Games permit war crimes

[Sephirius]

snip AC0 discussion

Ironically enough, a lot of the yellow "prohibited" targets would actually be considered legitimate in a real war. Yeah, they burned Hoffnung to the ground, but it was a major military industrial target. I've heard it's supposed to be a commentary on the firebombing of Dresden, thus proving once again that the Japanese know nothing about the second world war. Since Dresden's military output was minimal, whereas hoffnung's appears to be substantial.

I think the allegory still works actually. While your points are valid, bombing ANY city now as indiscriminately as Hoffnung was in the modern age of precision weapons would still be considered an atrocity. I mean, It's like leveling the Hampton Roads area just to get at the military/industrial areas there, it just wouldn't be acceptable.

[salm]

Hmm... this went off topic somewhere and unfotunately i supported it when asking Steel if he´d play certain types of games.
I think one has to differenciate between creating a game and playing a game. Simply playing it is not necessarily a bad thing because you could be playing it for all kinds of reasons just like you can read Mein Kampf for educational reasons but also because you whorship Hitler.
I think Duckie said that correct that the intention of the player and the enjoyment he derieves from it say a lot about the person.

But the article in the OP critisizes developers for not implementing specific features, so the question is, is it immoral for developers to create certain types of content? Personally i´d say it´s not moral to create content that would fall into the category of hate speech or things promoting similar immoral things.
This is difficult to define though, since it´s nothing clearly objective and therfore nothing black and white. I think it has to do whether the game in question promotes hate and/or violence (mindset and/or actions) or if the hate and violence are only used to trigger fun in the player.

[salm]

How do you feel about JFK: Reloaded, Salm, since you're going off about morality?

I´m not sure because i never played it. But i remember that when it came out it seemed to me like it was a cheap, deliberate provocation disguised as arty farty "meaningful" game. I think it came out on the day of Kennedies death for example.

[Jade Falcon]

Looking at Call of Duty:World at War, there is no 'consequences' as such for the Soviet soldier you play, but there is an opportunity to take revenge on German prisoners. You can't save them, but at the same time, if you joyfully join in, the young guy who later dies, notes your actions in his diary. It's not consequences as such, but is the closest I've seen.

What war crimes are there in Army of Two? Apart from the unintentional assasination of a US Senator?

[Sarevok]

You cant make certain types of games without the possiblity of doing evil things. Game are simulations not movies. So if you make an urban combat fps game what will you do with civilian and children NPC ais ? Set them as invulnerable and lose suspension of disbelief ?

[The Yosemite Bear]

You should see me raze cities, and nuke things in Civ IV, I guess I'm unrepentant evil....

don't these folks ever fix that broken record?

[Samuel]

You should see me raze cities, and nuke things in Civ IV, I guess I'm unrepentant evil....

don't these folks ever fix that broken record?

Ah Civ 4. Where a popular strategy is to practice slavery for thousands of years and work your population to death. Repeatedly.

[The Yosemite Bear]

yeah, I know I can be mustache twirling evil at times, reminds me though I used to play Temunjin, where basically everything that is considered a war crime is encouraged...

[Bounty]

You cant make certain types of games without the possiblity of doing evil things. Game are simulations not movies. So if you make an urban combat fps game what will you do with civilian and children NPC ais ? Set them as invulnerable and lose suspension of disbelief ?

Add a line to the results screen saying you committed a war crime and give some sort of penalty? They're not saying war crimes shouldn't be possible, just that they should be treated as such.

[[R_H]]

What war crimes are there in Army of Two? Apart from the unintentional assasination of a US Senator?

Use of mercenaries maybe? It's been awhile since I've played the game, but as far as I can remember, there weren't any civilians in any of the missions.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Besides in osme of those games your playing mercs or the equivalent of Blackwater (R256,G256,B256 + H2O)

you might as well get to do this, but have ending scenes of people decapitating you for your crimes while someone from Washington says "These are only a few bad apples, and it was an Iscolated Incident"

[Sarevok]

You cant make certain types of games without the possiblity of doing evil things. Game are simulations not movies. So if you make an urban combat fps game what will you do with civilian and children NPC ais ? Set them as invulnerable and lose suspension of disbelief ?

Add a line to the results screen saying you committed a war crime and give some sort of penalty? They're not saying war crimes shouldn't be possible, just that they should be treated as such.

Depends on the situation. In Deus Ex your superior officer will verbally lash out against civilian causalities and reprimand you because you are start out as law enforcement officer. Later in game you go renegade. At that stage you can fire anti tank missile into a crowd or set children on fire and no one will bother you. That is how it should be. The world around the player should react naturally. If the player is part of a good faction he will face trouble from allies and good aligned neutrals. But if he is not there should not be artificial penalties just to forcefully teach moral lessons.

[Bounty]

I just love people blathering on about "well game X where you play a future-terrorist..." when the article is specifically about

Video games depicting war

- depicting modern-day, supposedly above-board warfare.

But don't let facts get in the way of a good rant.

