Berlin Wall 'Death Strip' Game Sparks Outrage In Germany

gzipped_tar writes "According to Spiegel Online, 'A new computer game where players assume the roles of border guards and shoot people trying to escape from communist East Germany has unleashed a storm of controversy in Germany. The game's creator says he wanted to teach young people about history, but he has been accused of glorifying violence. ... The name of the multi-player FPS game, 1,378 (kilometers), was inspired by the length of the border between East and West Germany. ... [Players] choose between the roles of the border guards or would-be escapees: the escapee only has one goal — to get over the wall, but the border guard has more options, and can shoot or capture the escapee. He can also swap sides and try to clamber over the border defenses himself.' By choosing to play the border guard and kill the escapee, the player would win an in-game medal from the government of East Germany. But then the guard would time-travel forward to the year 2000, where he would have to stand trial. Jens Stober, 23, designed the game as a media art student at the University of Design, Media and Arts in Karlsruhe. He said that his intention was to teach young people about German history."

Comments

You know what they say

[suso]

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. However there is such a thing as tact.

Re:You know what they say

[Moryath]

Actually, sometimes you need to leave "tact" aside and actually teach history.

This one is pretty clear - you can be in the role of attempting to escape, or see what it was like for the guards. TFA finally gets around to pointing out that players who choose to shoot and kill those who attempt escape face the consequences for their actions by having their character stand trial later for the crime. They also give the choice of killing or not killing.

Too many people want to put an entire discussion into pure binary good-and-evil, or rewrite the history books in many cases. It doesn't help. And you can certainly make a real simulation of a tough situation without "glorifying" violence.

Re:You know what they say

[Hognoxious]

SPOILER

The krauts lose, twice.

Re:You know what they say

[Mr. Freeman]

"By choosing to play the border guard and kill the escapee, the player would win an in-game medal from the government of East Germany. But then the guard would time-travel forward to the year 2000, where he would have to stand trial."

Explain to me what part of this doesn't have tact. A lot of people will probably object to killing civilians, but the killing of innocent civilians IS WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED IN THE TIME AND PLACE IN WHICH THIS GAME IS SET. There isn't any way around this. Either you want to teach history with all the violence and bloodshed that it entails, or you want to censor history. There's no way to point out the atrocities of what Hitler's army did without pointing out the atrocities carried out by Hitler's army. Yes, it was gruesome, yes it was inhuman, yes it was violent. If you think that pointing this out is "tactless" then you're a moron.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Except, from what I've seen and heard of Germany, they aren't just forgetting, they're actively trying to ignore it. Perhaps this game going against that unhealthy culture of repression is the best thing.

And it sounds tactful to me, it sounds like the clear intention of this game is to try and teach people the lessons of the past. It sounds like, far from glorifying violence, it demonstrates that violent actions have very real consequences.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think Hitler or his army were ever part of running DDR.
This was done by one of the parties that defeated Hitler, after WW2 was won and Hitler was dead.

Perhaps if you play this game, maybe your knowledge of history will increase ?

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Hitler was a parallel I was using because what he did is significantly more graphic than this. I didn't properly separate the two because I was quite angry at the time I wrote my last post. I often get worked up when people attempt to put political correctness in front of actually teaching things.

Re:You know what they say

[Kismet]

Some ideas are not effectively conveyed through the language of entertainment. Sometimes the mode of learning conveys a stronger message than the content of the lesson. Worse than rewriting history is to trivialize it. Occasionally we have good reason to rewrite history, such as when new evidence is presented; but only tyrants and fools frame history as a burlesque.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Funniest post ever.
Yeah, I'm German. Not logged in since I have already modded.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

This is not a case of wanting to repress, this is a case of being overly touchy when it comes to violence in video games. Instead of 'Think of the children!', this is 'think of the living relatives of victims'.
I personally agree that it's not warranted.
a German that already modded this thread.

Re:You know what they say

[oddtodd]

What we learn from history is that we do not learn from history.
Benjamin Disraeli

Re:You know what they say

[arivanov]

Exactly. What's next? A game where you can play the role of the crematorium guard at Auschwitz and Treblinka?

No thanks, some portions of history have to be taught without no entertainment involved. Anything else aside, there has to be at least some respect for all those who died.

Re:You know what they say

[the_womble]

There are (fiction) films and books about Aushwitz. If those forms of entertainment are acceptable, why not a game?

Re:You know what they say

[nebaz]

Hitler had nothing to do with Dance Dance Revolution. That was Mao.

Re:You know what they say

[Shadow of Eternity]

I disagree, I think that a "game" is an extremely effective way of conveying the true horror of history. You can show people movies, you can have them to read books and sit while a teacher lectures, and they can find some way of going into dummy mode for it all.

A videogame as media for this kind of message does not need to be fun to be effective. Actually if anything it would be extremely effective to have people play a game where they are basically horrified at their own actions and disgusted by continuing to "win". What better way to get the horror of this across than to make the player as uncomfortable with their actions as possible?

Re:You know what they say

[mwvdlee]

Because games get just a little too close for comfort for most people. They want to be taught the lessons of history, but it has to be comfortable and simplified, even if the facts are painful and complex.

If a kid would start out playing this for fun and ends up feeling bad in his stomach realizing the reality behind it, the game has done it's job.

Problem is that people accept books or movies that make them feel negative at the end, they don't accept this from games.

Re:You know what they say

[sznupi]

Though to be fair - don't be carried away, the consequences are really nil, zilch, nada. The actions...could still be presented to the player in a really "fun" way (as far as FPP shooters go). The whole experience would then be painful basically only if one already has such outlook.

If that's the case, the whole deal with standing trial starts to look just like an excuse...

And there are certainly ways to convey all the dillemas faced by people back then in a much more tactful way (while still "entertaining") - for example as in a relatively recently seen by me (great) film "Das Wunder von Berlin"

Re:You know what they say

[rtb61]

Dungeon Keeper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper was about as close as game makers got to that and it was done as a comedy, nobody really complained. I wonder how say Dungeon Keeper 3 would be received now considering the substantial improvement in the quality of graphics since version 2.

Re:You know what they say

[Vintermann]

I think that a "game" is an extremely effective way of conveying the true horror of history.

If it was, it wouldn't be a game. One of the defining attributes of a game is that it has clearly defined, limited, reachable goals. It is at best a simplification of the real world, more commonly it's just a way to have fun incorporating real-world themes.

There's really no more reason why a kid should be more horrified at playing this game than playing Dungeon Keeper - unless he knows exactly how historically accurate the game is, in which case he wouldn't learn anything from it anyway. I think kids would need an unusually low level of detachment from computer games, and also a certain lack of common sense, for this game to emotionally affect them.

Even if it did, would that be a good thing? Say there was a couple of Stasi officers in exile somewhere, wanting to defend the DDR. Would they make a game trying to manipulate emotions, like this, or would they try to engage people's minds with documentation?

They would go for the emotions, of course. Minds can detect inconsistencies and see through lies. Emotions don't have that kind of resistance.

Now why should we fight with the devil's weapons?

Re:You know what they say

[Jane Q. Public]

No. History must be taught without "tact" or other forms of distortion. Tact becomes "political correctness". Political correctness becomes bias. Bias begets little changes in the way history is reported. Little changes give wrong impressions. Wrong impressions create bigger biases. And so on.

History needs to be taught as factually as possible. NO "tact", no "political correctness", no "Democrats or Republicans". Just facts. Those are the only things that will help us through problems of the future. Tact most definitely will NOT.

Re:You know what they say

[KDR_11k]

Since A. it does not force you to kill the escapees and B. gives you a bad ending for doing so I don't think the courts would decide that it glorifies violence. Of course the tabloids can claim what they want, as can the politicians but only a court decision can result in an actual ban or punishment.

Re:You know what they say

[KDR_11k]

These are "art games", they aren't really games at all, more like simplified simulations. There's not necessarily a win condition in these games.

Re:You know what they say

[KDR_11k]

The game pits Germans vs Germans fleeing from Germany to Germany, really a useful spoiler...

Re:You know what they say

[durrr]

Jens Stober, 23, is currently occupied with making his next game, Auschwitz Online ready for the close beta stage.

That being said: there's thousands of tragic events troughout history that is or have been turned into entertainment. Or even better, is so obscure that even if they were turned into entertainment people would think they were based on pure fiction.
But of course, some dead people are more equal than other and deserve more respect amirite?

Re:You know what they say

[loufoque]

This one is pretty clear - you can be in the role of attempting to escape, or see what it was like for the guards. TFA finally gets around to pointing out that players who choose to shoot and kill those who attempt escape face the consequences for their actions by having their character stand trial later for the crime. They also give the choice of killing or not killing.

