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When Does It Become OK To Make Games About a War?
The cancellation of Six Days in Fallujah seems to have stirred up almost as much debate as its original announcement. Given the popularity of World War II games, it seems clear that the main concern about a game focusing on modern war events relates to how recently they happened. Kotaku takes a look at some of the obstacles such a game would need to overcome to achieve broad acceptance.
"When approaching a game that realistically depicts a modern combat situation, one criticism that often arises is the subject of fun. Can a realistic military shooter be fun? According to Ian Bogost, that's the wrong question to ask. 'We use the word fun as a placeholder, when we don't even really know what we mean when we look for some sort of enjoyment in a serious experience,' he said. Fun and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive, especially when it comes to entertainment based on real-world military conflicts. As Bogost explains, fun isn't the key word in this situation. 'It may not be possible to make a realistic war game that is fun — war is not fun — but it is possible to create an experience that is informative, appealing, and startling in a positive way.'"
It's pretty much OK to do anything you want to do unless you plan on pissing off the vocal minority.
I'm fairly certain the majority of us really don't give a damn what the next guy is going to do.
It's that small percent who have an extremely horrid tact and shout much louder then necessary.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
I think time is only a minor factor in this case. The level of "OK-ness" of making a war game is also highly correlated with the popularity of the war IMO. In World War II we seemed to have a clear enemy who was clearly in the wrong. It was cause for celebration to defeat them at the time and thus it's OK to relive this defeat in the form of a game. The Iraq war is extremely unpopular, and it's unclear whether we really "won" anything as a result of it.
I think Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a perfect example of a modern war game that hasn't gotten too much flack.
Common sense is not so common.
The problem wasn't the controversy, it was that Konami buckled. Anytime a company gives signs of backing off, you'll have a bunch of groups charge in like pack animals to set their agenda. Jack Thompson has been trying it for years. He would have loved that type of weakness in companies. So Konami pretty much blew it.
You can't tell me beating up prostitutes in Grand Theft Auto is better than a modern day war simulation. For every person saying "but that's someone's son" in regards to the war game, you could say "but it portraying someone's daughter in GTA"...
If recency were such a controversial thing, you couldn't have documentaries of events newer than 20 year old, let alone what is happening in the world today. The subject matter isn't all that different from any other game of its type, and I'm sure the soldiers in the "soldier groups" protesting the game have played their fair share FPS/GTA/Survival_Horror, so there probably is a fair bit of hypocrisy going about trying to make this or that topic sancrosanct and taboo.
How would a GERMAN point of view in a war game be like. You might say that several all ready did offer you the option to play from the german side, but not on the box cover. Look at the art for games with two sides like the venerable Close Combat series. It is pretty clear who you are supposed to be playing. That you can also optionally play as the germans is just a small side note.
But what is a game like Call of Duty etc had a german theme and worse, did not pretend that the german soldiers did not know what they were fighting for. Notice that most potrayals of symphatetic germans conveniently accepts "ich habe es nicht gewust" for fact. But it was the soldiers who rounded up the undesirables and put them on transport. Who took civilians hostage and executed them.
How would a ww2 game that showed that be received?
Not so good I think.
for that matter, how about a vietnam game in which the americans get to torch houses and kill unarmed women and children? Hell, even make a vietnam war game where the americans are LOOSING. Or a dutch war game about the "police" actions in Indonesia, just to show this is not an anti-america thing.
War games are acceptable as long as they show a clean version of a war with a goodie and a baddie and you are the goodie and the goodie is nothing but good and does nothing a baddie would ever do.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
WWII has been beat to a pulp.
That's because WWII is easy: Nazi's == Evil. It's satisfying to kill Nazi's because deep down you think of them as inhuman monsters. It's worth noting that the only FPS genre currently more common than WWII is alien invasion, I think it's pretty clear what that says about our culture's current level of xenophobia.
How about you first start out by not developing a game based on an on-going war. For example, had the technology existed, I would not be developing a WW2 game in the middle of f-ing WW2!!!
Life is not for the lazy.
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I'd also argue that accuracy is also a key element. "Old School" wargamers took pride in analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each side, presenting the simulation with at least a semblance of impartiality.
In this case, however, the game is biased, jingoistic and unrealistic. And, as you observe, it supports a cause that has been largely rejected.
