How Will Contemporary War Games Affect Veterans?

An anonymous reader writes "Recently, video game developers have begun to make games about current conflicts the world over. Many veterans and current military personnel now take an active role in the video game community. Are game companies running the risk of walking into a public relations disaster when making games about current wars? More importantly, how will veterans react to playing games about a conflict in which they have participated? From the article: 'To portray conflict in a way that not only accurately depicts the acts of war, but does so in a manner that takes into account the sacrifices of soldiers within some sort of moral framing is a complicated matter. Now add to this the idea that such depictions are essentially created as entertainment and to make money. It is certainly mind numbing when looked at from a social perspective. ... Now try and apply this dynamic to a more recent conflict such as the Vietnam War or the current conflicts in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Considering that the latter wars are still in progress, the ability for a game developer to accurately gauge the morality of such a conflict is limited at best. To make a game that takes these factors into account while trying to create something that is both entertaining and capable of mass appeal among the gaming community is near impossible.'" We caught a glimpse of this last year with the reactions to Six Days In Fallujah.

Comments

Bad guys

[odies]

What about the other side which is always portrayed as "bad guys" and are who the player tries to kill and ultimately to win the game you need to beat them? I think the games affect those more.

Re:Bad guys

[odies]

Nice stereotyping there. Terrorists are a completely different aspect than national defense forces. Did Iraq do so? No, nor did Vietnam or any other country that USA has attacked. North Korea and Iran haven't done anything like that either, but still US demands them to stop developing their defenses. Doesn't it kind of make sense for a country to develop same kind of defense mechanisms than what other countries have? Would you feel good if North Korea had nuclear weapons and USA didn't and they said they'll attack USA if they don't stop developing them?

Then there's games like Modern Warfare 2 where Russians are portrayed as bad guys. The entertainment industry alone is a big propaganda machine. It's quite boring how one-sided it always is.

Re:Bad guys

[0123456]

"And I don't want those two countries, ruled by a dictatorship, to have weapons that will enable them to carry out their threats."

Presumably you missed the part where Iran was a democracy before America and Britain staged a coup to oust its democratic government in the 50s?

Re:Bad guys

[looney82]

until you've walked the walk on the streets of a foreign country where people want to kill you, don't believe everything you hear in the media. i'm sitting in abu ghraib, iraq right now, and just because i haven't been hit by an IED in the last 6 months doesn't mean it's not going to happen. we (as soldiers) do not overreact in the situation. we're also never "bored" while outside the wire. i understand that posting a reply on slashdot will not change your opinion, but i feel a need to defend my profession and my brothers in arms. i've lost a lot of friends here, and whether or not you agree with the wars or the actions of my comrades doesn't matter. you should still respect them for volunteering. what's reported is (mostly) never true.

Re:Bad guys

[TheJokeExplainer]

What I found hilarious was the Crysis series: developers were running out of bad guys to portray so they picked the North Koreans because those are the only guys they can't sell games to. :P

It's why you have this huge slew of World War II FPSes because the bad guys were very clear in these cases.

It's interesting how other nations are now being portrayed less and less as bad guys because they're potential paying customers. More and more, you're seeing games which allow you to play other nationalities as your team like in the Battlefield series.

Re:Bad guys

[fandog]

looney82 I want to thank you for doing what you're doing.

Re:Bad guys

[Sir_Sri]

volunteering to fight an illegal recolonization effort and you want respect? It's precisely that sort of thinking that has them wanting to kill you in the first place. Think long and hard about what you said. Seriously. There are countless british and french army types who volunteered to help 'civilize' various parts of the world (including Iraq), and countless colonial troops of various countries who wanted to variously bring religion to 'savages', wipe out the natives to make living space etc. Volunteering to help a colonial power expand it's ambitions is not worthy of respect. It is worthy of our disgust and disdain. If you idiots would stop volunteering they'd be forced to make truly difficult choices about what to do in Iraq. Is it worth conscription? Even after what happened in Vietnam? Right now they pile on the money and they get mercenaries, I'm sorry PMC's, and volunteers, none of whom are helping the situation. The reason, after you apparently 'liberated' them from Saddam Hussein they still want to kill you is that your still there, and still volunteering to go, (and when you are there tend to have a habit of killing innocent people, though that by definition is not intentional). It would be comically farcical if it wasn't so serious. Iraq, whether there are colonization forces there or not is a teetering mess, because it's the hub of the clash between saudi and iran for status as the dominant regional power, stabilization comes when those two stop funding a proxy war, at least temporarily.