I'm sorry, what crime are you talking about? The border guards did nothing illegal as far as the GDR law is concerned, since they were military personnel whose service consisted of preventing people to escape by any means necessary.

Putting them on a FRG trial many years afterwards is simply pure nonsense to satisfy crazy mobs. FRG law didn't apply in that region back then.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, a game doesn't really give a you a sense of what it's like and what it means to kill someone for lower reasons. Maybe I've just played to many games, but I despise the cruelty of war and think it's a disgrace to humanity, on the other hand I play games like Crysis or other games, where you kill someone somehow. It's entertainment and a bit thrill is fun. So my views on reality and a game scenario are different.

Re:You know what they say

[eugene2k]

I have yet to see a melodramatic game, whilst melodramatic novels and movies are commonplace. It's because in movies and novels the author contols the protagonists actions and therefore can show the reader/viewer what those actions may lead to. By associating himself with the main character the reader/viewer can effectively experience the consequences as if she was the one acting. In a game this is close to impossible, as artificially limiting the player's behavior breaks the player's immersion in the game, whilst letting the player make the right choices will not teach the player much if anything (you as the designer of the game do not know what motivates those choices, and thus do not know if the choice has been made because the player already learned that what you're trying to teach or simply made the choice randomly).

Furthermore, as I understand it, in this particular game, you can make the wrong choice and then stand trial. The trial itself is not a punishment. Especially since the game ends with it. It's like sentencing the person to go to jail for half a minute - the person convicted is then free to do anything she likes.

Re:You know what they say

[Patch86]

I can play as a Nazi U-Boat captain blasting civilian vessels under the noses of their escorts in Silent Hunter (and a hundred other sub sims). I can play a knight of Christendom annihilating towns and cities through the Middle East in Medieval: Total War (and a hundred other medieval themed games). Or I can play as a US (and sometimes even VC) soldier rampaging through the jungle of Vietnam, in a war that claimed some 3 million civilian lives, in Battlefield Vietnam (and a great many others).

Video games have been made about terrible conflicts countless times in the past. Some are irreverent, some are moving, some are merely factual. Offence is in the eye of the beholder.

Of course the Berlin Wall is still pretty recent and raw, so I can't say I blame the uproar. But at least this game sounds like it was trying to make a point.

Re:You know what they say

[julesh]

There's not necessarily a win condition in these games.

So, the only way to win is not to play?

Re:You know what they say

[Arancaytar]

The game actually is about Germany losing a third time, but this one doesn't technically count because the other side was also Germany.

Re:You know what they say

[Frosty Piss]

I'm sorry, what crime are you talking about? The border guards did nothing illegal as far as the GDR law is concerned, since they were military personnel whose service consisted of preventing people to escape by any means necessary.

Putting them on a FRG trial many years afterwards is simply pure nonsense to satisfy crazy mobs. FRG law didn't apply in that region back then.

So, you have no problems with the gassing of Jews in the camps, either?

Re:You know what they say

[X0563511]

Yes, and there's more to that quote than you might think.

"Playing" implies that you are attempting to win something, like a competition or test of skill. You can experience without "playing."

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

All toasters toast toast.

Re:You know what they say

[MaWeiTao]

There is a clear fundamental difference. In books and film you're passively watching someone else engage in those actions. When it's a game YOU are the one making the decision. You are the one who choose to play the game, who choose to shoot those people. It may all be fantasy but for a lot of people the situation is quite different. And this will become a more significant problem as games grow increasingly realistic.

It would be interesting to see if the psychological response is different for someone watching a murder in a movie compared to someone initiating it in a game. I think the real threat is that people are growing increasingly desensitized to horrors. This game is the perfect example of that. It's only shocking to non-gamers.

Re:You know what they say

[loufoque]

Putting people from another state under trial using a juridical system outside of its jurisdiction does not make sense; it's a sham to justify oppression or murder, and people that feel they were oppressed need to oppress their oppressors to feel good again.

Whether the people did dubious things from a morality point of view is irrelevant. Morality is relative, and has as much its place in justice as religion does.
But war is quite nonsense anyway. Brainwashing of the winner has been fairly efficient, and people now believe that the morals of the winner are "justice" and that the loser is pure evil that should be removed. Somehow this translates into some kind of biased fanatical revenge justice and intolerance of morals that differ from the now-established winner's norm.

There is nothing particularly horrible about shooting deserters of all kinds. It has been done for thousands of years by everyone, often in a more gruesome manner than the GDR did.
Times of war or trouble involve keeping the population under control and check. More or less subtle propaganda, armed intervention and powerful police force, are the de-facto standard methods used to achieve this.

Killing people is "bad", but it may not seem as bad by people if it's used to achieve a purpose, such as establishing a new revolutionary order.
Before trying to take revenge on such people, from a humanitarian point of view, I think it is important to try to understand their morals and motivations.

Re:You know what they say

[commodore64_love]

>>>Sometimes the mode of learning conveys a stronger message than the content of the lesson.

Bullshit. At the end of the game the murderous guard gets hung (or life imprisonment). How is this not teaching a lesson about the consequences of shooting innocent people trying to escape to freedom? Also I don't think the game is intended to entertain, but to let people put themselves in that time period, like the holodeck did in Star Trek. Its the old "walk in another man's shoes" method of learning.

One thing I don't understand, when I review the actual history, is why the Socialist Germany guards would shoot people and then just let them lay there for an hour, begging for help and moaning in pain. Talk about cruelty.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

I played Counter-strike for years and killed thousands of counter-terrorists and innocents, and never was I horrified at my own actions, despite their supposed mirror to real-life situations. The only time I was ever horrified or disgusted when the message "Terrorists win!" popped up was when I was on the other team.

To preface this, I want to make clear that I fully support any and all creative expression, free from censorship, and that just because something is "offensive" to some does not mean it is without merit. That said, turning this concept into a game does not bring to light the horrors of the situation, it trivializes them. It turns fear-ridden, oppressed victims fleeing for their and their families' lives into flimsy digital models that, no matter how many times they die, will pop back up in the next round. It turns soldiers doubting their allegiance to their country into a black-and-white choice between sadism and defection.

Again, I see this game as a perfectly valid creative device, but it is not a good teaching tool.

Irrelevant side note: The only time I can remember ever being uncomfortable or guilty about my own actions in a game was sacrificing the innocent in God of War.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

SPOILER

The krauts lose, twice.

Only because France isn't involved.

Re:You know what they say

[HungryHobo]

whilst letting the player make the right choices will not teach the player much if anything

What the fuck?
So your problem with this is that the player can choose *not* to shoot the escapee?

Especially since the game ends with it. It's like sentencing the person to go to jail for half a minute

And a book that ends similarly is better how?
It's a game.
Do you want it to give the player an electric shock the player when they do something wrong or what?

All it does is tell a story and give the player some choices in the story.
Make the good choices the story ends well.
Make the bad choices and the story tells of short term rewards and long term consequences.

When you tell a fairy tale to a child about someone doing something evil do you finish it by locking them in a box for a few hours to teach them what jail is like?

Books, films, choose your own adventure books or even sitting around telling a story and playing a game can all convey the same messeges and morals.
A story, even a story told through a videogame can have a moral.

Re:You know what they say

[HungryHobo]

every generation.
every single generation decides that the modes of entertainment of their own generation were obviously fine since they grew up fine but this generation?
this generations new forms of entertainment are going to destroy the minds of the young!
this time!
this time we're going to see it turning them into devil worshipers or canibals or murderers because *insert any difference between the older forms of entertainment and this one*

Colour TV was going to turn them into murderers because the vibrent colour of blood would overload their senses and leave them bereft of empathy.
Black and white TV was going to turn them into murderers because the addition of a moving image of what was happening was going to make everything far too real and they wouldn't be able to tell reality from fiction.
Rock music was going to cause them to worship the devil because.... well just because.
Radio was going to destroy them with all the sudden sounds and vivid images called up by a story told on radio shows was much more real for being heard rather than read from a book and the lack of another person there to provide a real human influance.
Talkies were going to make people crazy with the realism and people would think they were inside the world of the film.
Cheap mass printed books were going to destroy their minds by overloading them with information from every direction.

but this time.
this time the new generations entertainment is different.
this time it really is going to leave them all as psychopaths and killers.
This time!

people have been saying kids wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the game world and the real since Wolfenstein 3D came out almost 18 years ago. people have grown to adulthood since then and yet still people have little trouble telling the real world from game worlds.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. At the end of the game the murderous guard gets hung (or life imprisonment). How is this not teaching a lesson about the consequences of shooting innocent people trying to escape to freedom?