The first part will have alienated the old school wargamers, the latter part will have alienated a lot of gamers who are not far right-wing.
I guess, ultimately, that's the true test of the OKness of a game - if you alienate the audience, it's not ok.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Buy a copy of Battlestations Pacific. You can play as the Japanese side. I think you even attack Pearl Harbor. You definitely can do Kamikaze attacks.
I'd be rather pissed off if I couldn't play as both sides in a historical wargame I'd bought. I certainly wouldn't mind playing as Rommel, whom I admire.
These games aren't really about approval of one side or the other, but about re-enacting history and thinking about alternative outcomes. For example, I've often imagined that Lee won at Gettysburg, not because I wanted the Confederacy to win, but because I'd have liked to see him win it.
I wouldn't say that the people who are Civil War re-enactors on the Confederate side are racists. They are just fascinated with the (as I am) and love the history. Same goes for video games.
"by that I mean people who don't sit on slashdot all day wondering why everyone else isn't building robots" DECS
Now as I mentioned before, people are illusioned into believing that something is extremely important. The reality is that most of the controversy is simply caused by stupidity. Sadly, I'm wrong when I say it's caused by stupidity; it's usually caused by willful ignorance in the form of religion. Though I do admit that there are some caused by bigotry, idiocy, and normal ignorance as well.
Think about it - What are the big controversies today in America? I'll list some for you:
Those are all caused by religious institutions; the pope hates them all. and there's such opposition to these issues because, guess what? They hurt their feelings. And they remain controversial because of bigotry. But there are some very minor controversies out there that aren't caused by Christianity; gun control and the war on drugs, for instance. These issues are caused by sheer ignorance.
How does this relate to the topic in hand? It's hard to say. Games based on real, current wars aren't controversial because of people's bigotry, idiocy, stupidity, or willing or unknowing ignorance.
In fact, I'd go so far as to say that this type of game isn't controversial at all. What it is, however, is stigmatic. People have different views on the war, and because not everyone agrees with it, and even though it's a subject that people can have differing opinions on it without getting upset, it instantly becomes taboo.
So the real problem is that people and organizations have become so incredibly afraid of being politically incorrect, they're not even willing to go along with anything that people won't agree on. Which means that the shelves of the game stores will continue to be filled with endless sequels, because someone might be offended with anything new, and in an overly-sensitive global society, that's enough to get your game banned.
To sum up what I was trying to say, current-war games aren't controversial, but are simply too new of an idea.
I hope my message got across well; I'm actually doped out on sleeping pills right now. I'm not even sure that I wrote about the point I was trying to make.... I'm a very confused man at the moment.
P.S. I think I meant to say earlier that controversies are caused by intolerance. Ex: Fable was controversial for being able to play a gay character.
Remember that one of the game publisher decided to cash in on the term "Shock and Awe" and realize that there was a public back lash at the attempt to cash in on the Iraq war. I think people need to realize one thing. This is not a freedom of speech issue, they're a private company and if they tick off the people that generates their profits, they'll probably do what it takes to protect that revenue source.
Fun and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive, especially when it comes to entertainment based on real-world military conflicts
Eh? Could you run that one past me one more time? It would make sense if you said something like "Fun and education aren't mutually exclusive", but as it is stands it is a tautology.
When it comes to war, what is acceptable and in good taste depends on whether it allows people to come to terms with what has happened. WWII ended a while back, AFAIK, and people in Europe are still trying to come to terms with it - which is why in UK there is hardly one night when there is not at least one programme rehashing the events, or a comedy series or whatever. In UK we haven't even quite come to terms with WWI yet, and perhaps one shouldn't really expect to get to the state where it is just the subject of idle fun.
In my opinion, coming to terms with events of this magnitude means facing up to all aspects of what has happened, and for Falluja we aren't even close to that yet; this is not just a question of showing a bit of tact and respect for the tens of thousands innocents that were allegedly slaughered by Americans troops, but also a question of our integrity and moral standing. On a personal level I find it revolting and deeply disturbing that a bunch of soldiers - possibly henchmen in a horrifying crime - are now trying to milk the story for what it is worth. Talk about military honour.
