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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.'"
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.
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.
When has democracy been anything other than the will of the majority?
Is that as opposed to e.g. the firebombing of Dresden or the two atomic bombs? Don't kid yourself, WWII was always intended to be a "total war".
What made it "relatively" safe for civilians in the occupied territories and in places far from the action such as America was merely the huge distances involved coupled with the limits of technology at the time. If America had been as close as Britain to Europe, it would have been in danger of bombing just as much.
I also think you're off on the reconstruction. It's easy to reconstruct an already highly developed country, it practically reconstructs itself. That's why Germany and Japan are such success stories. The war lasted a handful of years, less than a generation. That's short enough so that people can rebuild their society as it was, and incorporate simple changes in structure like who's at the top. Just give them peace and some money.
If you look at Iraq or Afghanistan, these places have been at war on and off for most of two generations. Those places can't reconstruct themselves to a prior point, because the people who remember how the institutions worked and how society worked are mostly gone, and most young people have experienced only misery and have no idea what a modern developed society would look like.
Lesson: if you have to wage war, make sure it doesn't go on for more than five years...
When has democracy been anything other than the will of the majority?
Every time the winning candidate does not get 50% of ALL eligible voters. Not voting is essentially the same as "none of the above".
"Totally and completely incorrect. Not voting is saying "I don't care.""
Totally and completely incorrect. Not voting can say many things.
I don't care
I don't feel represented by the available parties
I think the elections aren't fair(the system is geared towards certain parties)
I don't want to legitimize these elections(perception of fraud)
I don't want to ligitimize all elections(anti-democrats)
I don't know
I can't(too far off location)
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.