When Does It Become OK To Make Games About a War? 295
The cancellation of Six Days in Fallujah seems to have stirred up almost as much debate as its original announcement. Given the popularity of World War II games, it seems clear that the main concern about a game focusing on modern war events relates to how recently they happened. Kotaku takes a look at some of the obstacles such a game would need to overcome to achieve broad acceptance.
"When approaching a game that realistically depicts a modern combat situation, one criticism that often arises is the subject of fun. Can a realistic military shooter be fun? According to Ian Bogost, that's the wrong question to ask. 'We use the word fun as a placeholder, when we don't even really know what we mean when we look for some sort of enjoyment in a serious experience,' he said. Fun and entertainment aren't mutually exclusive, especially when it comes to entertainment based on real-world military conflicts. As Bogost explains, fun isn't the key word in this situation. 'It may not be possible to make a realistic war game that is fun — war is not fun — but it is possible to create an experience that is informative, appealing, and startling in a positive way.'"
Not even going to RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty much OK to do anything you want to do unless you plan on pissing off the vocal minority.
I'm fairly certain the majority of us really don't give a damn what the next guy is going to do.
It's that small percent who have an extremely horrid tact and shout much louder then necessary.
The OK-ness depends on the popularity of the war (Score:5, Insightful)
It is okay to make a game about a war... (Score:3, Insightful)
... where every single person who participated in it is dead.
Call of Duty 4, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a perfect example of a modern war game that hasn't gotten too much flack.
competition (Score:0, Insightful)
http://aa3.americasarmy.com/ [americasarmy.com] - AA3 is the most authentic military game ever. We don't just say "every detail counts" because it sounds good. We mean it and Army Experts checked every aspect of the game to ensure it's as authentic as possible -- from weapons to sounds to player movement.
maybe it has to do with competing in the same game market as the us army? I've played america's army since 2004 it is both fun and entertaining. this game would be able to take off if they simply called it 'desert battle sim' instead of trying to pull actual battles from RL. I must say it is a neet idea but dumb, considering its exactly what AA3 is doing.
Try this. Make a GERMAN war game (Score:5, Insightful)
How would a GERMAN point of view in a war game be like. You might say that several all ready did offer you the option to play from the german side, but not on the box cover. Look at the art for games with two sides like the venerable Close Combat series. It is pretty clear who you are supposed to be playing. That you can also optionally play as the germans is just a small side note.
But what is a game like Call of Duty etc had a german theme and worse, did not pretend that the german soldiers did not know what they were fighting for. Notice that most potrayals of symphatetic germans conveniently accepts "ich habe es nicht gewust" for fact. But it was the soldiers who rounded up the undesirables and put them on transport. Who took civilians hostage and executed them.
How would a ww2 game that showed that be received?
Not so good I think.
for that matter, how about a vietnam game in which the americans get to torch houses and kill unarmed women and children? Hell, even make a vietnam war game where the americans are LOOSING. Or a dutch war game about the "police" actions in Indonesia, just to show this is not an anti-america thing.
War games are acceptable as long as they show a clean version of a war with a goodie and a baddie and you are the goodie and the goodie is nothing but good and does nothing a baddie would ever do.
Re:Call of Duty 4, anyone? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare is a perfect example of a modern war game that hasn't gotten too much flack.
Yes, but it wasn't based as strongly on a real life conflict, this game was based strongly on a conflict, and it also presents it from the non-American view from what I can make out from the feature article
Re:So skip Iraq for another few years (Score:5, Insightful)
WWII has been beat to a pulp.
That's because WWII is easy: Nazi's == Evil. It's satisfying to kill Nazi's because deep down you think of them as inhuman monsters. It's worth noting that the only FPS genre currently more common than WWII is alien invasion, I think it's pretty clear what that says about our culture's current level of xenophobia.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Whenever you want (Score:1, Insightful)
Let the market decide. If people buy it, it's the right time. If they don't, chances are, your game just sucked anyway.
