Slashdot Mirror
Red Cross Wants Consequences For Video-Game Mayhem
Nerval's Lobster writes "The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wants developers to consider building "virtual consequences" for mayhem into their video games. 'Gamers should be rewarded for respecting the law of armed conflict and there should be virtual penalties for serious violations of the law of armed conflict, in other words war crimes,' read the ICRC's new statement on the matter. 'Game scenarios should not reward players for actions that in real life would be considered war crimes.' Like many a concerned parent or Congressional committee before it, the ICRC believes that violent video games trivialize armed conflict to the point where players could see various brands of mayhem as acceptable behavior. At the same time, the ICRC's statement makes it clear that the organization doesn't want to be actively involved in a debate over video-game violence, although it is talking to developers about ways to accurately build the laws of armed conflict into games. But let's be clear: the ICRC doesn't want to spoil players' enjoyment of the aforementioned digital splatter. 'We would like to see the law of armed conflict integrated into the games so that players have a realistic experience and deal first hand with the dilemmas facing real combatants on real battlefields,' the statement continued. 'The strong sales of new releases that have done this prove that integrating the law of armed conflict does not undermine the commercial success of the games.'"
It's like every two missions i'm spending a month in the clink.
That's the only place I can drive at 230km/h, slaughter monsters 10x my size, and that I can be 190 cm instead of 165 in real-life....etc. BTW, XBox PS3 and other consoles aren't that popular in Sierra Leon, Libya and such....
It would ruin Grand Theft Auto, but for games that we're using to train soldiers, I'd definitely support this.
Films should at all times should add scenes which show the consequences of those serious violations. Songs should at all times have a chorus that show the consequences of those serious violations. Books same thing. Of course, the media will get quickly boring when they are forced to follow a recipe.
I think that system has been tried...in socialist and communist countries. It seems that people are voting with their money. Games like GTA are fulfilling a need, or it would not sell.
Not forever. You can revive him for a $5 micropayment.
which is totally what she said
They actually raise a good point - video games can and probably will be used to gauge people's sense of morality. Especially as immersion becomes more total, we'll be able to give people "adulthood tests".
Or at least introduce large numbers of people to these kinds of issues. Imagine moral lessons taught via first person shooter. Strange future we have.
Don't want this in Mario or Borderlands but I'm sure it's already in America's Army.
Twinstiq, game news
Ethics are taught by parents, not games.
If I wanted a game that I had to do a 9-5 and be scolded by my boss when I was mouthy to a customer I'd just go to work.
Part of the reason we play games is because we can do unrealistic things. Sure, run around town, shoot up the place and drive off in a car you;d never be able to steal, let alone afford.
Perhaps what they should concentrate on is educating children and young adults about real life consequences and how video games differ from real life.
A 'singular oddity' is an event that cannot be explained and only happens when you are alone.
Grand Theft Auto: Warcrimes Tribunal
Experience the thrilling recreations of standing in front of a judge.
The whole point of playing the game is to escape from the constraints of reality. Adding a whole bunch of reality? Why play?
Make whatever game you want to make with these silly rewards for doing good things.
I'll continue playing GTA 5.
Earn a bunch of money in a completely ethical way, as you make sure to not cook the books when your boss asks you do. Do trivial sums, and make sure the black outweighs the red, in the most action-unpacked simulator of the year.
Escapism is bad, and we should get as much boring reality into our games as possible. No more unrealistic lack of consequences from violence.
Play the new military shooter, where you patrol the same ground for 3 weeks straight, and nothing happens until several of your friends are injured in an IED attack, and you heroically call for backup and occasionally provide cover fire, setting the stage for the next 8 weeks of recovering in the hospital.
Also, all games should respect all laws of physics, including gravity. Even if a game is focused on, say, Superman, we can't trust people to tell the difference between fantasy and reality, so no flying or bending steel bars w/ bare hands anymore. K?
Breaking out of reality and destroying as much as you can without any consequences is one of the key attractions of video games. RPGs may implement rules and consequences for breaking them, but don't expect anything like that in fast action games.
I would like red cross to keep its mind on important things, like say, actual violence.
"Terrorists Win!"
"You are now required to spend 10 minutes in the waiting lounge, with other terrorists, because terrorism is bad and you did it. Please be ashamed of yourself. In real life, terrorists spend average of 10 years in prison."
Who said we want games to be like reality?
We go there to escape reality.... not imitate it.
Why do you think you can tell people how to build games? They don't tell you how to run your medical operations...... Yet you can tell them what kind of entertainment they can enjoy.
Go fuck yourself. Truly.
"the ICRC is not interested in all video games – only in those simulating real-life armed conflict. Some of these games are being designed and produced by the same companies developing simulated battlefields for the training of armed forces where the law of armed conflict are a necessary ingredient."
They actually make some valid points and they aren't too preachy. They want realistic war games to be more realistic.
Some people die at 25 and aren't buried until 75. -Benjamin Franklin
All you have to do is put your money on the line and make the game. Then come back and tell us what people will and wont buy.
Stick to your business least it roll over and I dont donate to you anymore. it is a simple box I can uncheck at work.
Red cross just accepted a lot of money as donations from the humble bundles, why would they suddenly turn around and attack the very same games that gave them charitable money?
Looks like video games are the last bastion of evil on the whole Earth. Are ICRC members just boring? Or they have too much money to spend?
This is very well intentioned to be sure, but I don't see how it would work. In the real world, most people are literally and metaphorically able to get away with murder on the battlefield; the only time they aren't is when they are captured by an opposing force. Is the Red Cross suggesting that if the game AI senses that you have committed gross acts of violence that it should cause the enemy force to overwhelm you as "punishment"? Or that an international tribunal should materialize on the spot to try you?