See, if you really wanted to make the game work and teach a real lesson, you'd have three play options:

1) Shoot the civilians with gusto. Get promoted, work your way up through the ranks, and come to an unhappy ending in 20 years.
2) Refuse to follow orders. Your boss eventually figures out that too many civilians are escaping under your watch and says "You're not doing your job. It's not merely legal to shoot. It's illegal not to shoot", and throws you in jail for the next 20 years. You're released from prison in post-reunification as a broken old man.
3) Figure out how few civilians you can shoot and still keep yourself out of jail - both during the course of your 20-year career with the DDR border patrol, and during the post-reunification era.

The horror of totalitarianism isn't the psychopath gleefully massacring civilians, nor is it the heroic figure who stands up for his beliefs only to find himself in front of a firing squad. They've found a way to make it worthwhile, but heroes and villains are both outliers.

The horror of totalitarianism is that it makes life downright miserable for the 99.999% of us poor schmucks who spend their lives as nervous wrecks trying to avoid the outliers on either end of the ethical spectrum.

Impress that upon a kid, and you might change his thinking: It's not 20 years of "How much good can I get away with before getting caught?", but "What's the minimum amount of evil I have to do today to avoid being tortured or killed?"

Re:You know what they say

[Cylix]

You absolutely convinced me that we should always pursue crimes of war after the fact to ensure there are repercussions for everything you mentioned.

Good Jorb!

Re:You know what they say

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

There are (fiction) films and books about Aushwitz. If those forms of entertainment are acceptable, why not a game?

Because games are crass, uncouth and juvenile, and are played by people of the same inclination; at least, that's the situation as far as the baby boom generation is concerned. To them, only movies are cool and sophisticated. And anything by that Spielburg guy who made that cool Jaws film they liked in the 70s has got to be classified as art, because he's really good.

Which isn't to say that war/holocaust films like Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan are bad; but their melodramatic tones and convenient omissions of difficult details make it clear that they are entertainment first and education second. Schindler's list--lauded as the greatest holocaust film ever--features one of the few camps where most people got out alive. Despite earlier scenes set in the Warsaw ghetto, the film effectively dodged the bullet by turning back at the gates of Auschwitz.

By contrast, this game actually does try to inform people from the outset and highlights the essential details of its subject matter. It's made clear to players that getting across the Iron Curtain involved the risk of death and that even the guards were themselves were willing to risk it in some cases. The main point is made clear; East Germany was a prison and people would have to risk death to escape. People died trying to get across the Iron Curtain. In modern times, with many East Germans waxing nostalgic about their past, being this frank about the realities of the situation is important.

But no. This is a "vid-eo gaa-me". A crass, unsophisticated, junk pastime which offends more than it informs. If people want to learn "the truth" about crossing the iron curtain, they can just read a bestselling novel of someone who made it across uneventfully, or else watch a (made for TV) movie about the drama of the crossing--both usually with a love interest/sex scene thrown in for good measure. What can playing an anonymous soul being shot by an anonymous guard on an anonymous night on an anonymous part of the 1400km border possible teach anyone about a totalitarian society? Better to just cast a load of pretty actors who escape into the sunset as the mean head of the Stazi throws his hat on the ground in frustration.

Re:You know what they say

[ElectricTurtle]

You clearly do not know anything about the history of communist dictators and arcade games. It was Fidel Castro.

Re:You know what they say

[dave420]

If you don't know the answer, you should read more books on the subject.

Re:You know what they say

[dave420]

Abject fucking bullshit. Germans aren't trying to forget or ignore anything. Germans society is acutely aware of German history. I take it you are not from Germany. I live in Germany (in the same city as the writer of the game in question).

Re:You know what they say

[Lemmy Caution]

Then you know very little about games. Melodrama has been part of games for over a decade: it's the standard narrative stance in Japanese RPGs. More recently, a game which dealt with heart-wrenching emotions was Heavy Rain (the English version marred by terrible voice acting, unfortunately.) Rod Humble's "The Marriage" and Jason Roehrer's "Passage" are melodramatic at the level of gameplay, too.

There is also a growing body of work that deals with difficult topics in games, from Brenda Brathwaite's "Train" to "Escape from Woomera" to "Darfur is Dying."

The was a time in which the novel was considered a trivial form, appropriate only for "semi-educated women" in the 18th century. Film had a tenure as "mere entertainment," as well. You need to catch up.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the defining attributes of a game is that it has clearly defined, limited, reachable goals.
Try saying that to the hordes of MMORPG-players out there.

Re:You know what they say

[Jafafa Hots]

Makes me wonder if there's room for an Auschwitz Guard role playing game.

Death Camp Tycoon?

I am honestly wondering if it might actually be possible to create a compelling (and of course controversial) work of art around that concept.

I actually think it might be possible. Some of the best art totally fucks with people's heads. Inspiring outrage can be a valid artistic goal.

Re:You know what they say

[marcello_dl]

Catastrophists being wrong does not imply that new generations aren't heavily influenced by media. Like their fathers, and grandpas since the movie and radio era.

Recognizing game from real life does not imply that gaming has no influence on the brain. Like any other kind of activity or exercise the body adapts to perform it better. So the DSP-like capacities of the brain get stimulated. It's improbable that there are no other repercussions in brain activity.

I'm not saying that the influence is badly negative, in fact I am a gamer. I had to borrow a chair to climb up to a space invaders arcade cabinet back in the 70s, I'm currently in a FPS clan. Put simply, claiming all is good with media and gaming seems to me a strange idea.

Re:You know what they say

[CTU]

SPOILER

The krauts lose, twice.

Only because France isn't involved.

lol. Thanks for that laugh :)

Re:You know what they say

[instagib]

Excellent comment, pity it's AC, please mod up...

Re:You know what they say

[commodore64_love]

QFT :

1) Shoot the civilians with gusto. Get promoted, work your way up through the ranks, and come to an unhappy ending in 20 years.
2) Refuse to follow orders. Your boss eventually figures out that too many civilians are escaping under your watch and says "You're not doing your job. It's not merely legal to shoot. It's illegal not to shoot", and throws you in jail for the next 20 years. You're released from prison in post-reunification as a broken old man.
3) Figure out how few civilians you can shoot and still keep yourself out of jail - both during the course of your 20-year career with the DDR border patrol, and during the post-reunification era.

The horror of totalitarianism isn't the psychopath gleefully massacring civilians, nor is it the heroic figure who stands up for his beliefs only to find himself in front of a firing squad. They've found a way to make it worthwhile, but heroes and villains are both outliers.

The horror of totalitarianism is that it makes life downright miserable for the 99.999% of us poor schmucks who spend their lives as nervous wrecks trying to avoid the outliers on either end of the ethical spectrum. Impress that upon a kid, and you might change his thinking: It's not 20 years of "How much good can I get away with before getting caught?", but "What's the minimum amount of evil I have to do today to avoid being tortured or killed?"

Re:You know what they say

[Hognoxious]

If it was, it wouldn't be a game. One of the defining attributes of a game is that it has clearly defined, limited, reachable goals.

John Conway might disagree.

Re:You know what they say

[eugene2k]

Interesting post, thx.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Consequences? I'd just switch the game off once it got to the boring trial part. Unless there's a daring escape option...

Re:You know what they say

[Rexdude]

Games are interactive, films and books are not. I'm not basing interactivity as a case against such games, but just consider this- Many kids don't really bother about the backstory of a game- they skip through the cutscenes and just get into the action.
So if a kid approaches this game the same way as CoD or any other multiplayer game, then isn't the purpose lost? How many do you think would prefer to choose the role of the escapee rather than the guard? Better would have been to create a stealth kind of game like the old Thief series, where you only act as an escapee and have to sneak past the guards.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Right. Because books are always accurate and authors are never liars.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

Who said it was entertainment?

That's surely your problem if you find shooting civilians entertaining, no one elses.

Something that's interactive, isn't necessarily entertainment, and if you believe something like this is entertaining then it would seem the problem is that you're scared of what such a form of teaching might tell you about yourself. You're scared of what happens when you're given the option of doing something that is morally wrong, but when there are no consequences for doing so, this should tell you more about yourself than the method of teaching.

Others are capable of making use of such forms of interactive teaching, and still managing to make the correct moral choice.