One could reasonably argue that Afghanistan at least started out as a different situation. It certainly isn't now. But back in the 1990's and 2000's the driving forces behind the Anti-US movement were related to Israel, Egypt, and the US forces in Saudi, not all of which were particularly legitimate grievances (hence the terrorism for all its flair remained mostly rare, and of somewhat less dramatic support). Since the US recolonization effort in Iraq, you've put a giant beacon to the world saying 'hey look at us, all that crazy evil stuff OBL claimed we were doing but weren't, well, now we are!'

And no, a /. posting isn't likely to change your mind, or your income tax free + 225/mo imminent danger pay either. But your sob story of 'oh I'm in Abu Ghraib, I volunteered and they still want to kill me, you should respect me' isn't going to change my view. I'll presume you weren't involved in that previous business in abu ghraib with the torture etc. The people trying to kill you are all volunteers too, though they're more likely to be in it for an ideology (however crazy that may be) than the money. So ok I'll be at least sympathetic to you for that, at least you're probably in it for the money rather than for some misguided ideology about bringing some combination of Christianity or civilization to iraq. So no, you don't have my respect, you might have my sympathy, if you were so hard up for work and money to feed yourself this seemed like your last resort. At least if you learn arabic while you're there you can get a respectable job importing or exporting stuff with the middle east, just as a tip, don't tell them you were in Iraq, unless you want them to try and kill you during a meeting.

Re:Bad guys

[Firethorn]

First: I'm military, just a disclaimer.

There's a difference, though even WE screw it up sometimes, between a 'terrorist' and an 'insurgent'.

What's the difference? The terrorist goes after civilians with marginal connection to any occupying military. Insurgents go after military forces.

Let's take a roadside bomb - if they deliberately detonate it when a schoolbus passes, they're terrorists. If they blow it up when a military convoy is passing, they're insurgents, even if civilians are killed. The deaths of the civilians are collateral/accidental/secondary effect.

As a military member, I'll do my best to kill both; differences in treatment comes later, when the terrorists end up on trial for murder who the insurgents are released when the conflict is over/settlement negotiated.

Why target games specifically?

[atomicstrawberry]

For decades we've had films which are "essentially created as entertainment and to make money" and which depict major conflicts, often with input from people who fought in them. They'll often attack more recent subject matter than games will, too.

What about movies?

[Apotekaren]

So why are movies entitled to depict ongoing wars for profit and entertainment without this risk for backlash?
How many movies haven't already been made about the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, and often getting critical praise for their guts to comment on something so fresh and close to heart?

Re:What about movies?

[Vahokif]

The difference is that movies can show that war is hell. Games, by definition, have to make war fun.

Re:What about movies?

[Ambiguous Puzuma]

Games, by definition, have to make war fun.

Do they?
By most accounts, Pathologic is a bleak, depressing game--yet some people find it quite compelling anyway, if they can look past its flaws (most notably an incomprehensible translation from Russian to English). From page 2 of the review "Butchering Pathologic":

A couple of years ago I had an argument with a friend, one of those differences of opinion that leaves you fuming and coming up with witty ripostes for days afterwards. I was saying that a good game doesn't have to be fun. She was saying that was ridiculous.

My argument, though I botched my explanation at the time, is that games have incredible untapped potential in the field of negative emotions. Just as the lowest common denominator of any art form appeals to 'positive' emotions, whether it's humour, arousal or excitement, so it is that our young games industry is obsessed with the idea of 'fun'.

I think this is one of the core reasons that the games industry hasn't had its Casablanca or Citizen Kane- we're still in the era of musicals and slapstick comedy. No games developer's going to try and make its audience feel sad, or lonely, or pathetic, at least not for long stretches. You might get games that dip their toes into that water from time to time, but by and large developers are keen to keep you smiling.

But that debate is just a big, ugly thorn bush that I've run through too many times already with nothing to show for it. The point is that Pathologic fearlessly wields desperation, brutality, hopelessness, exhaustion, cruelty, even ignorance and pain, and, if you can stomach it, the result is phenomenal.

Pathologic could not ever be described as fun. Tramping back and forth across town, trying to stem the torrent of deaths while aching to know what's going on /is not fun./ This is not a game. There isn't a word for it really, which is probably why the developers, Ice-pick Lodge, call Pathologic "an exercise in decision making" on their translated English website.

And this is coming from a rave review that opens with:

I'm going to explain, right now, why a Russian FPS/RPG called Pathologic is the single best and most important game that you've never played.

Okay, so it contradicts itself on whether Pathologic is a "game" or "not a game". But that's because there's a largely unexplored gray area in between, where something can play like a game--and be as rewarding as a game--without being "fun".