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
If you're playing a uniformed soldier in a real modern army that's great. The setting dictates what's acceptable in the setting, though. There's no human-vs-(non-infected, free willed)human contact in the original Doom. It's you vs. the monsters. It's kill or be killed. Converting settlements of natives is true to history in Colonization. Some simple games like Combat! or Scorched Earth or even AssaultCube or Unreal Tournament have little to do with story or procedure. The campaign in Battlefield 3 has some grey areas in it.
In principle, I agree that more games should have this sort of restriction at least on the "good guys" if only to make the game more interesting. However, what's acceptable in one game may not be in an entirely different time and place in another game.
"'We would like to see the law of armed conflict integrated into the games so that players have a realistic experience and deal first hand with the dilemmas facing real combatants on real battlefields"
This could actually be interesting for a certain class of games. Spec Ops: The Line is a prime example of this in play, and it works perfectly. That said, their rationale for this is all wrong. They seem to be implying that rewarding gamers for "evil" behavior, if you will, is inherently wrong. It's not. Games are games. Yes, there will always be the off person who goes nuts and then pins the blame on whatever the popular target is at the time, but that's irrelevant. If we start outlawing everything that might potentially hurt someone, we'd all be living in nice little padded cells our entire lives. The vast majority of people are perfectly capable of understanding the difference between fantasy and reality.
It's Super-Boring-But-Realistic-War-Game!
- Thrill at the constant anticipation of maybe seeing battle, but probably just running from the barracks to a helicopter and back again!
- Stand at attention for long stretches of time!
- Participate in long negotiation talks!
- Struggle in vain at your inability to help innocent victims until orders are passed down allowing you to take action!
- Fill out reams of paper-work explaining any infraction, accidental or otherwise!
Pre-order at GameStop and Amazon now!
Were you asleep during history class?
Most of human history has been a low-intensity meatgrinder, moderated primarily by the fact that we lacked the technology and competence to field armies much above 'band of thugs' size for more than a few months without disease or starvation killing them off.
We never really stopped tolerating(and often aiding, abetting, and stirring up) ghastly little wars in ghastly little countries nobody cares much about; but post WWII is a crazy peaceful period by historical standards (especially when you factor in the number of countries and non-state actors who could field an army without it starving or dying of cholera and just don't bother).
But, yeah, I'm totally so scared of commies that I'll stoop to their imagined level.
Working in a bit of real-world reality to these video games is a good idea I think. One of the complaints that often arises about violent video games is that there is a huge disconnect between the fantasy of the game and the reality of the world.
Incorporating geopolitical reality might just make the games more fun and challenging too, and give the nannies a little less to complain about.
First it's too much realism, now it's not enough realism!
I like game mechanics and games that try to do things and model consequences. Fallout, fable, these games have presented consequences. Kill a named character and they are gone. Kill and rampage, or even steal, and it has consequences for how people interact with you and what is available to you.
However, so far, these mechanics all are a bit simplistic and buggy. If I am careful to steal only when nobody else is around, I am still known as a thief, if I kill when there are no witnesses, I am still known as the murderer. Hell.... in New Vegas, I can dress up as a faction, use that to slip past people or get into situations but... anything I do is still on me, even though I am in disguise.
In terms of real possibility, with cameras and "soldier of the future" programs, the idea of every soldier having video that can be reviewed later almost makes the mechanics of something like this less of a diversion from reality than many of the other attempts at it.... except... anyone who thinks the reality is ever going to be "the film is reviewed and people are charged with crimes", that is totally far fetched and is never going to happen, video will be reviewed for effectiveness and intel only, ever in a real military....and even blatant crimes will be buried in mountains of data.
So I don't see why they want a game to give people unrealistic expectations.
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
I see a video game in the theme of "Team America" where the subject is that you get to be the red cross and go punish violators. This sort of PR could end badly.
Congratulations. You've just reinvented the arcade game. But if you don't give at least some free credits, then you can't list it as free to play on the app stores.
a few features that could be fun
1 have a number of noncombatants that you get "points" for keeping alive
2 lose "points" for excessive property damage
3 have a meter with "good will" that can get you allies/help
4 have your supply officer gripe about your ammo use (and or be happy about how much ammo you captured)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
"The ICRC believes there is a place for international humanitarian law (the law of armed conflict) in video games". Because it's just too hard to apply these rules in reality. Unless you're the disarmed loser of a conflict.
When is the last time any member-state of the permanent security council was tried for war-crimes? So in the game Russian, Chinese, American, British and French players should get a free pass, but all others will get their asses kicked in a court of law.
That is if they manage to survive the kidnapping, torture and assassination.
"Kill 'em all and let Root sort 'em out"
Does this also apply to more fantasy oriented war games? No, the ICRC is talking about video games that simulate real-war situations. It is not suggesting that this apply to games that portray more fictional scenarios such as medieval fantasy or futuristic wars in outer space.
So... no. They're making a more specific recommendation that would not apply to Mario, or even most games.
Also, they're not making a general critique about more realism. Again, reading their website, their suggestion is much more specific:
The ICRC is concerned about scenarios that, for instance, depict the use of torture, particularly in interrogation, deliberate attacks on civilians, the killing of prisoners or the wounded, attacks on medical personnel, facilities, and transport such as ambulances, or that anyone on the battlefield can be killed.
So again, they're not talking about most aspects of most games. They're basically suggesting that media not sanitize human rights violations. Which is an issue. The news doesn't show war carnage. And after terrorist attacks, the public becomes much more okay with torture in theory. Perhaps its because they have little idea what actually happens. Torture scenes are ugly, so they're rarely included in most media. Videogames too, there's killing galore, but not much torture. I mean, there was that one level in Super Mario Bros 2 where Mario sodomized and waterboarded... wait, sorry, that's in my as of yet unreleased mod. Forget I said anything. Anyway, I think they're right that showing torture, attacking civilians, and other human rights violations, and the negative consequences could be something that videogames could actually inform the public on.