Re:When it's over (Score:4, Insightful)
When it's over
Why?
Your solution is self-censorship, yet you present no reason or logic to back it up.
Better question... (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it possible to make a realistic war game?
I vote "no" due to the fact that you really can't get hurt and probably won't develop PTD after watching your buddy's face explode in a shower of blood and bone, leaving you to wash his brains out of your mouth.
Not to mention that most wargames don't involve the player having to realistically deal with other people on their own side comitting war atrocities - never mind comitting them themselves.
Re:Not even going to RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
When has democracy been anything other than the will of the majority?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The OK-ness depends on the popularity of the wa (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd also argue that accuracy is also a key element. "Old School" wargamers took pride in analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each side, presenting the simulation with at least a semblance of impartiality.
In this case, however, the game is biased, jingoistic and unrealistic. And, as you observe, it supports a cause that has been largely rejected.
The first part will have alienated the old school wargamers, the latter part will have alienated a lot of gamers who are not far right-wing.
I guess, ultimately, that's the true test of the OKness of a game - if you alienate the audience, it's not ok.
Remember "Shock and Awe" (Score:4, Insightful)
Define "Fun" (Score:3, Insightful)
Insurection not War (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It wasn't that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod parent way up.
The healing process after WWII is an interesting topic to study and debate. Although there were some painful moments, the US, Japan, and Europe emerged as economic superpowers, with very few hard feelings left behind after the war.
It was also important that we won the war in a manner that didn't turn the entire population against us. Of course, the warfare techniques used by the Viet Cong and Iraqi insurgency seem to have been designed to drag as many civilians into the conflict as possible.
It also didn't help that the US forces had a very poor understanding of the foreign culture and language in either of these conflicts. Had there been an extensive ground war in Japan, a similar situation would likely have emerged.
Lesson: The reconstruction is just as (if not more) important than the war itself. Also, make sure you understand the people you're invading.
Re:It wasn't that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Is that as opposed to e.g. the firebombing of Dresden or the two atomic bombs? Don't kid yourself, WWII was always intended to be a "total war".
What made it "relatively" safe for civilians in the occupied territories and in places far from the action such as America was merely the huge distances involved coupled with the limits of technology at the time. If America had been as close as Britain to Europe, it would have been in danger of bombing just as much.
I also think you're off on the reconstruction. It's easy to reconstruct an already highly developed country, it practically reconstructs itself. That's why Germany and Japan are such success stories. The war lasted a handful of years, less than a generation. That's short enough so that people can rebuild their society as it was, and incorporate simple changes in structure like who's at the top. Just give them peace and some money.
If you look at Iraq or Afghanistan, these places have been at war on and off for most of two generations. Those places can't reconstruct themselves to a prior point, because the people who remember how the institutions worked and how society worked are mostly gone, and most young people have experienced only misery and have no idea what a modern developed society would look like.
Lesson: if you have to wage war, make sure it doesn't go on for more than five years...
Re:Not even going to RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
When has democracy been anything other than the will of the majority?
Every time the winning candidate does not get 50% of ALL eligible voters. Not voting is essentially the same as "none of the above".
Re:Call of Duty 4, anyone? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am seriously not trying to be rude, but do you even realize how warped your point of view is on this? The GAME is NOT the problem here. If anything it's a product of our society coping with an amazingly fucked up series of events. Only in America would we complain about pixels while real people are dying.
Re:This is the politically correct version (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, that's actually a perfect example, if you're willing to use your brain.
How do you know about those tortures? Well, because there's a free press and Internet and all sorts of channels outside the government control that told you about it.
In a totalitarian regime, with the press controlled by the government, yes, probably very few american soldiers would have had the faintest idea about what the CIA does. The american soldiers would have just seen their narrow slice of reality -- you know, some fighting, some patrolling occupied cities, some getting sniped, some of your pals being blown to bits by a roadside bomb -- and would have had no idea at all what happens to those arrested "terrorists", or in some cases that anyone was arrested at all.