[Sarevok]

I just love people blathering on about "well game X where you play a future-terrorist..." when the article is specifically about

Video games depicting war

- depicting modern-day, supposedly above-board warfare.

But don't let facts get in the way of a good rant.

How the fuck is that relevant when both Deus Ex and CoD 5 takes in a fantastic near future ?

[Bounty]

My word, you are a flaming retard. First of all, WWII is the near future? Secondly, are you totally incapable of processing the article - which talks about, you know, war crimes, not future nano-cyber-whatthefuckever terrorists - or are you just a dumbass looking for faux moral outrage?

[Sarevok]

Don't be an internet lawyer / nitpicker extraordinaire. Address my original opinion about enforcing morality through game mechanics or shut up.

[Bounty]

Right, it's nitpicking to say your ass-pulled example is far from relevant. I did not know that.

As for your supposed point,

It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.

Whoops, nothing about "enforcing morality", just a call for more realism in games by including reminders of the very real war crimes legislation that they occasionally ignore. The horror.

[Sarevok]

Whoops, nothing about "enforcing morality", just a call for more realism in games by including reminders of the very real war crimes legislation that they occasionally ignore. The horror.

So in other words your opinion is that games should note in their storylines that evil acts are evil ? But not implement it in game mechanics through a silly good and evil system ? That is reasonable. But I would prefer it if it was treated in two different ways.

1. Ingame characters. Characters that are in violent and dangerous line of work themselves like warlords, militiamen or bandits should not lecture you about ethics. Say in Far Cry 2 for example. You are in the heartlands of wartorn Africa. You should not get lectured by fellow ak-47 toting types. I have not completed the game yet and so far this appears to be the case. The designed did well as far as I can tell. If they opted to remind the player how mercenary work in Africa is bad at every turn it would have gotten stale to easily.

2. Outside game hints. Steel Panthers MBT is excellent in this regard. This is a very realistic game where you can fight in most conflicts since 1947. The battles you fight are bloody and decisive. Yet from the command interface everything looks so simple as you soldiers die to secure area, tanks are lost with entire crews dead etc. However the game has plenty of fluff reminding the player about the scenarios you play and the sacrifices that were made in real wold fighting those very same battles. There are even nifty selection of random quotes about war. It is both refreshing and educational.

[Jade Falcon]

God knows how they would view World in Conflict where in multiplayer you can cheerfully toss around Carpet Bombings, Daisy Cutters, Napalm, tactical nukes and chemical weapons.

[DPDarkPrimus]

(Not really) SPOILER:

Far Cry 2 cribs heavily from Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now.

[Artemas]

God knows how they would view World in Conflict where in multiplayer you can cheerfully toss around Carpet Bombings, Daisy Cutters, Napalm, tactical nukes and chemical weapons.

Actually, WiC is on The List.

Even so, some of the missions in single-player have you covering for refugee columns. Also, I thought that many of the towns, villages, etc, were evacuated of civilians.

As an aside, many French, Belgian, Dutch and German towns, cities and such were shelled into ruins (i'm specifically referring to ground engagements, not strategic bombings). How many of those were evacuated of civilians? I imagine if a infantry battalion is starting to dig in in your hometown, maybe that is a good indicator of when to fuck off. I recall a BBC article sometime around Norman resentment at the use of "superior firepower" during the Normandy campaign.

[Wing Commander MAD]

As someone mentioned earlier the fact that generally only the losers tend to ever actually suffer consequences for committing war crimes tends to be a bit of a problem. Especially, when I've yet to really see a game where you lose in the end. Honestly, this strikes me as some kind of ploy to get attention for themselves for whatever reason, as there certainly are more pressing real world war crmes issues to be dealing with currently (then again video game developers probably aren't going to fight back like a real world government being accused of war crimes would).

[chitoryu12]

How do you feel about JFK: Reloaded, Salm, since you're going off about morality?

I´m not sure because i never played it. But i remember that when it came out it seemed to me like it was a cheap, deliberate provocation disguised as arty farty "meaningful" game. I think it came out on the day of Kennedies death for example.

The official reason was that they were trying to prove the conspiracy theories wrong by allowing a player to perfectly re-create the assassination with the right number of shots.

Far Cry 2 takes place in an African shithole in the middle of a civil war, and ironically enough no, you CAN'T kill any civilians! Everyone you are hired to snuff out is in some way working directly for one of the opposing sides of the conflict.

I believe the "war crimes" they were talking about were destroying homes and buildings (kinda; you can really only blow up market stalls and set the place on fire, which does nothing to buildings) or permitting "summary executions" (like the killings of particular targets where you find them in a room, talking rather than attacking, and promptly put a .45 in their head).

[salm]

How do you feel about JFK: Reloaded, Salm, since you're going off about morality?

I´m not sure because i never played it. But i remember that when it came out it seemed to me like it was a cheap, deliberate provocation disguised as arty farty "meaningful" game. I think it came out on the day of Kennedies death for example.

The official reason was that they were trying to prove the conspiracy theories wrong by allowing a player to perfectly re-create the assassination with the right number of shots.

Yeah, that´s what i meant when i said "disguised as meaningful game".