Call of Duty doesn't get much respect, I think it's a hipster like response, but that scene in Modern Warfare 2, where you went in and shot civilians in an airport, and then a war broke out... say what you will about the gameplay, but that was a ballsy inclusion and didn't shy away too much from how ugly it was.
I think some of you are missing the point: what the Red Cross is worried about is that if you've spent all day shooting villagers in Black Ops 2, and this is your only view of what warfare is like, then when you see things like the Collateral Murder video you are much more likely to shrug and go "What's the big deal? The president says it's ok to do this, so it must be ok.".
If you consider yourself to be too informed for that to work on you, think of how informed the average person you know is, and then reflect on the fact that half of them are less informed than that. And that half is absolutely convinced that they are right about all things. Since a (large) portion of the other half is apathetic or cynical, at least 75% of the population is just fine with the status quo no matter how many war crimes the US commits (provided the war crimes are committed against someone else).
Thus, certain video games end up unintentionally acting as a very good propaganda tool in support of war crimes.
I think that is an actual problem, and is something that the Red Cross is absolutely right to worry about. I don't think that there's a good general way around this (and censoring games is the opposite of a good way to do anything), but I absolutely think that a better implementation of RoE belongs in America's Army. This is a discussion we should be having.
...in which a raid is only complete when the Guild Leader sends an apology note to the instance's main boss for their unannounced intrusion of his secret lair, their slaughter of his guards, and a compensatory money-order for the treasure they looted.. /facepalm.
-Styopa
These "laws" only hamper the good guys.
See, this is what happens when your only view on international politics is through Hollywood action movies and FPS video games. Simple to understand good guys (Americans, naturally) and bad guys (communist foreigners). The former; all that is right and god fearing in the world. The latter; inhuman, unthinking, immoral evil who eat babies.
Maybe I'm in the minority but building consequences based on the different actions you take into some current games sounds fun. In fact consequences have been lacking since the NES days IMO. It's mostly just morality choices that don't affect anything except the look of your characters face.
Obviously the fun factor would have to take priority but I can see where they're going with it. Here's a quick example that comes to mind.
Mission 1 - nullify insurgents
There are multiple routes to your objective:
A) You can execute a surgical strike, avoiding civilian casualties. It takes longer and will make your soldiers more fatigued for the next mission but you get a monetary bonus from the international community and people are less likely to take up arms against you in subsequent missions
B) You can gas the entire area. It's quick and effective but draws international condemnation, maybe a fine against your mission rewards, civilians becoming rebels in subsequent missions or one of your squad members goes to jail and has to be replaced with a new recruit.
It has potential to be fun, if implemented properly(always the hardest part)
First they're blaming crime on video games. Now they're blaming war crimes? They can't be serious. I'm glad that my experience with real world war and war crimes is zero. I'm not relying on a video game to be realistic, hell they won't even show civilians in the war zones.
"Remember kids, it's fine to massacre people, but you gotta use the right weapons! If you don't, Obama might threaten 'narrow, punitive action.'"
This is something that should be addressed by market demands. If people want to see it in games, they'll demand it of the developers and it should happen. If they don't want it and it gets put in anyway, the game will fail, no one will buy it and no one will ever see it.
Torture scenes are ugly, so they're rarely included in most media. Videogames too, there's killing galore, but not much torture
There's a mission in GTA V where you have to torture someone with pliers, a wrench, electrodes and waterboarding. It's not pretty.
which is totally what she said
Have gnu, will travel.
These "laws" only hamper the good guys.
See, this is what happens when your only view on international politics is through Hollywood action movies and FPS video games. Simple to understand good guys (Americans, naturally) and bad guys (communist foreigners). The former; all that is right and god fearing in the world. The latter; inhuman, unthinking, immoral evil who eat babies.
Fine fine, it's the bad guys versus the guys that won the war and wrote the history books after the fact.
More Twoson than Cupertino
http://www.simcity.com/en_US/blog/article/ea-and-the-red-cross-to-offer-aid-in-simcity
trollolol nice one good sir
So again, they're not talking about most aspects of most games. They're basically suggesting that media not sanitize human rights violations. Which is an issue.
This ties in a lot to my research groups area!
And the ICRC doesn't get it.
If you give players consequences for choices then those choices have to be interesting - or they shouldn't be choices. The reason you don't put prisoners of war in a game is because the consequences for improper POW treatment come well after the actual events - and only if you lose. What are the choices with POW's? Follow the geneva conventions and essentially nothing interesting happens. You may have to feed them or not - but not feeding POW's is more food for you, less food for them - win win if you win the war. That's a bad choice because it's essentially reinforcing the idea that starving a million POW's to death is actually a useful idea - and that's problematic because well, that's exactly why people do it. Do you want to reward people for starving POW's to death?
If you give players a choice to torture - and then they do - they have to have some gain out of it, or they'll just reload and not do it. That's a problem, because you've had to deliberately reward torture. When you don't give players a choice - or when you don't put on a consequence (e.g. blowing up an ambulance in a game) then you're neither rewarding nor punishing - it's just.. a game.
Things are banned in the real world because they either don't work and cause all sorts of problems for no benefit, or they are incredibly effective to the point of being too dangerous. Torture on one end of the spectrum, chemical weapons on the other.
Why are we trying to make video games have boring consequences?
Instead, let's make real life more fun,exciting and consequence-free! I know for a fact the Red Cross have a big store of those floating medpaks that take your health back up to 100%. Why are you holding out on us, Red Cross?
Yeah. That's pretty insulting.
And you should have to go to driving school and earn a license in GTA.
And pay income tax for selling items in RPGs.
How about a hunting lincense for playing Pacman?
The HITMAN - Agent 47 franchise incorporates this concept. And although it is not exactly the kind of war scenario that the Red Cross guys are thinking about, it is kinda-sorta, more-or-less, somewhat-akin-to, grounded in reality (except regarding the "super soldier yadda yadda" qualities of the main character).
