisation of government torture etc) that we now live with.
What I would prefer to outright censorship would by a populist system of moral values where violence was considered uncool (or some other way of being socially unacceptable but not banned)... However, usually social systems like that are religious or otherwise have major flaws.
Stupidity is its own reward.
A group of families of soldiers who lost their lives in the war questioned "how anyone can trivialize a war that continues to kill and maim members of the military and Iraqi civilians to this day."
Not only is it easy, but they should expect it. The war was trivial and based on lies told by a handful of neocon scumbags that anyone not wearing Republican-colored glasses could see right through.
Anyone who joined up after we went into Iraq had best just keep it to themselves, because they and their one remaining appendage aren't likely to be met with respect for their intelligence and sacrifice.
If I were holding a gun in real life, I'd want something better than mixed reactions, I want reactions of a 12yr old FPS player!
I for one, welcome the use of games to give us some "virtual reality" experience to current affairs. There's a lot of insight from the kind of immersing experience first person shooters give. To families who find it insensitive, this is not trivializing the experience. They should be thankful the stories of what really happens on the ground can be experienced through such a compelling medium. A lot depends on the tone and accuracy of end result of course, there are many games based on historic battles, but they do deviate from actual events in the name of interactivity. But so many FPS games today are very plot-linear and cinematic that it is easy to use real-world battlefield stories in place of fictional ones, and very disappointing that this isn't done more.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
We want games to get better recognition as an art form, as a narrative form, or something of other social value. Covering contemporary issues (not just Vietnam or Antietam or WWII) is, in my opinion, a GOOD thing. We already have games like Call of Duty ("modern warfare": a very current theme to the game) which have good narratives, which seem like they could be pulled from either a Tom Clancy novel or from the news. (And yes, there's the R6 series which *is* from Clancy.)
The soldiers' perspective, whether told in the form of unsanctioned Youtube postings, blogs, memoirs, embedded reporters, or a video game, is important. We all say "OMG the horror!" when talking about war, but few of us know the horror. We need things that portray the brutality of war, in a way which is unsettling for the viewer. Saving Private Ryan's incredibly graphic opening was almost un-watchable, for me, and yet I consider that movie one of the best war films I've seen, for that very reason (among many others).
We need video games that transcend the "Yay let's kill some nazis/terrorists/aliens!" theme, and portray also the sense of loss, uncertainty, or hard moral choices that can come with war. So, you might spend one "mission" being ambushed in the streets, or calling for a mortar strike on the roof of the building teeming with terrorists. The next, you would need to go clear the mosque or apartment building that they were at, and deal with the civilian casualties.
The hard part is making a game which tells a story well, and conveys the emotions or messages that these soldiers want, while also making it Not Suck -- otherwise few will play it.
The families who claim this trivializes the war don't seem to realize that this war trivializes the lives of their own children.
I used to be a big flight simulator fan. I remember the difficulties of trying to ID friendlies on night bombing runs. When there was a big stink a while back about pilots killing civilians on a night run, my immediate thought was how difficult it is to ID targets at night, miles up in the air, and traveling at 100s of yards a second. While not being anything close to a pilot, I had an elementary understanding of what pilots are going through (especially when you throw in the stress and emotions of doing it under fire).
I think the average civilian see Hollywood closeups when they think of war.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I can't find a mod category for sick bastard. They need one. Badly.
and I'm a master, no bullshit. My kill rate is 2.3 right now. I smash on everyone, calling in helicopters multiple times during a match.
But you know what? I used to want to be an Air Force Officer, but playing these games, really makes me respect and fear war.
There are times in the game where there simply is no time to react, no matter how good you are. And you can be killed for looking the wrong way.
"how anyone can trivialize a war...?" ... well, when you're talking about a pointless war in the first place it's not hard... I have no interest in this game at all but I hope Konami doesn't cave to the demands of these fools and their misdirected grief...
>I want to see a game where when you shoot the 'bad' guys, one of the others screams
>out "Billy! Oh god, noo!" I want to see games where the enemies are people and not just
>targets, and where civilians cry over the fallen.
Yeah! I agree, that would make the video games even COOLER!
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
I'm a Vietnam vet, retired with 23 years of active Army service (mostly SF). I love games, and I've played a fair number of military related games (some Vietnam era, and many others).
Bottom line: games are for gamers. They aren't to teach history (although it would be nice, and many gamers prefer an accurate game). They aren't to teach ethics or sociology or psychology or international law. They aren't to benefit the victims or the survivors or the participants or the viewers. They're games.
Don't like the game? Don't play it.
Doh.
Isn't a major treatment for PTSD re-enacting traumatic events in controlled, virtual environments in order to re-experience it without the actual trauma? This lays down 'layers' over the old memory that don't have the memory tag for "Priority interrupt: Panic!" and has phenomenal success rates in the treatment of PTSD.
With the right mod tools and server software, this is going to be the best tool of its type available.
I wonder what made the OP enquote the word massacre in the story. No doubt he or she thinks that the inhabitants of Fallujah all died as a result of tragic accidents which coincidentally occurred during the US attack on the city (and which all strangely mimicked the effects of being shot, burnt to death or tortured).
I hope they make it so that you can play as the resistance and get points for every invader you stop from getting in.
Playing the underdog while defending something you hold dear from an oppressor are the best games.
How is this any different than making a game based in WWII or Vietnam?
Here's hoping it's at least half as good as Super Columbine Massacre RPG!
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Why does everybody always get up in arms about content in video games that is on par with content in more accepted forms of media? There have been war movies made which are more realistic and outline the horrors of war, just like there have been some war games that I've played that paint war as a gritty and painful experience... There have also been war movies made glorifying war and violence that don't receive the same outcry as when a game is released. My point is that video games need to be treated like all other media; I don't want to play the game that offends no one, just like no one wants to watch the movie that doesn't. If you don't like it then don't play it; realize that video games can be as serious or tongue in cheek as the creators want and if you're a gamer you know that a good game is a work of art just like a great film or tv show. It's time for the gp to realize this, even if it's not their media of choice.