Except apparently it was secret enough that with all the partisans, and resistance, and spies, and captured german officers and all, the allies had no fucking clue about it either until they ran into an actual death camp. You'd think that something which is no secret at all (or so you claim) would leak sooner, no?
Varies (Score:3, Insightful)
It all depends on how much of an emotional toll said war has taken over the public you're selling your game(/movie/book/whatever) to.
An interesting huge thing that factors into that is who we perceive the "good guys" were in the real war - if we do so at all.
I don't really have any emotional connection with, say, either side of the wars Troy had.
Being a Jew and an Australian/Israeli I find it hard to watch films looking at the conflicts "my side" had a part in, tenfold so when viewed from the "wrong side".
There were several such works done over the years, and it's very interesting to see how the public accepts (or doesn't) a work of art (devoid of political message, I'm not referring to media created as propaganda) - such as Avanti Popolo (Israeli indie film that follows a squad of cut-off purposeless Egyptian soldiers through the desert as they're attempting to return home, simply painting them as human), or, if you want to go more extreme, stuff like Das Boot.
Das Boot was made some four decades(!) - that's just short of three generations - after WWII and the holocaust, and people - worldwide, not just holocaust survivors & families - had a huge problem accepting it (I relate, I watched it with a distressing sense of unease, my own family was cut down in the holocaust from some 50 people to under 10), mainly because it humanized the Nazis (and it did nothing provocative a-la 'what about all the good things Hitler did' statementa, it just followed a bunch of young (Nazi German) sailors on a U-boat whose main concern throughout the movie was getting back home in one piece, with pretty much piss-all politics or nazi agenda. Just human beings and immediate hardships common to us all. Acceptance? Rather bad (though the amount of controversy-spawned publicity they got was rather good... "as long as they spell my name right...")
To answer your question - depends on how loaded the conflict in question was. Depends on which side it's presented from. Depending on whether the people it's presented TO have made peace with the historic conflict or not... And that can take a good while.
As a curiosity relating closure on conflicts, here in Australia we devote a day each year - ANZAC day - to paying our respects to those who fought in our wars. There is a solemn march on this day, and in it march the veterans (or those related to them etc). Keep in mind we've taken an active part in nearly every conflict America was involved in since the start of the century.
And here's the kicker - it doesn't matter which side you fought on. It doesn't matter if back then you were "the enemy". Having come, myself, from a country that lacks anything even remotely resembling closure on past conflicts.
I really think achieving closure thus is a genuinely cool thing.
I've also seen it with US/Allied WWII vets doing same with their German and Japanese vets.
And if you've got that and you can avoid carrying a political message that'll de-label you as art and label you as a form of propaganda, you can popularize it in media all you want.
Re:It wasn't that simple (Score:5, Insightful)
There are other factors too.
Culture plays in to it as well. How do the people see themselves, their culture, etc? Both the Germans and Japanese have a sense of cultural identity, and a sense of duty and importance above ones self. There is an idea that you are part of a larger community and that matters, and that you should work for the betterment of the future generations. That's not so much the case in Iraq and Afghanistan. It is a very tribal mentality there. It's about what's good of "me and mine." People outside your tribe (which has varying definitions of course) aren't important, and maybe are even enemies.
Now of course this is not universal in any case, when you have a group of humans you'll find all different types, but it is a strong cultural trend. Well, that makes for differences in rebuilding. When you have people who are more willing to accept the idea of "Work to improve the country as a whole," work along those lines will go better. When you have a culture who's more worried about getting a leg up on the tribe next door, it doesn't go so well.