These games are not advertised as educational tools or life simulators ... they are entertainment. We are rewarded by not being locked up and incarcerated daily for doing as we are told, why would anyone want to play a game that offers us the same thing we do every day all day in real life?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Man what a...What? They're serious?
BWAHAHAHAAHAAA
... there are no war crimes in the playable version of Ender's Game that is surely coming out to accompany the film version or they might want to alter it before it releases...
Humanity tried constructing limited governments that nobody, even by vote, could seize control over everybody in most aspects. Even that seems to be on a slow, grinding down failboat.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
They're right, the games should be made more realistic...you know, so if you use nerve agents against your own people, you get a notice that the UN has passed a resolution about it and at some point after the game is finished you may have to give up your chemical weapons.
...fucking stupid.
So if you are playing as Russia, you should turn the capital into the most destroyed city on earth and kill tens of thousands of civilians and a few ICRC members too. And the accurate-to-real-life consequences of that is that the Chechens laid down their arms and we haven't heard peep from them about independence for a while. Oh, and the political status of the leaders in charge was buoyed by the success, which was seen as redeeming Russia after the loss of status during the dissolution of the USSR.
And before anyone someone jumps on the idea that criticizing Russian conduct in the war is an endorsement of the rebels, they were also guilty of many crimes. This isn't about taking sides, it's about how in real life there are plenty of instances where committing war crimes leads to very positive tactical and strategic advances. I could say it would be nice for cosmic justice to ensure that the guilty never profit from their crimes, but so far that ain't how it is.
This is wrong on so many levels. D&D should also be restricted, I suppose, because of the possibility of being chaotic/lawful/neutral evil? I'm seeing a trend in nowadays' news, it's like all the important topics have been exhausted and people need to focus on the lesser problems. Or them being distracted can allow realistically important matters to get worse unnoticed.
Given the...limited... influence possessed by the ICRC, I find it hard to get worked up about them making requests that, while controversial, are optional and in line with the sort of thing they would care about.
As for whether acceding to their requests is a good idea, I think that that's a matter of genre, or sub-genre. There's plenty of room for games where ICRC-respected rules are irrelevant to, or would be actively detrimental to, gameplay. Are voracious space bugs parties to the geneva convention? Or (with the possible exception of the overmind and the cerebrates) even moral persons? Pfft, grab your pulse rifle. Even in more 'realistic' shooters, if there are nothing but soldiers on the map, and the game's damage mechanics don't include disabling wounds or surrender, and the arsenal doesn't include chemical weapons and the like, it's pretty hard to breach any relevant rules(and, in games that do include civilians, they often do so specifically to add a 'something you aren't supposed to shoot' challenge, whether they enforce it with 'realistic' penalties or just score reductions/round losses).
However, there's also room for games that aim to achieve greater affective punch, and help hide the fact that you are just playing against a few heuristics wrapped in art assets, by creating emotional engagement between the player and the gameworld/characters. In such games, it would arguably be a sign of design success if enduring penalties for certain 'forbidden' actions seemed like a natural outcome. Remember in 'Fallout', where you could gain the 'childkiller' reputation? Did the game cluck, and moralize, and forbid you from harming a hair on their precious little heads? Hell no. You could pull out your gauss rifle and frag 'em. Did the game pull any punches about the fact that you just burned some serious goodwill among every non-sociopath whose help you'll probably need to survive a harsh post-apocalyptic environment? No. It did nothing to stop you; but if pissing off every decent person in the game made your task unwinnable, sucks to be you.
Not all games need to be that way (and, among games that are, nothing requires that treading the path of good be the only option, or even the easiest one...); but especially in RPGs, moral salience, and effective modelling of 'consequences' beyond HP loss and occasionally getting attacked by town guards is arguably something very much worth exploring.
I thought Dishonored did a pretty decent job in that regard as well. You could just fucking kill your way through (and, especially once you got a couple of useful gifts of the Outsider, the combination of being fairly delicate and inhumanly lethal made for a rather pleasantly taut mode of play); but other characters got squeamish about having a total psycho around (and, when I was playing at least, I felt pretty uncomfortable terminating hapless rentacops who were just trying to apprehend the guy they thought was a dangerous assassin) and there were incentives for playing a 'clean' game, without that being a requirement, or preachy or anything. Good old Thief and Thief II also used playing 'clean' as an additional challenge (and for somebody interested in larceny, not an unrealistic one, robbery pays, murder just draws heat). Even Skyrim, in all its lovely-but-not-terribly-deep gameplay threw in a few twists (nothing as good as Oblivion's dark brotherhood storyline, which was just plain fucking with you; but I'll admit that I never charged the Ebony Blade(it gained power if used to kill NPCs; but only if the NPC killed liked and trusted the player at the time. Kills against hostiles had no effect).
...I mean why bother with actually providing consequences for bad behaviour in real life? Let's forgo any effort to discipline people in the real world and teach them proper responsibility in a virtual one. What idiocy. I swear, I'm sick and tired of morons doing everything they can to properly avoid parenting. And that's really what this is about. It's that pathetic liberal attempt to parent kids in lieu of the actual parents being made to do so. And we all know it.
Pitiful.
Pax Vobiscum
However its real. Ask FBI CIA about waterboarding and other activities.
Not to mention that in hot war zones, very little of actual law is enforced by anyone so long as the soldiers are following their orders.
War is a horrible thing, and some people take advantage of the situation, and get away with it. The games I've played rarely let you do anything other than kill the enemy, one of the main points of war. In fact, when they do have civilians, they are either invulnerable, or quickly respawn. Both of which are unrealistic, but then again, it's supposed to be unrealistic, it's a game.
Sure, war is bad and killing people is bad. But some acts of war are seen as more bad than others. This isn't entirely arbitrary. The more directed and targeted an attack is, the more society is likely to accept it as reasonable and justified. Shooting an advancing soldier immediately furthurs a clear military goal while causing the least damage to non-participants. Planting a land mine in his path may stop him, but it is more likely to kill a child or a farmer years from now. Finding his family and killing them in order to demoralize him is not only unnecessarily crual, it directly harms non-participants, and fails to achieve a military objective since it gives him a personal stake in the fight and inspires others to join up on his side.