(If you want to read the full review of Pathologic, since there doesn't seem to be a good way to navigate between the pages: part 1, part 2, part 3)

father-in-law Vietnam vet

[johnhp]

My father-in-law is a Vietnam vet. Anyway, he's surprisingly into video games for a guy his age, and he likes the Call of Duty style games. As far as I can tell he doesn't find it uncomfortable at all to play war games.

I did find one aspect of war games that upset him. He watched me playing Call of Duty or some game like that, and I was playing the offline campaign. A bunch of allied AI troops were in my way and I shot them down while laughing. He said that I, or maybe just my actions, were "sick" and said something else about how you shouldn't fire on your own guys, then got up and left the room.

Re:father-in-law Vietnam vet

[johnhp]

I agree that clearly my father-in-law interpreted those pixels as "men", but to me they are just game pieces. I feel no more sympathy for their virtual fate than I feel for that of a chess piece.

So while I could have or should have considered his perspective on the game, there's nothing "a little off" about my outlook.

TFA is sorta right. Key: USE GOOD JUDGEMENT

[gravos]

I guess the point that TFA is trying to make is that WW2, Vietnam games are tolerated because those are OLD, long-gone wars that don't have much resonance with most people these days. It doesn't get portrayed in the media every day, etc, etc... But games set in unresolved warzones are more tricky because fight hasn't finished and people still have skin in the game.

That's true and all, but I don't think it means you can't make modern conflicts into games. It just means good judgement is much more important. You can't apply some formula, you have to actually think about how you portray each side and how people are going to react. You have to be careful, but there is still a lot of room for creativity.

Or you could worry about making a fun game

[Sycraft-fu]

And not trying to push your anti-war message. Seriously, it is a GAME, it is meant to be fun, not realistic, not educational. If you don't like that, don't buy them.

If you want to try to make a game like you are talking about, where you have a message you want to ram down people's throats, well be my guest. However don't be surprised if, like most "message" games it completely and totally bombs (the Christians have tried this for years).

Re:Or you could worry about making a fun game

[grumbel]

Seriously, it is a GAME, it is meant to be fun,

If you want to make it fun then don't put it into a current day war, better yet, don't put it into any war that ever happened, as you will just end up twisting and mutilating history. If you need war then do some fancy fantasy or sci-fi or whatever that is far removed from reality. If you portrait current day war you have a responsibility to do it at least somewhat accurately.

Realism will never be allowed

[Leo Sasquatch]

Simply because of the massive outpouring of shock, rage, and incessant bloody whining from people who can't tell the difference between fantasy and reality and so assume no-one else can either.

A triple-A game costs $lots, and every developer wants to maximise returns. They want words like 'fun', and 'exciting' to be used by reviewers and players describing their games. Phrases like 'screams of the wounded', and 'dragging intestines' are right out. It doesn't matter how good physics engines get, or how much memory is in a PC; when bodies are shot, they will fall to the floor inert, and no amount of further shooting will do anything other than maybe nudge them about a bit. Enemies will have hit points, and once they're gone, they're dead, but until then, they're fully functional. Nobody's ever going to crawl away with a shattered kneecap, or frantically flail for their medkit trying to staunch a spurting artery.

There will never be children in a warzone, either as refugees or inhabitants. There will never be veiled and burqa'd women with suicide vests approaching soldiers at checkpoints. There will never be entire rows of houses filled with the dead, some still frozen in place with food in their hands, killed by cyanide gas bombs. What will be presented in-game will be the illusion of war, as seen from the safety and comfort of an armchair; sanitised by the news corporations who don't show you footage of anything that might actually upset you. Oddly enough, this doesn't extend to natural disasters, where they're often ghoulishly happy to show piles of fly-blown corpses, or 'dozers shoving piles of limed and flopping meat into vast unmarked graves.

It would be perfectly possible for a developer, hell, probably even some members of the modding community, to release a game that came a good deal closer to replicating the horrors of war than anything we've seen so far. Instead, I think they'll continue releasing things that are essentially toy soldiers, because nobody wants to be pilloried in the media for what amounts to trying to tell the truth.

Re:Realism will never be allowed

[HopefulIntern]

You make excellent points. Sadly I didnt spend my mod points last time round and so they werent renewed today :(

I would like to reference the Soldier of Fortune series of games. If you remember, they caused much controversy because they tried to depict actual gun wounds and realistic death sequences. (The first one was a bit too early to get decent graphics so it was all pixels anyway, but the second one was pretty good). A shotgun slug to the stomach meant guts would spill out. 7.62mm to the face...well it took a good chunk of face right off. Explosives meant severed limbs.