So because of people like you, we avoid the subject of the darker side of the human mind, and those who are unable to resist doing the wrong thing in a situation where they do not recognise any repercussions are the ones who end up committing atrocities when the situation arises, and when this previously suppressed desire to do what is wrong comes to surface after reaching boiling point, having not been brought up to understand that you should still resist those urges, if not only because justice still has a good chance of coming to get you eventually.

Hiding away what is wrong and refusing to explore it properly, is not a way to ensure that people do not do the wrong thing.

Re:You know what they say

[costaricaeye]

I criticize the game...The intentions may be no matter how good, bad or even artistic

Re:You know what they say

[Gob Gob]

Day of Defeat: dod_charlie

Its is a map of a Normandy beach where the Allies start off in the water and the Axis are in fortified positions. Its carnage. You spawn in water, take a step, take a bullet. Die.

Video games a the only way to experience taking a bullet in such a horrific encounter that is akin to a real experience but "do-able" in a mass education format.

It should make you uncomfortable

[assemblerex]

It wasn't handjobs and kittens you know. People died. People need to remember, even if it mean angering them.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[iYk6]

It wasn't handjobs and kittens you know.

Actually, mixing those two things together would be pretty painful.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Hognoxious]

Not if you keep your nails short.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Anonymous Coward]

getting a handjob from an east-german guard wouldn't have been uncomfortrable?

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Ssherby]

Actually, the kitten might enjoy it just fine. I don't know where you get "painful" from.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[ctaylor]

I'd be more worried about the kitten's nails than mine.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[rolfwind]

I would caution against talking about kitty porn jokingly.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I like pussy. But kittens are underage.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[FuckingNickName]

Oh, Nikita, is it cold?

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Apuleius]

Those people who are angered are relatives of people who died trying to cross. Remembering something doesn't mean turning it into an entertainment.
Especially a game. Bear in mind that not only is this a lot closer to home to the Germans, so is gaming. That country is nuts for board games and strategy based computer games.

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Yvanhoe]

You mean like in wars ? The thingie that gave its name to wargames ?

Re:It should make you uncomfortable

[Thing 1]

CHANGE YOUR SIG, I CHANGED MINE (or, Slashdot, let me disable signatures selectively!)

Sounds like a perfectly valid concept for a game

[Phrogman]

Too bad the hordes of PC types out there can't accept this. Kids will only learn from a game if its enjoyable.

What could possibly go wrong?

[istartedi]

1: I know, let's teach young Germans about their history. What could possibly go wrong?

2: Nothing I suppose, if we do it seriously and have a thought provoking discussion.

1: How about a 1st person shooter game?

2: Uhhh--

1: Glad you approve!

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

"For all intensive purposes"
For all intents and purposes, Those purposes are pretty intensive.

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[Anonymous Coward]

*whoosh*

Re:What could possibly go wrong?

[lewko]

Was that a capital letter after a comma?

Pedantry fail.

download link?

[Pentium100]

Anybody knows where I can get this game? Seems fun :)

People get pissed about the smallest things - which is funny.

Re:download link?

[polymeris]

TFA says it will be available for free download in December.

Re:Sounds like a perfectly valid concept for a gam

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a PC and 1,378 (kilometers) was my idea.

Re:Sounds like a perfectly valid concept for a gam

[arth1]

The same people who protest against this likely played cowboys and indians as kids and Castle Wolfenstein in their youth. Oh, the irony.

ok, I'm getting into the business.

[Anonymous Coward]

For sale, one awesome game idea: Coonhunter. You spend the game putting down uppity racoons, perhaps by setting fire to effigies at their nests, perhaps by trapping them, perhaps with a shotgun fight or two. You'll do this outfitted as a ghost.

Price: Your sense of decency and shame.

History

[santax]

Give this fellow a medal. I am furious when I hear USA-kids tell me (Euro-fag) that without them I would speak German. When you ask these same kids how they feel about the Jap-camps the USA had in those days they look at you as if they see water burn. They haven't been thought that part of history. Same here in the Netherlands. We are being thought about Anne Frank. The famous Jewish girl. We aren't being told about that the Dutch had one of the highest degrees of telling on people who where hiding those Anne's... And there are many, many more examples of this. So give this guy a medal for putting history as it should be... the way it was.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

When you ask these same kids how they feel about the Jap-camps the USA had in those days they look at you as if they see water burn.

The US's internment camps were certainly wrong, but if you think they were anything like Nazi Germany's concentration camps, you're almost as stupid as your history teacher was.

Re:History

[santax]

I didn't compare them to the end-solution of the Nazi's... But let's be honest... there were only a couple of Auswitches and a lot of 'nazi interim'-camps... But's that a whole other discussion I guess. Kids should know about these things, because it has happened. And these days kids don't know abou these things. It's a shame really. You can't tell history when you leave a part out. History comes in a complete package. Useless in parts.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

They could rename them Taliban^h^h^h^h^h^h^h opposing forces.

Re:History

[shutdown -p now]

Same here in the Netherlands. We are being thought about Anne Frank. The famous Jewish girl. We aren't being told about that the Dutch had one of the highest degrees of telling on people who where hiding those Anne's

tell us more about how your government indoctrinated you to think the Americans are comparable to the Germans in order to feel less guilty about European history.

Reading comprehension fail.

Re:History

[SupremoMan]

I live in the US, and I feel hell of a lot better about those camps than the ones the Japanese ran.

Re:History

[santax]

Are you ok buddy? You failed to get the idea behind what I am saying for sure...

Re:History

[viperblades]

To view history in its true light requires one to not draw us vs them comparisons. Each entity took the actions they took , to get the full lesson from history one must learn from each of them.

  The Japanese tortured and killed soldiers and did worse to citizens.

The US did racial profiling of Japanese as a whole and helped fan the flames of hate against them. Then they put them in camps.

Re:History

[Clandestine_Blaze]

When you ask these same kids how they feel about the Jap-camps the USA had in those days they look at you as if they see water burn.

The US's internment camps were certainly wrong, but if you think they were anything like Nazi Germany's concentration camps, you're almost as stupid as your history teacher was.

Good job of proving santax's point.

Re:History

[Nursie]

This is a really common thought pattern and I really hate it.

"We're not as bad as the worst thing I can think of, so we must be the best! Go number 1!"

Re:History

[Nursie]

Absolutely!

BUT it puts a dent in the unquestionable goodness, power, strength and general white-knight-ness that people often proclaim for their country. This sin is not peculiar to Americans, but it is widespread in the US. And China I think, which is much more of a case of cognitive dissonance.

It's important to remember these things, learn from them, and try not to take such actions in future.

Re:History

[rolfwind]

I like George Carlin's confusion feeling pride based on nationality and not what you, as an individual, did. The less you did as an individual, the more you have to delve finding security and reassurance in what you are. If WW2 taught anything, imo, it was individualism over collectivism in terms of judging others.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw0MripVxss

Re:History

[rolfwind]

I live in the US, and I feel hell of a lot better about those camps than the ones the Japanese ran.

Were you involved in running them or supporting them in some way?

If not, why have a response like you have stake in it? Both are historical fact. It doesn't hurt to learn about either.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

If we had been on the loosing end of the war, they probably would have been.

Scenario:
1. you're loosing the war
2. your farmland is bombed to shit
3. three groups of people to feed: soldiers, civilians, prisoners... not enough food for even one of them.
4. ???
5. holocaust

Re:History

[Haedrian]

More likely that you'd be speaking Russian actually.

The interesting line which stopped at Germany was because the allies and the soviets reached there at pretty much the same time. If the Allies didn't have enough troops then it'd be likely that the line would have been pushed back even further.

That said, the importance of the US during the war is greatly essagerated by the media. During the cold war movies which DIDN'T portray the US as 'saving the world' were deemed possibly-communist and banned or worse.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you imagine how they'd look at you if you showed them a picture of all of the happy Americans at a good ol' fashion lynching?

Seriously, comparatively few Germans were involved in the Death Camps and the whole country has been punishing itself ever since.

We had whole towns taking smiling pictures of themselves next to the hung and burned corpse of some unfortunate who used the wrong bathroom - and all we do is shrug and say to ourselves 'Oh those silly Southerners'. (Wait ... that picture was taken in Chicago, well, let's just ignore that, shall we?)

Pisses me off.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

You shouldn't feel "better" just because another country managed to out-atrocity your country. Both the US camps and the Japanese camps were terrible. One was more terrible than the other, but they were still both terrible.

Re:History

[Sir_Lewk]

You do realize that the term "allies" includes the soviets too, right?

Re:History

[Jedi Alec]

We are being thought about Anne Frank. The famous Jewish girl. We aren't being told about that the Dutch had one of the highest degrees of telling on people who where hiding those Anne's... And there are many, many more examples of this. So give this guy a medal for putting history as it should be... the way it was.