Such laws don't "hamper the good guys", they express a consensus about what makes someone a bad guy. Bad guys, blinded by anger or a lust for power make war more painful and destructive than it already is.
"Gamers should be rewarded for respecting the law of armed conflict and there should be virtual penalties for serious violations of the law of armed conflict"
So, let me get this straight, they want to get rid of realism in games, completly?
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
The consequences are only for plebs, never the masters.
Do we really want to teach that sort of immorality to kids? GTA is far more wholesome than reality.
Would Chess be considered a war game?
It could be interesting if you had to stand trial every time you took out a pawn.
Don't want reality? Play games set in a fantasy setting. From the featured article: "the ICRC is clearly more concerned about battlefield simulations such as Call of Duty than particle-beam-wielding spaceships or ax-swinging dwarves." It links to the ICRC's Q&A, which mentions that it "is not suggesting that this apply to games that portray more fictional scenarios such as medieval fantasy or futuristic wars in outer space."
To ever realistically show any past, current, or future war.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Is it even possible to commit war crimes against zombies? I mean, they'll just climb out of those mass graves, right? Should Kratos from God of War offered surrender terms to that Krakken before or after it swallowed him?
But I see their point, I always thought that Captain Olimar should be tried for enslaving the local natives into helping repair his ship. And while it's possible to genocide species on Nethack, I always found that vaguely disturbing. Then again, being evil is more of a gameplay mechanic with it's own tradeoffs and less of a philosophical lifestyle choice.
Gameplay is fantasy. Plenty of mentally healthy people can play a shoot-em-game and walk away hours later with a civilized outlook on mortality and how it relates to an armed conflict. Maybe the Red Cross could instead be focusing on creating IRL programs for people who do not have such a mentally healthy outlook on life? Perhaps it would be rehabilitative enough that these afflicted people could one day enjoy the same fantasy games without blurring the lines between reality, emotion and responsible/civilized ways of dealing with both.
Spending a lifetime growing up in dysfunctional households is way more damaging than a few hours in front of a video game. Society needs a way to right those wrongs and creating programs to help those afflicted with depression, suicidal tendencies and behavior prone to harm would be a good place for Red Cross to put their focus. Not video game design. Oh, and if they need funding for that, it's ok with me if you carve a few billion of the NSA or Defense budget. How many magic stealth bat-drones, or people spying on their ex's email does a country really need?
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
Seems like a good idea, until you take into account the fact that the most likely people to commit war crimes probably don't play video games.
Then again, what do I know? Assad, Bush, Kony, and Obama could very well be PSN buddies.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
When you capture a pawn in Chess, you need to adhere to the Geneva Conventions on POW's.
When Pacman eats a ghost, he should turn himself in for murder, and notify the next of kin. Also, he should have to go #2 once in a while.
The Angry Birds should be arrested for murder, and also fined for demolishing buildings without a permit.
Don't get me started on Hangman.
Waterboarding isn't torture, it's just an enhanced interrogation technique
"Gamers should be rewarded for respecting the law of armed conflict and there should be virtual penalties for serious violations of the law of armed conflict"
So basically, we will not get to play as the Americans anymore.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Realism isn't bad; being half-hearted is bad. Per TFA, ICRC doesn't care about games set in a fantasy setting. Be realistic or be not realistic, but just don't be half-realistic.
Red Cross confirmed for having a virtual stick up their virtual ass.
Is this just some sort of stupid publicity stunt from them or something? Are they so starved for attention that they're resorting to PETA-level public stupidity?
MEMO TO RED CROSS: It's a fucking video game, lighten up already.
There is no "law of armed conflict" except decisively winning by any means necessary. And there is no way to model real combat in a game unless the players were wired to devices that inflict real pain and possibly death.
BF3, COD and most other major combat titles support winning by any means necessary. So what are the new releases that "prove that integrating the law of armed conflict" and that have anywhere near 'strong sales'?
Humanity tried constructing limited governments that nobody, even by vote, could seize control over everybody in most aspects. Even that seems to be on a slow, grinding down failboat.
Failing isn't the problem - rather, we'd expect failures of old systems as society evolves and the old ones become obsolete. Communications technology is certainly a big part of why they're becoming obsolete - in retrospect we may conclude (by reduction) that the telegraph killed the Republic.
What gets to be a problem is when the entrenched/enriched interests in those power structures fight the failure, usually against the society that is evolving. That's what's happening now.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The more expensive a weapon is, the better it seems.
...they should make such a game.
Why should any of the other devs care about their views?
If you are fighting as a member of the USA, NATO or Russian armed forces. The ICRC has nothing on you. You just have to claim your medals after that level.
War is the business of the Red Cross. The organisation is not, and never has been an honest broker. It is just another arm of intelligence agencies form the major powers, which is why those nations pay lip-service to the Red Cross.
So, what is the propaganda arm of the Red Cross attempting to achieve in this current PR campaign. The answer is that the Red Cross wants the normalisation of AGGRESSIVE WARFARE (described by the Nuremberg Courts as the "worst crime against Humanity").
You will notice this PR campaign does NOT demand the 'virtual' trial for war-crimes of those virtual leaders responsible for creating the war scenarios seen in the games themselves. No, the Red Cross absolutely cheers the idea that American and Western forces are depicted as destroying as many 'enemy' Human cities as possible, and rolling their war machines across an ever growing list of target nations.
NO, the Red Cross focuses on the idea of a VIRTUOUS murdering butcher in uniform. The Nazis promoting the same thing when their uniformed butchers spread across Europe. German people were told the wars were a GOOD thing, so long as German troops followed certain rules. The Red Cross is STATING that the genocidal wars waged by the USA are a GOOD thing, so long as American troops butcher Humans according to certain Red Cross approved protocols.