And before anyone begins to spout nonsense about "the global anti-Americanism", let me point out that since you elected Obama, things have changed a lot in the world; not because we think he is going to do what we want him to do, but because we believe that he genuinely represents the American people, and we trust and respect the American people.
Actually, it wasn't that simple.
1. For a start you have to understand that what the bulshit Hollywood propaganda presents as a one "German army", was actually several branches, some of which weren't army at all. The SS for example was a paramilitary organization, _not_ a branch of the German army, and none too loved by the real army (the Wehrmacht.)
Second, even Hitler understood and accepted that not everyone has the stomach for his racial purity solutions.
The rounding up Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, etc, was done by volunteer groups -- the euphemistically called Einsatzgruppen or Sonderkommandos (special units) -- recruited from the SS, SD, Gestapo (all under Himmler, btw) and local volunteers, _not_ from the army.
So, yes, most German soldiers didn't know jack squat about the extermination, and never rounded up anybody.
If you want to see an example of how the real army felt when ordered to do some atrocity: when a German sub was sunk by airplanes while trying to tow to safety the survivors of a ship it torpedoed, Hitler was furious and ordered that subs machinegun all such survivors in the future. Dönitz argued that doing anything of the kind would cause a massive morale drop, and basically pretty much refused to do it. Hitler actually backed out of that idea. Subs did stop trying to rescue survivors, though.
2. But to get back to the rounding up, you also have to understand another aspect: people are easier to round up when they don't know they're going to end up dead. After all, if you'll be killed anyway, what's your incentive to surrender to the guys with guns? At least running away or fighting back you still have a small chance to survive.
And you can see in the Warsaw uprising what happened when people realized that they're dead in the long run anyway.
So the "final solution" was actually kept somewhat secret, because, you know, the less people know about it, the less the risk that one of them will write to their former friend in Minsk to say stuff like "dude, hide before these guys come haul you to the gas chambers" and that guy tells _his_ friends about it, and it goes downhill from there. You have plenty of historical examples from elsewhere of exactly this kind of thing happening. E.g., the Gunpowder Plot in England failed when some conspirator tried to warn some other catholics to not be in the parliament on that day.
The people rounded up and the population in those cities, were routinely told they're being merely deported to some other province, and encouraged to take whatever they think they'll need in a new home. (Incidentally, that ended up as loot for the nazis.)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
The difference between heroics and butchery. Fallujah was a Massacre. Hard to celebrate atrocity.
Well, that's actually a perfect example, if you're willing to use your brain.
How do you know about those tortures? Well, because there's a free press and Internet and all sorts of channels outside the government control that told you about it.
In a totalitarian regime, with the press controlled by the government, yes, probably very few american soldiers would have had the faintest idea about what the CIA does. The american soldiers would have just seen their narrow slice of reality -- you know, some fighting, some patrolling occupied cities, some getting sniped, some of your pals being blown to bits by a roadside bomb -- and would have had no idea at all what happens to those arrested "terrorists", or in some cases that anyone was arrested at all.
Except apparently it was secret enough that with all the partisans, and resistance, and spies, and captured german officers and all, the allies had no fucking clue about it either until they ran into an actual death camp. You'd think that something which is no secret at all (or so you claim) would leak sooner, no?
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Not quite correct because most soldiers saw the front and little else. Only special units were used for rounding up and dealing with the jews/other undesirables. However the treatment generally given to the enemy civilians in both Russia and the Ukraine was quite harsh, there were little of the 'cleaning up operations' near the front-lines. For the soldiers of occupation, things would have been different.
What is interesting though is the civilian machinery behind the camps. Moving vast numbers of people around required a massive infrastructure with corresponding paperwork (we are talking Germans here) and it has been shown that many people in the Reichsbahn (Railway service of the time) must have known about extermination implied movements of people in the cattle trucks into the extermination camps with no movement out.
See my journal, I write things there
It took the Germans a while to come to their final solution, so it wasn't clear to the Allies that setting up camps and ghettos was a means of extermination, but they were fully aware that very bad things were happening to certain minorities in Europe. The Allies were quite sympathetic to fascism and racial theories, though, and thus were largely indifferent, at least until they found themselves under attack. Look at the world's almost non-existent reaction to the slaughters in Africa nowadays, and it's clear that secrecy is not necessary for people to get away with doing horrible things.