Interesting. I distinctly remember from my history classes that we(the Dutch) had both the highest percentage of resistance members as well as the highest percentage of collaborators. In fact, we had enough collaborators to have our very own My First SS Division.

Anecdotal evidence score: 1:1

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

If the US and England hadn't landed in the West, Germany could have sent nearly all their troops against Russia and might have won on the East front.

Re:History

[KDR_11k]

The holocaust started before the war went bad. Many of the concentration camps were for slave labor, not killing so they actually supported the war effort. Also the holocaust wasn't people starving to death (though that happened), it was about systematic execution.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a fantastically large difference between genocide and temporary confinement. You see, in the first case you're systematically killing off a group of people. In the latter, you are not.

To say that the comparison is more than skin deep is little more than empty rhetoric.

Re:History

[Rogerborg]

You do realize that words are just sounds, or squiggles on a page or screen, right? The instant that it was obvious that the Krauts were whipped, the Russkis changed from enemies-of-our-enemies to just plain old enemies. The Cold War kicked off before WWII even ended.

Re:History

[Rogerborg]

Remember, in Communist countries like Holland, the history books are written by the State.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

"Allies" who started the war (betraying the agreement with Germans by delaying it 16 days only for propaganda purposes), shot at English and American planes that tried to help the Warsaw uprising, and ended up enslaving half of Europe -- mostly countries on the "allied" side. Oh yeah.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

I understand why Americans get their opinions assaulted whenever they make comments like that, especially without citing any facts to back up their claims. But for whatever it's worth, I tend to agree with the guy. I'm not going to go digging up any verifiable sources right now either, but I have read a fair number of historical accounts containing details about what life was like for POWs of all sorts of camps. I'm not going to claim that horrible things never occurred in American-run camps, as surely plenty of times they have, but I would also say that most accounts I've heard make it sound like a much more pleasant place than what I've read about the Japanese camps.

There are some major cultural differences which shed some light into why the Japanese-run camps were so much more terrible. Clearly the Japanese government/military complex doesn't respect sanctity of life quite the same as many other nations do (or did back then). Look at what happened in Nanking. Or Hong Kong even. When the Japanese invaded, they dropped many bombs with little regard for civilian casualties. In general they fought many really dirty battles, sometimes executing or enslaving people who would ordinarily get relatively better treatment by most other enemy forces. Even today, in Japan the police can detain you for up to 23 days without filing charges. It actually just happened to my friend, held for 10 days in Tokyo with no charges. While you're held, you can shower once every five days, and can spend entire days at a time sitting in uncomfortable positions whilst handcuffed when it's your day to speak to the judge. No internet access, no phone calls...horrendous food... Tell me you don't think the American justice system is perhaps the slightest bit more compassionate. Note that I'm not talking about Guantanamo...just regular domestic police investigating crimes unrelated to terror or national security.

You might say I'm biased because I'm an American. I'm really not that patriotic, and I passionately hate much of what the US government has done both during my lifetime and before, but just from the facts/anecdotes/information I've been exposed to I'd say Japanese military crimes and camps rank really high against that of just about any country. Ask yourself, which country's camp would you prefer to be trapped in? This opinion is not based in "America is great, rah rah rah", rather it's "Wow, Japan was really really ruthless back then!". You could replace "American" with French, British, Spanish, or Russian even and my opinion would remain the same.

Re:History

[Sir_Lewk]

You do realize that words are just sounds, or squiggles on a page or screen, right?

Wrong. Words represent ideas, that's why we find them so useful. When you don't know what words mean and use them incorrectly you are revealing your own ignorance.

Re:History

[Haedrian]

Lets leave the syntax aside for a moment shall we?

Everyone understood what I meant. What do you want me to call them instead of enumerating all of them?

Alright fine

"The countries from which the troops attacking the Axis from the West of Europe Originated".

There.

Re:History

[drinkypoo]

I am furious when I hear USA-kids tell me (Euro-fag) that without them I would speak German. When you ask these same kids how they feel about the Jap-camps the USA had in those days they look at you as if they see water burn

Yeah well, I'm of the opinion that without the USA a lot of people would be speaking German, but the world traded one kind of evil for another when the USA became so very powerful as a result of waiting to enter the conflict. What box do you put me in?

So give this guy a medal for putting history as it should be... the way it was.

Amen. Your character gets to be tried for war crimes. It's not like they send you a coupon for a free blowjob if you successfully defend the virtual wall.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha .. I did not even know that. Thanks.

I'm not an American though. How did an entire nation approve of something like that?

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, now you speak English instead of German :o)

Re:History

[baKanale]

Actually, I was taught about the Japanese internment camps in high school. On a side note, I think I remember the teacher noting that it wouldn't have been as bad if the Germans and Italians were put in camps too, since it "wouldn't have been racist" or something like that. Years later I learned that they were put in camps, albeit in much smaller numbers. Interestingly enough, a number of German internment camps were kept open until 1948. This was because the camps mixed members of the German-American Bund (a pro-Nazi German-American culture organization) with non-Bund Germans, prompting fears that the camps were becoming Bund recruitment and training grounds. And so the camps were kept open out of fear of releasing a bunch of Nazis into the streets. Meanwhile, the Italians were let out in 1943, after the Italian surrender, and most of the Japanese were let out in early 1945, before the war was even over (with the exception of at least one camp with detainees from Peru that was open until some time in 1946).

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

There was a categorical difference between the American Japanese internment camps and the Japanese POW camps. For example, prisoners weren't murdered in the American ones. The two cannot and should not be compared.

If you want to give an example of Allied war crimes, refer to city bombing (Tokyo, Dresden).

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

If the US and England...

and Wales and Scotland and Canada and New Zealand and Australia and South Africa and Rhodesia and India and...you get the point. It was a bigger group effort than just the US and England. Just sayin'.

Re:History

[ElectricTurtle]

Yes, why don't you learn about them? While the concept of the Japanese internment was morally and ethically wrong, the camps themselves were run as humanely as any POW camp according to and in excess of the standards of the Geneva Convention. The Japanese were housed and fed in the same manner as those guarding them. They were given medical attention if and when they needed it, once again to the same standard as that given to the camp administration itself. They were not forced to involuntary labor, there was no systemic sexual or physical abuse (not that there isn't a bad apple in every system, but it was not supported by the system itself).

I will never defend the idea behind the internment camps, but the camps themselves were as good if not better than any POW camp during that period. To attack the camps' conditions one would have to level similar criticism at every form of military and civil imprisonment in the world at that time. That does not make for much of an indictment.

Especially when contrasted with the Japanese treatment of their prisoners of war, which did include civilian internment as well. Why don't we compare and contrast American Pastime with Empire of the Sun? It's absolutely absurd. The Japanese starved, assaulted, and labored both their military and civilian prisoners to death by the hundreds of thousands. They withheld medical treatment regularly and watched their prisoners die slow deaths from simple infections.

The moral difference between the Japanese treatment of prisoners and the American treatment of prisoners is as wide as the gulf between genocide and mere wrongful imprisonment. They are not even in the same class.

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

As least he knows what the shift key is.

Re:History

[Thing 1]

China? They have roving death vans. (Yes, fucking Slashcode, I typed the non-parenthesisized portions in 12 seconds.)

Re:History

[Rakishi]

Not sure what US kids you're talking about, given that most couldn't find the US on a map asking them anything about school is rather stupid.

I went to public school in the US and was taught about the Japanese camps in multiple classes. One of my English classes even included a fictional book in that time period involving Japanese protagonists with a very realistic account of the camps. There were also some interesting debates about the bombing of Dresden and the dropping of atomic bombs. I was also taught about the lovely crap the US did during the cold war among other things. Then there's the whole genocide against the Native Americans and it's various incidents.

However as other have said the camps while not a good thing weren't atrocious either. Wars are ugly period so it's stupid to think otherwise and things do need to be taken in perspective. Frankly, the single worst thing the US probably did was pardoning the Japanese who ran their camps in exchange for their research notes.

Re:History

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

I am furious when I hear USA-kids tell me (Euro-fag) that without them I would speak German. When you ask these same kids how they feel about the Jap-camps the USA had in those days they look at you as if they see water burn

Yeah well, I'm of the opinion that without the USA a lot of people would be speaking German,

Don't you mean "if Hitler hadn't declared war against the USA when the Japanese did (okay, when the USA declared war on Japan after Pearl Harbor), letting the US keep their appeasement policy in Europe intact instead, Europe and probably even the USA would be speaking German today"?