People were up in arms about it (no pun intended) because it was too realistic, and all kinds of restrictions were imposed on it. Personally, I thought surely this realism is a good thing. Why sugar-coat what combat is like? It didnt make the game any less fun, but more poignant. I took the time to realise that "thank god this is just a game", and that I dont have to do this in real life.

You also run in to external restrictions

[Sycraft-fu]

For example if you play Fallout 3, you'll discover you can't kill children. You can shoot them, but they just pass out and pop back up (critical NPCs do this too so you can't permanently screw over your game). Now why is that? It doesn't have to be that way by engine limitations, there are mods to change it. It also wasn't that was in the original Fallout. There not only could you kill children, you got a special evil perk for it which lead to more people wanting to kill you.

Well the reason is that in some countries, it is illegal to have a game where you can kill kids. In the case of the original Fallout, they had to modify it to make all the children go away (they replaced them with invisible sprites). In the case of Fallout 3, they opted for the path of least resistance and just made them unkillable, since some of the kids play a role in the plot and can't be removed.

Oh and games do sometimes go for some nasty scenes, even big ones. In Call of Duty 4 you play as a solider when a nuclear weapon detonates. You then are crawling around, trying to get out of your downed chopper, as you die.

However the real reason has nothing to do with "telling the truth" or any of the rest of the things you scream about. It is because people want to play games to have fun. It is the same reason many non-controversial choices are made in games. You'll notice that having food and water in a game at all is somewhat rare, and being forced to eat to survive is near non existent. Why? It's boring to worry about. So they dispense with that. Less realistic, but more fun.

No, you don't

[Sycraft-fu]

Sorry but I get tired of this "You have to make things realistic," crowd. I don't care if you think that's what's needed to prevent war (here's a hint: it's not) that's not how things work. Games are for fun, and they can use a wide variety of topics for that, including those which themselves aren't fun. They don't have any "responsibility" to make it real, no matter how much you claim.

Re:Bad guys (this shit doesn't equate)

[sealfoss]

I joined the army 2 months after planes flew into buildings. A war in Iraq wasn't even being talked about on the news yet. Signing up for the service didn't have anything to do with anything other than volunteering to put myself in harms way for the rest of the country. That same story goes for a lot of people, especially now, with how very apparent that danger is on television every day. In any case, soldiers don't chose where and which battles to fight. Politicians do. And, speaking from experience, politics don't matter much when you're receiving incoming artillery or something like that. Soldiers carry out the missions YOU as the public chose for them (by casting votes on election day). So don't ever be so short sighted as to blame the horrible shitty messes soldiers are put into by other, third parties, on the soldiers themselves. Now, speaking of being shortsighted, I'm not so much that that I don't realize that there is no black and white when it comes to reality, only shades of gray. If you think there is, you're fooling yourself. The is no such fucking thing as "bad guys", ok? When people are put in positions of having to use deadly force, or having deadly force used against them, they tend to dehumanize the opposition. Hence, throughout every war the American armed forces have become involved in, service members have come up with nick names or slurs for the enemy ("krauts", "reds", "slopes", "gooks" and now "haajis" for our current wars). More than just terms of endearment created out of anger and violence, these terms serve to de-humanize the enemy. You know why? Because it is near impossible to organize a fighting force with the rationale that "We're going to go over here and shoot to death all these *people*". Because the fighting force that is going to kill all of those *people* happen to be *people* too, and the act of killing *people* is a fucking horrible thing to do. Now, imagine all the vets coming back from... wherever. The vets that had hand grenades thrown at them by "little abu-dabbi mother fuckers", or, as you and I may call them, "children", and in response these vets had to "open fire" on the "little abu-dabbi mother fuckers", to keep from being killed. You can't. You can't imagine anything like that. You may think you can, because you've seen some sort of bullshit on CNN or FOX news or whatever, but you're wrong. You don't know shit about it, and neither does some asshead at some game studio. These fucking bullshit games that are "based in reality" are only about shit than never fucking happened. The entire Idea of putting "real life" war scenarios into video games is like turning the bombing of an abortion clinic into a fucking cartoon show, and then feeding it to children.

Re:This shit doesn't equate (enjoy killing)

[sealfoss]

The only people who "enjoy" killing are the ones who've tricked themselves into thinking they enjoy in, in order to carry out whatever disgustingly horrible tasks they're given. Either that, or their sick and derranged. Just because you're a soldier, like I said, it doesn't mean that you are no longer a human being. Saying that the entire US Army enjoys killing people, and alluding to these people they enjoy killing being civilians is indicative of the speaker not wholly understanding the subject their discussing.