The Red Cross is pro-war- always has been and always will be. The US war machine DEMANDS that it has the facilities to completely exterminate every child, woman and man in any target nation. The US war machine has massive numbers of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, all designed for maximum OFFENSIVE use. The US war machine adds new weapon systems at an accelerating rate every year. The Red Cross has NEVER complained about video games justifying the existence of an ever growing US war machine.
The Red Cross is to Human welfare as PETA is to animal welfare.
FUCK. OFF.
It's a damn game. If you believe that the digital war you fight online and the real war you fight when you enlist are the same...
you're not gonna last long in the real one, and then won't have a chance to commit the 'Horrors of War'. REAL war is so un-imaginably fucked up, so ghastly that there is no way to get that level of carnage into a video screen and have it be a playable game.
I quote Lee:
"It is well that war is so terrible, lest we should grow too fond of it."
then again we had guys like Churchill...
"Nothing is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result." (Churchill was a badass)
Things are banned in the real world because they either don't work and cause all sorts of problems for no benefit, or they are incredibly effective to the point of being too dangerous. Torture on one end of the spectrum, chemical weapons on the other.
That line always seems a little bit ridiculous to me. The concept of "rules of war" in general is just odd. How about this rule: no war? No? That's not going to work for everyone?
I was visiting my brother-in-law at Camp Pendleton and checking out the museum of things that blow up. One of them was a grenade, I think a 40mm grenade for a launcher, and it was cut away and on the inside were maybe 40 flechettes, basically tiny darts or nails. So the grenade blows up, and whoever is nearby gets loaded with holes. But they outlawed putting an anti-coagulant agent on the flechettes. So it's fine to fill a guy with 40 holes, but you have to give him a chance to clot, or that's just mean.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
how can people still be ignorant of this simple fact?
Smacks of the same kind of whiny, middle-class stupidity that brought us PETA and their "Sea Kittens" campaign.
Is cooking one a war crime?
Uh oh, somebody may be thinking in a way we don't like. Can't have that...
I never or rarelly see a shooter that allow you to even commit any war crime. You can't kill/torture prisoners since military shooters never let the other side surrender you can't kill or torture civillian and children since they don't exist in 99.999% of all military shooters. The only game that I can think of that all about commiting wholescale genocide is DEFCON. This is the kind of crap that peoples who don't really know the gaming scene will come up with.
This is another example of our society trying to inject morality in our lives.
It's a game. It's like a sandbox to do things you can't do in real life. If you weren't raised to understand this then your parents failed and you'll probably pick up a gun and do bad things anyway.
Lets stop shielding our children so much and instead take some time to teach the right way. We tend to give our children video games and television entertainment and expect them to figure out right from wrong on their own.
It's time for people to be start being accountable and stop pointing fingers!!!
not trying to start an argument but I think Fable: The Lost Chapters and Star Wars the old republic rewards kindness. i haven't played them much. I do remember I can select nice chooses instead of beating up people. one choice on Hutta asked to either shoot a father or let him escape to another planet. I forgot the exact details though. I let him escape with his son, I think. My Bounty Hunter in SWTOR is moving towards the light side instead of the darkside. lol
I'm sure if the USA had their way, every medieval torture device would be re-labeled as an enhanced interrogation technique.
The red cross can eat a dick for making me change the color of the pluses on our heath bonuses.
Great plan: Sue folks in the game industry for violation of your trade mark, instead of letting them reinforce your brand, then demand shit from us?
Eat a dick Red Cross. Now, my Fascist Machine Nation's symbol is a maroon cross on eggshell, and only headshots can kill them. Bonus points for if they're trying to repair a fallen bot.
Obama authorizes drones to murder people without due process.
How is THIS not a war crime ?
Slayer summed it up best in their song War Ensemble, "What is a war crime?"
I remember playing a game called Uplink. You're a hacker, slowly gaining real world skill and understanding over time, plus hardware and software to allow you to pull off ever-more-difficult hacks.
One of the very first lessons you learn is that just because you can break the law, that's no guarantee that you get away with it. You need to scrub connection logs or redirect them, you have to erase bank records at multiple locations, and failing all that, you need to be prepared to blow up your system so the feds can't use it to catch you.
In realistic combat simulators then, what we should expect to see is some sort of penalty for, say, killing civilians, as the ICRC wants - unless you can cover it up. Maybe torch the building, or use area-affect weapons so it appears to be unintended collateral damage. Kill everyone so there's no witnesses and dump a spent RPG on them. Point to intelligence stating that there were no civilians in the area, or that hostiles were posing as civilians.
Culpability is a good lesson, it reminds you to cover up your misdeeds, not necessarily to not commit them. Probably NOT the lesson that the ICRC really wants, despite the realism involved therein.
Let's be honest - they don't want virtual world punishments for virtual world war crimes. That's just a means to an end. What they want a mechanism to push specific moral, political, and ethical messages via negative reinforcement to the player. As a form of art, I fail to see why video games should be beholden to promote any specific moral, political, or ethical stances.
Not unless you can make it a fun game mechanic, at least.
butting out of how violent the video games are? Video games are a fantasy for blowing off steam.
Organization: alphabetical, sometimes numerical or messy
Personally I hate when organisations or any groups which say things like this which are unfounded and gives no arguments that puts weight to their words. I mean, if they have proof about this which have very strong studies behind them then please do. But to date, no study is valid about linking video games and violence like in the news we see lately.
The ban on the anti-coagulant is probably more to prevent some guy (possibly a civilian) from stepping on one of them and bleeding out from a mere scratch.
The reason you don't put prisoners of war in a game is because the consequences for improper POW treatment come well after the actual events - and only if you lose.