Re:History

[Anonymous Coward]

So what you're saying is we need a video game where white people lynch niggers, or niggers are running from lynch mobs.. For Education! you monster ;)

1,378 (kilometers)

[Animal Farm Pig]

If this game is about people crossing the Berlin Wall, wouldn't 150 km (or whatever the exact length was) be more appropriate? Technically west Berlin wasn't even part of the FRG-- it was a foreign occupation zone deep within the borders of the GDR.

Re:1,378 (kilometers)

[Anonymous Coward]

The game is about the border between East Germany and West Germany. While the Wall is associated with Berlin, there were
similar facilities and armored guards all along the border.

If you're playing an escapee..

[Anonymous Coward]

..can you choose to not escape? Maybe wander around the empty town, chatting with the air and living out your life in peace?

Re:If you're playing an escapee..

[Anonymous Coward]

Nah man, its communism...

Re:If you're playing an escapee..

[tokul]

..can you choose to not escape? Maybe wander around the empty town, chatting with the air and living out your life in peace?

You could also work as Stasi agent or informer. If your country is split into two. one of them is controlled by foreign authority and other is relatively free, unhappy and oppressed people might want to live on free side.

My mistake

[Animal Farm Pig]

The headline says 'Berlin Wall Death Strip', but actually reading TFA shows that it's about the border between the two German states.

Re:My mistake

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot editors don't want to spoiler the actual articles and the subsequent discussion for their readers. One time tested method to achieve this noble goal uses slashdot headlines that claim something different than TFA, usually something more outrageous.

BTW, to become a slashdot editor, one of the prerequisites is several years of professional experience, such as working for the National Enquirer, the Daily Mail, or Germany's Bild.

not "innocent civilians"

[Anonymous Coward]

Those attempting to flee were illegal emigrants attempting to leave without the appropriate exit visa. They were committing crimes, and the state took action to stop it. In the context of the war between the capitalist states and the attempt to create socialism, those people were criminal traitors.

Re:not "innocent civilians"

[KDR_11k]

Ah but the country that passed those laws was considered an illegal Soviet occupation by the neighboring country that it later became a part of. And said neighboring country does not allow the death penalty under any circumstances while having no movement restriction across the border of the occupation zone.

Re:not "innocent civilians"

[tepples]

Ah but the country that passed those laws was considered an illegal Soviet occupation by the neighboring country that it later became a part of.

The Nazi regime that preceded it was also considered an illegal occupation by the neighboring country that it later became a part of. Evidence includes the forbidding of the manji symbol on children's toys, as well as the classification of all interactive simulations as children's toys.

Re:not "innocent civilians"

[Hognoxious]

It all comes down to this: if you're on the winning side you can change laws retroactively, and if you're on the losing one it's tough shit and you can't do anything about.

Re:not "innocent civilians"

[Mr. Freeman]

Yeah, and technically all the jews that Hitler murdered (yeah, different time period, I know) were all criminals.

Of course, we generally don't accept the definition of "criminal" as defined by MASS MURDERING FUCKHEADS. Therefore, those people were NOT criminals. They were innocent civilians regardless of what the oppressive, illegal, government classified them as.

But who is re-writing history here?

[westlake]

TFA finally gets around to pointing out that players who choose to shoot and kill those who attempt escape face the consequences for their actions by having their character stand trial later for the crime. They also give the choice of killing or not killing.

The East German at the Wall was chosen for his absolute loyalty and obedience to the State.

Not to mention that he was in immeadiate danger of being shot out-of-hand as a traitor if he let someone make it through.

I can't imagine that fear of trial by the West at some later date ever entered his head.

I would be even more surprised to hear that any East German border guard was ever successfully prosecuted for a killing at the wall.

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[ewe2]

Then try googling east german border guard trial and learn something instead of lazy comments like that. Surprise surprise there have been prosecutions. Are we learning history yet?

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[galoise]

Not only have there been prosecutions, but these cases are HUGE in modern criminal law academia, as they touched on fundamental questions of criminal responsibility and legality. They were fundamental in setting the bases of the contemporary discussion about human rights and the criminal persecution of state sponsored acts.

In very simple terms, the problem in terms of criminal theory is that these people committed acts that were not typified as crimes under the legal systems that was in force when they were committed, so their prosecution _and conviction_ had a tremendous impact in the modern understanding of the legality principle, which is a fundamental concept in any criminal law system, and in criminal law theory.

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[Cylix]

I'm not learning history until I find a copy of this game.

Though I'm not sure how much it's going to reflect history when I set the escapee to god mode. Unless of course anyone has heard stories of an invulnerable air walking no clipping escape from east germany destroying guards left and right. I'm sure it probably happened sometime even if no one reported it.

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[KDR_11k]

Wasn't that just legal trickery as the West German government simply considered the GDR part of its territory and hence under its own jurisdiction? Sure, it didn't have any de-facto power over the GDR while it existed but to West Germany and later the united Germany anything that happened in the GDR happened in Germany and was subject to (west) German law.

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[westlake]

Then try googling east german border guard trial and learn something instead of lazy comments like that. Surprise surprise there have been prosecutions. Are we learning history yet?

The game punishes the border guard retroactively.

That doesn't honestly reflect why he was chosen for a station on the wall or the choices he was likely to make at the time.

Projecting your fate and that of East Germany 40 years into the future scarcely seems probable.

There were prosecutions.

But the outcome of these trials seem both morally and legally ambiguous.

The verdict set a legal precedent, establishing that officials from what was once the Communist state of East Germany could be punished for actions that were not only legal under East German law, but which were compulsory for them to carry out. 2 East German Guards Convicted Of Killing Man as He Fled to West

This was the last fatal shooting at the wall. (February 1989)

One conviction was on a manslaughter charge, the other a suspended sentence for attempted manslaughter.

Wilfried Tews, who was just 14 years old at the time of his escape, was hit eight times as he swam through a canal under the Berlin Wall in 1962.
West Berlin border guards provided covering fire for a passerby who pulled the boy to safety. In a statement from East German records that was read to the court, a border guard who has since died said he heard shouts from the West of "Stop shooting! You are Germans too, aren't you?"
An East German border guard, the 21-year-old Peter Göring, died in the firefight and the communist authorities turned him into a secular martyr. Schools, streets and barracks were named after him.
Hundreds of former East German border guards and officials have been convicted since 1990 for shootings at the former border. Most have received suspended sentences. 40 Years On, Boy Shot at Berlin Wall Faces Attackers

Re:But who is re-writing history here?

[definate]

Yeah, but you know some fuckhead will ruin the game by becoming a crab border guard.

"KZ Manager"

[Animats]

The last big flap like this was over KZ Manager, which is a resource management game for managing an extermination camp.

The point is, there are consequences for choices

[Anonymous Coward]

You know what?

Any real objections to this "game" are completely mitigated by the following fact.

"By choosing to play the border guard and kill the escapee, the player would win an in-game medal from the government of East Germany. But then the guard would time-travel forward to the year 2000, where he would have to stand trial."

It's not like there aren't consequences to your choices. Gosh just like real life is supposed to be.

Kittehs haz klawz not nailz.

[Hognoxious]

U can haz WUUSH????

Re:Kittehs haz klawz not nailz.

[MintOreo]

He was jabbing at the lack of specificity. Woosh yourself.

Re:Kittehs haz klawz not nailz.

[Hognoxious]

He was jabbing at the lack of specificity.

Umm, wrong. That's what my original joke did.

P.S. kittens have claws - not nails - so no ambiguity there. You both fail it.

Ob

[Hognoxious]

Der einlige vay to vin ist nich zu playen!

Re:Ob

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless that was supposed to be Dutch or something, that was horrible.

The full quote in the German dub is "Ein seltsames Spiel. Der einzig gewinnbringende Zug ist, nicht zu spielen."

Re:Ob

[Patch86]

*woosh*

Lot of that today. Must be bloody windy.

Re:Ob

[Anonymous Coward]

Der einzige Weg zu gewinnen ist nicht zu spielen...

Re:Ob

[the phantom]

Oh, and I'll bet this isn't good German either:

ACHTUNG! ALLES TURISTEN UND NONTEKNISCHEN LOOKENPEEPERS! DAS KOMPUTERMASCHINE IST NICHT FÜR DER GEFINGERPOKEN UND MITTENGRABEN! ODERWISE IST EASY TO SCHNAPPEN DER SPRINGENWERK, BLOWENFUSEN UND POPPENCORKEN MIT SPITZENSPARKSEN. IST NICHT FÜR GEWERKEN BEI DUMMKOPFEN. DER RUBBERNECKEN SIGHTSEEREN KEEPEN DAS COTTONPICKEN HÄNDER IN DAS POCKETS MUSS. ZO RELAXEN UND WATSCHEN DER BLINKENLICHTEN.