Also, the extent of defeat is important. You mention some famous bombings and there are more (Tokyo was firebombed, for example about 100,000 dead). Germany and Japan weren't beaten, they were crushed. Their militaries had been totally destroyed to the point Germany was fielding 13 year olds as soldiers near the end of the war, their industries destroyed, and their spirits broken. This wasn't a case of "Well they beat us this time," this was a case of being pushed to the brink of total destruction. Goes double given that the US propaganda said they had warehouses of atomic bombs and, had that really been the case, they could have laid waste to a country with ease.
Much easier to get cooperation out of a people when they've been defeated to that extent. Any large amount of resistance is hard both because there is just no materials for it (weapons and such), and in terms of having the morale to do so.
Then there's the situation of outside support to consider. In Iraq certianly, many of the resistance elements are not coming from the country itself. They are foreign, sometimes even backed by foreign governments. That makes it easier to keep a fight going. When you've got someone else supplying weapons, personnel, supplies, training and so on makes it easier to keep the fight going. That didn't happen in Germany or Japan. In both cases, the nations around them were none to happy with them, and weren't going to be helping out. Also, the allies wouldn't have put up with any shit. Trying to fuel a German resistance would have been a good invitation for an ass kicking.
I could keep going, there are many more differences. A whole lot of it just relates to the way war was done. WWII was a no fucking around conflict, the allies went all in and were willing to do whatever it took to win. If that meant leveling multiple cities and killing millions, then so be it. That's precisely what was done, too. That really changes the aftermath.
Re:It wasn't that simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Americas Army? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yup, the Wehrmacht knew (Score:1, Insightful)
They were even involved in a few atrocities themselves, although the SS did most of the dirty work.
How could they do it? Well, you're in the army, you're in a dictatorship, you think you're going to speak out for your conscience? A few Germans did and got hanged or guillotined--the White Rose is only the most famous example.
Come on, how many people are going to stick their necks out in *Nazi Germany*? We like to use the term for grammar snobs but these were the real deal...
Re:Not even going to RTFA (Score:5, Insightful)
"Totally and completely incorrect. Not voting is saying "I don't care.""
Totally and completely incorrect. Not voting can say many things.
I don't care
I don't feel represented by the available parties
I think the elections aren't fair(the system is geared towards certain parties)
I don't want to legitimize these elections(perception of fraud)
I don't want to ligitimize all elections(anti-democrats)
I don't know
I can't(too far off location)
Re:Not even going to RTFA (Score:1, Insightful)
Not voting is essentially the same as "none of the above".
No, not voting is the same as "I'm too lazy to participate".
Re:Not even going to RTFA (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't feel represented by the available parties
In that case, you should vote invalid to state that your right to vote is important to you and that you care about having a democracy.
However, I'd like to see the list you gave as additional options on ballots.
Re:So skip Iraq for another few years (Score:3, Insightful)
Asymmetric warfare is hard to do in a game, simply because of balance. One side has helicopters, napalm bombers, artillery that can blow craters 30 miles away, the other side has ... umm ... beats me.
You can balance that on a strategic level, where you can make those high tech units hard to get (expensive or in short supply), where political pressure forces you to NOT do certain things (give the other side a 'safe harbor' where they must not be attacked), let the "home team" units move faster (because they know terrain and how to use it to their advantage) etc. But on a tactical level, like the average FPS game, how are you going to balance that? By numbers?
It's very hard to find a good balance here. Most games just drop the idea of balancing the realistic scenario and go for a generic "both sides have the same crap" balance.
Re:Not even going to RTFA (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing it says to the candidates is that you're not a voter and therefore irrelevant.
Re:It wasn't that simple (Score:1, Insightful)
They were allowed to be as ugly as war. We do not grant our soldiers similar liberty nowadays because we no longer have that kind of willpower.
I disagree that we (the West) no longer has that kind of willpower. World Wars I & II fell under the classification of "Total War". [wikipedia.org] Every conflict since hasn't hit that level (although the way the Israelis and Palestinians behave it seems pretty close).
Should we fall into another World War, I wager you will quickly see that kind of willpower again.