You could always have the final ending have the guy arrested and charged with war crimes, have his hot wife leave him since he's a monster, plenty of drama to add. Or if you don't want to be subtle, have an otherwise loyal henchman kill the player for torturing his innocent brother/countryman/mentor/etc. Or better yet, have the henchman rob the player mid way through, burn the houses down, get player avatar drunk and tattoo "monster/douche" on his face, whatever.
A Rothschild/Rockefeller ran faction that in turn needs to keep control of the world. Revolutions and thinking outside their control system are not in the Rothschild or Rockefeller interests, and so under the guise of a plea to protect humanity they claim the need for individuals who play video games not be 'rewarded' for things in a "video game" that would go against the control system they've systematically enacted over the past few hundred years - real life or fake. Of course they don't want anyone breaking the rules In-game or in Real life because that could potentially (keyword here, potential, they rely heavily on time lines) that would challenge their control.
Yes, they are this scared of this. They want to eliminate any line of thinking that would go against them, injecting estrogen into humanity and taking the will of man away. They don't care whether it be a game, or real life. As long as they can conjure up some sort of thought-crime related to the real thing.
Never ever forget Haiti and the total swindle of Red Cross funds that ended up in Rothschilds' banker's subsidiary pockets. I feel bad for the poor gullible souls who actually send money to this total sham and swindle of a 'charity'.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Thank you for the opinion, Red Cross, but if you want a game like that, you can fire up a compiler and write it yourself.
I'm curious, Red Cross, have you got any opinions regarding fiction and movies, too?
Would you like us to remake all of our media in your own image?
Can you use a reputation system?
What if you're playing WW2 game as the Nazi's or Japan where the negative reputation is well, consistent with a friendly ideology? So the more jews you murder the more your allies like you sort of thing.
There's certainly a place for reputation - don't break whatever conventions of game setting too much - e.g. don't just rampage around declaring war on everyone.
The Civ example is my point of why the ICRC doesn't get it. If you reward rampant militarism and breaking of modern warfare rules then well... you're rewarding it. You need to find a way to make it a compelling and interesting choice, or it's bad gameplay, and that's precisely what the ICRC doesn't want is good gameplay choices to reward bad behaviour. Sorry, but that's a mutually incompatible view to have. Either the gameplay choices created are interesting gameplay - or they're bad gameplay at which point you don't want them in your game at all.
I invite the ICRC to play a bit of Skyrim and decide for themselves what's right, wrong, or a war crime. Some things are just not so clear. On the other hand, I'd like to see the ICRC talk to the NSA about war crimes.
This liberal meme that torture is useless in intelligence gathering, is based on comic books, television and movies. In real life, torture works really well. Unless you don't know anything or can't remember, you will talk. Simulated drowning isn't even close to the worst type of torture. It's mainly psychological and does no real lasting physical harm.
In SERE school, they will more likely just duct tape you to a chair and start breaking your toes with a ball peen hammer. Or throw you in a freezer and let you cool off for 10 minutes. "You can talk or go back in the freezer. Entirely up to you." After your clattering teeth have started to crack and you start to lose motor control, you will talk.
I'm not advocating torture, at least not in normal situations, but the idea that it doesn't work is just liberal 'group speak', repeat it often enough until the sheep can bleat it out whenever they hear the word.
And get a stern letter.
The atomic bomb keeps the big players in check, and that in turn trickles down to the smaller players. You can't stop the little skirmishes between the big players, but they're always somewhere else where none of the players who matter give a crap.
The interesting side effect is that everybody wants to become a big player, or wants to cozy up with one. The EU was established with this idea in mind. A lot of countries in Asia look to the U.S. for help (Russia and China, while they have strong economic influence in many places especially in the Middle East, South America, and Africa, have limited interest in external affairs and really don't let too many cozy up to them). And of the rest, they're either too unstable and thus one of the places the big players meddle in, or if they're stable enough, have nuclear ambitions to become a big player.
This peace will not last. It cannot last. Humanity as a species is not there yet. Unfortunately, the bomb that has given rise to the current time of peace will probably also be the cause of our extinction in the future.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be."
Torture scenes are ugly, so they're rarely included in most media
Jack Bauer tortured people constantly over 9 seasons of 24, which was one of the most popular shows on television. Homeland has psychological torture in it, as do films like Zero Dark Thirty, to say nothing of popular torture-porn series like the Saw franchise.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Boring! No body wants a game like that. Fools. We want a game where you get extra points for shooting up Red Cross ambulances.
The assertion that torture doesn't work is based on some torture as applied by some rules of engagement. While that assertion is deeply cherished, examples of effective torture include the breaking of captured US aircrew by the North Vietnamese. That it wasn't a very effective intel tool (as contrasted with an effective propaganda tool) in that situation is mostly due to cultural disconnects rather than resistance by those interrogated. It's worth noting that organized criminal enterprises routinely use torture and it apparently has the desired effect. Torture coupled with effective interrogation also worked in Algeria.
There is such deeply held desire that torture "not work" because the fact it CAN work depending on how it is used is frightening. Torture is merely applied stress. How it is used (for example in conjunction with other methods and information) determines its effectiveness.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
How about this rule: no war? No? That's not going to work for everyone?
It is a purely pragmatic viewpoint: we know there's going to be war, whether we like it or not, so banning it is pointless. (Besides, we may want to go to war at some time and we'd like it to be legal to do so when that happens.)
It is also accepted that in a war people are going to get killed. This is a necessary consequence of war. If you couldn't kill enemy soldiers then essentially you couldn't wage war and we have already realized that you can't ban war outright. (People would just wage it anyway, it's too compelling.)
What is not however, or so it is thought, strictly necessary is for war to be overly cruel to the participants. Yes, you can get killed if you're in it, but people shouldn't be going out of their way to be cruel to you beyond this. There is usually a way to wage a war and achieve political objectives without torturing enemy soldiers and so nations can go to war without also at the same time being forced to ignore the rules of war, so long as all you are expecting them to do is not be overly cruel.
So the rules of war are what they are because that's more or less the most you can get away with and still have some hope that they will be adhered to.