Re:Ob

[Hognoxious]

The correct spelling is vööööüüüsch.

Really, it's no wonder they lost, is it? Twice to boot.

What about rabbits?

[sznupi]

Little known fact: the Berlin Wall was actually good to some parts of the (loosely understood) population (after all, it was essentially two walls with no-man's-land between them)

Coincidentally: one of the voices of critique directed at the game (was in the submission, I guess it's in one of the linked articles) talks about "shooting at people like they are rabbits" - well, no, apparently rabbits were doing more than fine in the area of Berlin Wall.
I wonder if they are in the game...

Slashdot & Unicode...

[sznupi]

Fixed link.

Storm? What storm?

[vorlich]

Guess I must have missed that, even though I am an (oft mentioned) resident of the Federal Republic. Hang on, when I am in Hugendubel (a big bookstore) later on this morning I will read Der Speigel (a magazine invented by the British armed forces post war) and feel myself filled to overflowing with outrage and indignation at what these dashed computer boffins are up to now.

The Germans love FUD

Der Speigel knows this.

The idea is to sell magazines.

Of course if you lived here you would know that what is really causing a "storm of outrage" was the behaviour of riot police during a demonstration of between 50,000 to 100,000 people (mileage varies according to source) against a new high speed railway in Stuttgart last week.
But then, that's First Life.

Re:Storm? What storm?

[maxwell demon]

The Germans love FUD

s/The Germans/People/

Re:Storm? What storm?

[t2t10]

You must be pretty out of touch with German culture and news if you can't even spell "Spiegel" correctly.

Re:Storm? What storm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, no shit. I'm from Germany, and this is the first I've even heard about the whole thing.

One might also add that the Spiegel (the actual print magazine) isn't the same as Spiegel Online; the latter is really just barely above your average run-of-the-mill yellow press site. The magazine has a good reputation, but the online version... well, let's just say it's closer to the Sun than the Guardian.

Re:Storm? What storm?

[Anonymous Coward]

Seconded

Speaking of shitstorms....

[stimpleton]

I bet it wasn't as big of a controversy as JFK Reloaded. You could play the sniper and replay various scenarios. With bullet time. Pieces of skull flying thru the air. The game modeled bullet trajectory thru objects including body guards. Needless to say the powers that be saw that this game never became mainstream. At the time it even vanished from pirate sites. Time has dulled that I guess, but if mainstream press got hold of the fact it is resurrected... Short review with Underdogs download link: http://www.cool.com.au/computers-technology/personal-computers/jfk-reloaded-revisited-20060414256/

Re:Speaking of shitstorms....

[PinkyGigglebrain]

Thanks for the link. I hope I can get it working on Linux, WINE or DOSbox should do it.

Re:Speaking of shitstorms....

[penguinchris]

I scrolled down to the comments on there and nearly guffawed... those are among the most ridiculous comments I've seen on an internet article. Some really stupid people in Australia I guess ;)

Still, thanks for the link - I remember that game. I tried to play a demo version of it (or something) back before it was released, but remember not being able to get it to go past the menus - and then I never heard anything about it again (and forgot about it) until now.

a fine introduction to the West

[FuckingNickName]

The glorified security guard gets convicted; the bureaucrats in East Germany responsible for monitoring dissent... where is Putin now?

I wonder what happens if I try selling cannabis in the US then make an attempt to scale the prison walls? Or perhaps we can tack on an endgame to America's Army where some hypothetical court in 2038 (signed integers will surely play havoc with civilisation) lets you face the consequences of your actions?

Relevant art

[bkhl]

Seems like this art project has been successful already.

Are they acceptable in Israel?

[SmallFurryCreature]

There are plenty of Nazi films, but NOT in Israel.

This game about the iron curtain is in Germany. Perhaps they have stronger feelings about it then an American?

How would an American feel about a TRUE colonization game? One were mass slaughter of the natives and slavery are put on the foreground? Funny how those important elements of American history did NOT make it into the game. Wonder why?

Germany is still split over the unification. It has got the western half an absolute fortune, the eastern half is still a backwards part of the country where old certainties have been replaced with new uncertainties. Racism sky rocketted. This game is not what is wanted because the entire german ruling elite is playing a game of "don't rock the boat". You might have been following the news of a new party being formed. Same kind of party that is changing the system in Holland, Denmark, Sweden, France, Belgium. The most stable economies of the EU are showing great signs of trouble and nobody seems to have a clue how to deal with it.

This game is NOT wanted. That is a very good sign that it is needed however. Showing both sides of a war isn't always easy, but it can be essential if you want to understand why the "bad" side is the way it is. Just people, doing what they were told. Gosh, the Germans sure don't have a history with that. Eastern germany has never dealt with. There are millions of Germans who believe they are VICTIMS... yeah, it is not like Germany did anything to deserve its treatments post WW2.

And if you don't deal with that full history... well you get Japan and east Germany.

Re:Are they acceptable in Israel?

[hackwrench]

What colonization game are you referring to?

Re:Are they acceptable in Israel?

[Schadrach]

I was wondering the same thing. The only US colonization game I can think of offhand at all is Oregon Trail, though I don't see how slavery would have significantly contributed to it at all. The slaughter of natives would certainly be more relevant, at least.

Re:Are they acceptable in Israel?

[Kjella]

There are millions of Germans who believe they are VICTIMS... yeah, it is not like Germany did anything to deserve its treatments post WW2.

Germany did plenty. But there are millions of Germans that never supported the Nazi regime or launching a world war or genocide or anything of the sorts. And on top of that they ended up behind the iron curtain, divided from the rest of their people and under the reign of the Soviet Union which was furious about the bloodbath German troops had caused. I'm not trying to defend anything of what Nazi Germany did, but in any war there will be many people on all sides that feel they didn't deserve it. Any of it.

By the way, the witch hunt for those that wanted to escape to the west was insane. I did see a documentary on it and the first who tried were families torn apart, couples in love who suddenly found themselves on different sides, that sort of thing. All because they were afraid half the country would run off because of somewhat better conditions in the west. If they had made a peaceful way for 0.01% to leave it wouldn't have gotten to nearly those proportions.

Re:Are they acceptable in Israel?

[Xaositecte]

you mean Sid Meier's Colonization? Slaughter of the Indians is a pretty important part of the game, and slavery (it's been a while since I played, the game features "indentured servants" but kinda've glosses over slavery as a whole) - 4X games don't really have the same impact as first-person shooters though.

Is Inglorious Basterds popular in Israel? I've always been curious about that.

Re:Are they acceptable in Israel?

[Peil]

"And if you don't deal with that full history... well you get Japan and east Germany."

Are you having a laugh?
East Germany had their manufacturing base systematically packed up and sent back to the Soviet Union as reparation, they had over 40 years of having the system watch their every move as the soviets were determined that they never become a threat again, and the population was told at every stage exactly why this was happening.

Now Japan, they got a free pass and you don't have to look beyond the US to see why

Re:Are they acceptable in Israel?

[gullevek]

Probably this game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonization_game

little has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

The sensitivity about violent video games in Germany is a sad expression of the same kind of cultural and social attitudes that made the Nazis and the GDR themselves possible: Germans oppose violent video games because their government tells them that violence is bad, just like their government used to tell them that Jews and the West were bad. Germany is still all about conformance, rules, and obedience, like it has been for centuries; all that ever changes in Germany is who Germans happen to hate these days and what the rules say. Independent political thought or an actual understanding of democracy is rare in Germany.

Re:little has changed

[Anonymous Coward]

Says the the loser who believes Saddam attacked NYC because the President told him so, and supports his modern crusaders ("army") to bomb civilians in Iraq. Brilliant - stupidity of the internet masses at its best.

This is not really a "game", but media art.

[w4rl5ck]

While the project is based upon a gaming engine, and is "set up" as a classical game, the whole intention of the project differs totally from what is widely found as the "definition of gaming". (which is: having fun by pushing buttons to move dumb objects on a screen)

The basic concept here is to use a computer game as a media or communication platform, to use it educationally - and to use it to make people remember the BAD things that happened in history.

And you know, it works. People here in germany did not discuss the Mauer shootings for several years on such a broad base for years, and now it's all over public media again - which is basically even MORE than the author of the work could have hoped to gain with it, but it was exactly what was on his mind - maybe on a smaller scale.

