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Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts.

Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime.

The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings.

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

The study was carried out by two Swiss human rights organisations - Trial and Pro Juventute. Staff played the games in the presence of lawyers skilled in the interpretation of humanitarian laws.

Twenty games were scrutinised to see if the conflicts they portrayed and what players can do in the virtual theatres of war were subject to the same limits as in the real world.

"The practically complete absence of rules or sanctions is... astonishing," said the study.

Army of Two, Call of Duty 5, Far Cry 2 and Conflict Desert Storm were among the games examined.

those who violate international humanitarian law end up as war criminals, not as winners

Trial/ Pro Juventute
The games were analysed to see "whether certain scenes and acts committed by players would constitute violations of international law if they were real, rather than virtual".

The group chose games, rather than films, because of their interactivity.

"Thus," said the report, "the line between the virtual and real experience becomes blurred and the game becomes a simulation of real life situations on the battlefield."

The testers looked for violations of the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols which cover war should be waged.

In particular, the testers looked for how combatants who surrendered were treated, what happened to citizens caught up in war zones and whether damage to buildings was proportionate.

Some games did punish the killing of civilians and reward strategies that tried to limit the damage the conflict, said the study.

However, it said, many others allowed "protected objects" such as churches and mosques to be attacked; some depicted interrogations that involved torture or degradation and a few permitted summary executions.

The authors acknowledged that the project was hard because it was not clear from many of the games the scale of the conflict being depicted. This made it hard to definitively determine which humanitarian laws should be enforced.

It also said that the games were so complex that it was hard to be confident that its testers had seen all possible violations or, in games in which they found none, that no violations were possible.

It noted that, even though most players would never become real world combatants, the games could influence what people believe war is like and how soldiers conduct themselves in the real world.

It said games were sending an "erroneous" message that conflicts were waged without limits or that anything was acceptable in counter-terrorism operations.

"This is especially problematic in view of today's reality," said the study.

In particular, it said, few games it studied reflected the fact that those who "violate international humanitarian law end up as war criminals, not as winners".

The authors said they did not wish to make games less violent, instead, they wrote: "[We] call upon game producers to consequently and creatively incorporate rules of international humanitarian law and human rights into their games."

John Walker, one of the writers on the Rock, Paper, Shotgun games blog, said: "Games really are treated in a peculiar way."

He doubted that anyone would campaign for books to follow humanitarian laws or for James Bond to be denounced for machine gunning his way through a super villain's underground complex.

He said the authors did not understand that gamers can distinguish between fantasy and reality.

Said Mr Walker: "For all those who mowed down citizens in Modern Warfare 2's controversial airport level, I have the sneaking suspicion that not a great deal of them think this is lawful, nor appropriate, behaviour."

Jim Rossignol, who also writes on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, said there was scope to mix real world rules of war into games.

"Whether or not the rules of war are included in the game should be based entirely on whether that improves the experience for the player," he said.

Mr Rossignol said there was plenty of evidence that gaming violence is "fully processed" as fantasy by gamers. Studies of soldiers on the front line in Iraq showed that being a gamer did not desensitise them to what they witnessed.

He added: "Perhaps what this research demonstrates is that the researchers misunderstand what games are, and how they are treated, intellectually, by the people who play them."

Thought this was worth a laugh. Obviously a good use of time by human rights lawyers.

Are orks and the undead covered by the Geneva Convention as I'm afraid I might be charged with genocide.

Article wrote:In particular, it said, few games it studied reflected the fact that those who "violate international humanitarian law end up as war criminals, not as winners".

Bounty wrote: You'll note they limited themselves on games that depict contemporary warfare, not fantasy. And they have a point: there's no reason why a developer who tries to make his game realistic can't add realistic consequences for the player's actions. Bonuses for playing the game with proper rules of engagement in mind can be a very interesting and rewarding extra challenge.

Bounty wrote:It shouldn't be that hard to add a "don't shoot civilians" objective or penalize collateral damage; games have been doing that since at least the GoldenEye days.

Next they'll be saying that the Need for Speed series needs to implement consequences for breaking the speed limit.

Is there a difference between commiting war crimes in games and kids playing the bad guy in cops and robbers?

Army of Two, Call of Duty 5, Far Cry 2 and Conflict Desert Storm were among the games examined.

Bounty wrote:

Is there a difference between commiting war crimes in games and kids playing the bad guy in cops and robbers?

The line for me would be the degree to which the game depicts the behaviour to be acceptable. I'm much more disturbed by a game that presents torture as a legitimate way of getting information than I would be by a game that, for instance, simulates burglaries as long as the latter clearly acknowledges that you are playing a villain.

Simply put, if the game tells me "go have fun being a villain", that's cool; if it says "go save democracy, PS, rape and pillage the villagers so they won't rebel", that crosses a line.

Steel wrote: However in the general case of game violence I would say that acts committed in games have NO moral value. That is to say pressing E to unlock a box and pick up some ammo should be assigned the same moral value as pressing LMB to bash Barney the security guard round the head and take his ammo: none. To say that certain actions in a game are more or less immoral than others is to say that the game state carries ANY weight. For instance it is not immoral to make a robot that only builds cars, as robots currently do, but making that exact same robot as a (giant) human shaped one would not in any way change the situation.

salm wrote:

Steel wrote: However in the general case of game violence I would say that acts committed in games have NO moral value. That is to say pressing E to unlock a box and pick up some ammo should be assigned the same moral value as pressing LMB to bash Barney the security guard round the head and take his ammo: none. To say that certain actions in a game are more or less immoral than others is to say that the game state carries ANY weight. For instance it is not immoral to make a robot that only builds cars, as robots currently do, but making that exact same robot as a (giant) human shaped one would not in any way change the situation.

According to that logic you´d be ok with playing "Hunt the nigger" or "KZ Manager" if only the game mechanics were good? Would you play "Rape the 10 year old" if it had nice gameplay?

Why or why not?

salm wrote:Not sure if i understand you correctly. Are you saying that you´d play massively racist games?

salm wrote:

Bounty wrote:It shouldn't be that hard to add a "don't shoot civilians" objective or penalize collateral damage; games have been doing that since at least the GoldenEye days.

Games have been doing that since early C64 days, possibly earlier. But why implement something that disallows you to go on a rampage and blow up people and stuff when there are people who enjoy doing it? I don´t doubt that there are cases where it makes sense to punish the player for shooting civilians but there are other cases where it doesn´t make sense.

Setzer wrote:I think Ace Combat Zero had something that took this into account. You made more money if you killed all the targets, but got a better reputation in game if you stuck to purely military targets. It also influenced what kind of levels you played through. For example, in the mercenary path, the bombing of Hoffnung is pretty much held to be an atrocity.

Edward Yee wrote: snip AC0 discussion