There is also more than just a little colonial power bias in there, but that is something of a separate issue.
So it's fine to fill a guy with 40 holes, but you have to give him a chance to clot, or that's just mean.
Putting holes in people is just a very straightforward way of killing them or putting them out of action. Adding a non-clotting agent mostly seems like a purely cruel addition to this since someone who's been hit by a flechette is likely going to be out of action anyway. The non-clotting isn't needed for combat effectiveness.
Additionally, although this is seen from a completely different angle, it seems to me that the anti-clotting is ill advised from a military effectiveness viewpoint. What you want to do, ideally, is wound the enemy soldier so that he becomes an active burden on his side's evac and medical services. If he's dead he can just be left there for now and dealt with when there's available resources to remove bodies, but if he's wounded then manpower will need to be diverted immediately to deal with him which means less manpower to fight the battle that is going on there and then. (Even more ideally you probably want to maim him so that he becomes an immediate burden, and won't be returning to the action even after medical care; but pure maiming weapons are usually found in violation of the rules of war I believe.)
sigs are hazardous to your health
That phrase is overused. It needs to be renamed a Response Extraction Method.
So the games should include huge taxes on EVERYONE, not just the games' players. And players should be told they might die for some reason someone else gets to decide.
The trademark issue that you mention is orthogonal to the laws of war issue. Trademarks must be respected in all games, be they realistic or fantasic. Laws of war (other than the trademark-like laws protecting the Red Cross logo) need be respected only in realistic games.
Whenever people talk about "laws of war", it always amuses me. War is war is hell. The only reason the laws exist is so that the rich and powerful can be insulated from the consequences. They can make sure the plebes go out and fight for them without having to worry too much about things happening in their own backyard.
"Laws of armed conflict" mean that everyone wears nice clean insignia so that they (the rich) know who to run to for help, which helicopters to be evac-ed in, and that if they find themselves injured, they can get medical attention. If you aren't amongst the privileged few, here's a gun, get in the APC and go shoot at the people preventing the rich from getting what they want. Oh yeah, and don't forget about Freedom or something. Think of Freedom while your children are becoming orphans.
Not forever. You can revive him for a $5 micropayment.
That works.... if you commit a war crime, you get locked in jail, and have to pay some real money, before you are allowed to resume any game :)
If the player wins, then there's no such thing as a war crime.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
And why only for violence? Why not also for spreading ignorance? If you are a comedian acting as a reporter (yes, you Jon), and you botch up science, should you be forced to bore everyone to tears with your apologies? We know you are a tool. We don't need you telling us. If you make dumb political arguments, they cost society more harm than any shooting. They cause increased disease fatalities, increased poverty, etc. Should the every form of expression that cause harm be subject to censorship of "good ideas?" If you promote socialism and attack capitalism, should you also explain why you are wrong? This isn't off topic. This a 3rd party trying to inject itself into a commercial transaction between an entertainer and the audience. If it's ok for video games, it's ok for all entertainers. Good intentions be damn.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Communists are bad guys even if they are foreigners. You can be an atheist and still not be dumb enough to think that people forced to be subdued to an authoritarian government ruling by coercion is bad. It doesn't matter that they claim to "work for the people." Everyone who is subdued is working for those who subdue them. And the intentions of the ruling are always fickle and temporary.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Communists are not harmful just because they start wars. They are harmful because they subjugate through channeling the desperation of the ignorant.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
US waterboarded a total of 3 people. More people have died as a result of faulty candy wrappers. None of the subjects of the waterboarding died. I'll take my chances with the country which believes in consulting an army of lawyers before waterboarding its sworn enemies in the presence of an army of doctors. You can take your chances with the countries that set their armies of soldiers, armed with live ammunition, against their own people. I like my chances better than I like yours.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Buh... obvoiusly, I have to correct myself. It's late... Communists are bad even if they are NOT foreigners. ... and... You can be an atheist and still not be dumb enough to think that people forced to be subdued to an authoritarian government ruling by coercion is GOOD..
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
They already have achievements in games like Mark of the Ninja, Deus Ex and others I can't think of off-hand, where you get achievements for stealth completes or just not killing anyone other than the assigned targets. Slap in a few "Red Cross" achievements for completing missions by the book and there you go.
Since the USA has decided that it wont let it's service men be subject to the International Court of Human Rights, I guess any USA based game devloper will be excused from producing these hippy video games ?
Games that have consequences like this could actually be used to test moral/ethical questions. Consent of those being tested would be needed of course.
Testing situational ethics questions on game players could perhaps detect personality traits that might cause trouble later in life.
I think Star Citizen is building consequences in like the article is talking about. It's good to see this kind of approach.
If you commit war crimes and win the war, nobody's left to prosecute you. Just like real life. If you lose, it could just be part of the defeat video.
Right, and the ICRC is complaining that we don't have the negative consequences of rule breaking.
Mr Triquiers critics would disagree with the assertion that torture worked in algeria. He was more making the argument that was just the price insurgents had to pay for being insurgents, not that it worked.
That it wasn't a very effective intel tool
No it wasn't.
How it is used (for example in conjunction with other methods and information) determines its effectiveness.
Not really no, that's the problem. Torture doesn't work - effective interrogation does, torture doesn't add value to the process.
As long as I can skip the consequential cut scene then i'm fine with this.
My favorite torture experience in a game will always be Quake 4. SPOILER ALERT: In the game you're captured by the enemy aliens and strapped into an assembly line where machines saw off your arms and legs while still conscious to replace them with robotic limbs. You fall in and out of consciousness as they pump you full of adrenaline to keep you alive. They slice open your chest and bolt armor onto your body and jam a syringe into your brain to implant some kind of device that allows you to understand their language. All this happens while you watch the poor bastard in front of you go through the same thing and scream bloody murder.
I remember this vividly as some of the most emotion a game has ever evoked out of me. Great game, I've beaten it twice :)