In general, it's time that public opinion recognizes games as more than "a funnny thing to relax". It's an art form, it's about communication, socializing, and live in general. The understanding of a "game concept" finally has to change, but I think this will come with the next generations, who understand a "computer game" not only as an evolved version of "Pong".

Is Ok.

[Tei]

Art exist to create controverse. This is the good art.
The bad art just enforce the status quo (like religious art), this is the bad art.

Instead of...

[bagsta]

... accusing the game's creator, it's better to accuse the leaders and the people who allowed these things to happen back then. If they don't want similar games to exist, then they should not have allowed these actions to happen in the first place. I think the same applies to this.

As it's a FPS...

[Anonymous Coward]

...surely escape is simple. Just rocket-jump over the fences.

Poltical Correctness from a Repressive People

[Anonymous Coward]

Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. However there is such a thing as tact.

History doesn't have tact. There is propaganda and censorship and political correctness involved with "history", but tact belongs with the prudes and the revisionists. It's sad that in a country and continent which so vigorously embraced genocide and ethnic cleansing in its very recent past, and that still allow those things to happen in places like Africa and China, are putting political efforts into censoring and repressing their own citizens for their artistic acts.

If political activists and politicians get their feelings hurt, then instead of demonizing artists and censoring their citizens they should spend (at least) half of their GDP on sending soldiers to places like Afghanistan (and not in "support" roles, but actual combat roles), Sudan, and the jungles of South America to stop genocide from happening. They owe it to the world. And I hope nobody complains about losing their standard of living because nobody gives a shit it they can't get HDTV. If a country and it's citizens are so immoral as to not stop something which they so vehemently condemn then they should just SHUT THE FUCK UP and stop complaining.

People in Germany should be ashamed of their past AND their present.

Re:Poltical Correctness from a Repressive People

[Anonymous Coward]

> genocide and ethnic cleansing in its very recent past
Hmm, the only country which caused massive killings around the world during recent (20?) years is the US, but that was not genocide.

> half of their GDP on sending soldiers
The US demonstrated repeatedly that meddling in other countries does not work out well for people in those countries. Here's something recent history actually teaches something.

> nobody gives a shit it they can't get HDTV
That's true. About no-one anywhere.

> People in Germany should be ashamed of their past AND their present.
Ever been there? Most people (almost 100% of those aged 40 year or less) live an US-American style live, embedded in US-American style media and politics. Only the gun wielding is missing. Nothing to be ashamed of, or?

Re:Poltical Correctness from a Repressive People

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, the only country which caused massive killings around the world during recent (20?) years is the US, but that was not genocide.

Maybe I'm not as educated as you. How many people have the U.S. killed, As opposed to the various warlords and ethnic groups in Africa or elsewhere?

The US demonstrated repeatedly that meddling in other countries does not work out well for people in those countries.

That's a vague enough statement so as to be completely useless. Seems like a way of diverting attention from the German question as well (have you ever been in Management? You sound like Managers that I've had to work with.). When the U.S. meddled in Afghanistan (when the Soviets were their) they successfully helped oust a Soviet backed regime with a U.S. friendly regime (the U.S. worked with the Taliban in negotiations to secure an oil pipeline). The U.S. also helped Pakistan develop a nuclear bomb, although their motives are not known (to me), I can only suspect that they let this happen so that they could (eventually) have an excuse for invading Iran (I will probably have to explain that the Pakistanis were actively selling the nuclear secrets that they bought from North Korea and China through CIA funding, to Iran). The U.S. was also successful in helping to oust the democratically elected president of Haiti to install a pro-U.S. (i.e. pro-U.S.-corporation) regime. According to he U.S., they helped the citizens of these countries by protecting them from "communism" and "socialism", amongst others... But like I said, the U.S. question is off-topic, so it is likely just another Troll-question.

Ever been there?

That sounds like a Troll question. But really, my parents are German and I have many relatives who live in Germany. You'd be amazed at how many Germans apparently never knew what happened to the Jews, but more contemporary history books indicate that concentration camps and death camps (for example) were far more wide spread and in or near populated areas than was once believed (or claimed). The old meme of Sergeant Schultz, "I know Nothing, Nothing!" is common with ALL genocides that I have read about. Also are the myths of "I'm just taking orders.". Everybody avoids responsibility. Everywhere! The Germans certainly don't have a monopoly on inhumanity.

The really sad thing about Afghanistan (today) is that the U.S. only invaded it because they had no political choice. They couldn't really invade Iraq without invading the actual (primary) country that was responsible for "9/11". So they basically ousted the ruling party and filled the government with other radicals who rule by the mythologies and tyranny and racism of Sharia law. Not so bad as before perhaps, but the sad thing is that the U.S. doesn't really give a shit about how people treat each other in Afghanistan or elsewhere. They AFAIK, have never invaded a country for purely moral reasons. Shit, the U.S. was one of the countries to import a lot of Nazi's after WWII, and give them new identities and U.S. citizenship, they also helped with the early release of many Nazis and collaborators from prison. They were certainly successful in Germany, and in getting a lot of the German Nazis to work for them after victory.

nobody gives a shit it they can't get HDTV
That's true. About no-one anywhere.

I don't think you get it. I will have to explain: nobody gives a shit about SOMEBODY else's HDTV, or lifestyle, as long as it doesn't effect their OWN leisure. So yeah, most people, for example, are quite happy to buy cheap shoes from Wall-mart that are made by child slaves in India or Africa, because, according to most Western people I've talked to, it's good that children are slaves because its better than starving to death (this is the theory that a LOT of Western people have), BUT if children happen to be used for prostitution then thi

Entertainment?

[Chris Burke]

There are (fiction) films and books about Aushwitz. If those forms of entertainment are acceptable, why not a game?

I haven't read any fictional novels about Aushwitz. But personally, I don't consider the non-fiction book Night or the semi-fictional movie Schindler's List to be entertainment. They are not entertaining. They may be great works of art, they are deeply moving, but they are not entertaining. The Holocaust Museum is a fantastic museum, but you don't go there if you want to be entertained, and if it tried, or if Schindler's List tried, that would be quite tactless and crass.

So I'll answer your question with another question: Is this game intended to be entertaining? Is it trying to make the reality of the Berlin Wall fun? I think many are assuming this is the case since "game" usually implies at least attempting to be entertaining when that is not necessarily the case for books.

Re:Entertainment?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you and I have different ideas about entertainment. You seem to believe in a simplistic definition of entertainment where only things that make you laugh or smile are entertainment. Things that make you scared, or angry, or sad, or disgusted can still be entertainment. It's a matter of perspective. Do you consider church services to be a form of entertainment? Probably not. But if it's not your church, and not your religion and maybe involves people juggling flaming torches, you probably would consider it entertainment even if, for another culture or religion, it is a religious service of some kind.

Intention

[Rich_Roast]

"He said that his intention was to teach young people about German history." I would counter that his intention was to be slashdotted. Mission accomplished.

Hahahah

[Anonymous Coward]

This is just brilliant! I love these kinds of games and all the controversy STUPID people make out of something like this.
If this kind of thing upsetts you, it makes me all so happy :D

You think like a ReThuglican Jew

[Anonymous Coward]

You think like a ReThuglican Jew

Pfft

[Dreth]

Listen to you uptight self-centered Internet Mothers. It's always something to whine about, "this is not the way to teach" or "have some respect". God forbid you ever met a plumber that died falling down a huge pipe and then played Super Mario Bros.

The Jews and the Swords....

[dogzdik]

.

jehoova: Exodus 32:27 And he said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his companion, and every man his neighbour.

.

Jeezers: Matthew 10:34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

.

Jermans: God is with us.

.

Play on - god is with you.

.

The Germans are upset?

[Profane MuthaFucka]

That's rich. I mean, it was Germans who actually built the fucking death strip for real. It's what they do. What's next? Are the Germans going to get pissy the next time an American motorist gets tazered? Do they own the fucking patent on torture or something?

Tu quoque

[dugeen]

I don't think we're going to be lectured on game morality by people who supported - and in some cases took part in - the invasion of Iraq. The mass civilian slaughter that took place there makes the Berlin Wall death strip look like a picnic area.

Totally off topic

[neminem]

At Harvey Mudd College, prefixing the name of a game with "death" implies that it's been turned into a drinking game: "death chess", "death checkers", etc. The meaning of prefixing the name of a game with "strip", of course, should be fairly obvious. Combining these two concepts has been done in the past; I know of at least one instance of "death strip Worms", for instance.

So, when I saw this headline, I was momentarily quite confused.