Why Aren't There More Civilians In Military Video Games? 431
Jeremy Erwin writes "A columnist for Slate asks why there aren't any civilians in today's military shooting games. Quoting: 'Mostly, they don't want to face the consequences of players' bad behavior. In an interview with the website Rock Paper Shotgun, Battlefield 3's executive producer Patrick Bach explained that he doesn't "want to see videos on the Internet where people shoot civilians. That's something I will sanitize by removing that feature from the game." Bach believes that video games are serious business but that players' irreverence is holding back the form. "If you put the player in front of a choice where they can do good things or bad things, they will do bad things, go [to the] dark side because people think it's cool to be naughty, they won't be caught," he said.'"
(Note that there are civilians in Battlefield 3, you just can't kill them, accidentally or otherwise. Despite this, the author's point stands: "By removing civilians from the picture, developers like Bach are trying to reap the benefits of a real-life setting without grappling with the reality of collateral damage.")
Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I wanted to grapple with reality, I wouldn't be playing a video game.
Video Games = School Shootings (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most game developers don't want to show up on Faux News' front page with the headline "X is promoting killing of civilians!"
Combine player freedom with a clueless and/or biased press and you'll see why devs mostly just don't want to deal with the hassle. The only ones that do, do it because they actually LIKE said "scandals". Rockstar's thrived on scandals.
Players do bad things because: (Score:5, Insightful)
There are no consequences. Make the players endure a court martial and maybe their actions would change.
This is another reason why the Elder Scrolls series is so incredibly good: if you're seen killing an innocent, you instantly get a bounty on your head, guards chase you relentlessly, and you have to pay the price (although there are ways around it for cheaters).
But I suspect developers of FPS games aren't that interested in moral realism, just graphics and sound.
Good vs Evil (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it's fair that it is just assumed that people will choose to do bad behind closed doors. I think the problem is the reward system is off balance. If a game truly implemented a true eco system of consequences and rewards for doing good vs evil you would see a different picture.
I, for example, played the game "Black & White" and your kingdom would morph to how you portrayed yourself. I actually was good "all the time" while I played that game. I slowly learned that the rewards for being good the whole time was limiting vs what could happen when you were evil. I only tried being evil once the reward for being good seemed to stop the gameplay.
If a game fully implemented repercussions for hitting civilians or doing evil, people would choose to do good. But when there are either no repercussions or just pure "cool eye candy" for killing people without consequence, people are really just looking to explore the dynamics of the game, they're not trying to do evil. So ultimately it comes down to the game designers making evil actions more appealing than doing good. That's the paradigm that would need to shift ...
Just think, if you killed a civilian in a mission you had to sit out a round or two in multi-player ... or if you had to go through an extra training course... This could also playout to be repercussions for 'friendly fire', instead of just disabling friendly fire all together. People would pay more attention to the goals of the game and stay more true to the role they're playing.
With "counter-strike", people choose (or get selected) to be on either the terrorists or counter-terrorist groups... same thing with most all multi-player games. In a way the "counter terrorists" are the good guys, and the terrorists are the bad guys... The bad guys kill the good guys here. Why not put civilians in the terrain and in the city? If a terrorist killed a civilian they would leave a blood trail behind or have to hide the body, or someone would scream and they would be easier to find, etc... There would be real repercussions for doing this. And if a 'counter-terrorist' killed a civilian by mistake or because it was a hostage or something, he would need to sit out for like 2 minutes or something before being allowed back in....
So the long and the short of it is, it's impossible to base people's decisions to do good vs evil with the games designed today. There is ONLY reward for doing anything the game lets you do. And people like to push limits to things to see what the developers created. Once they get their hands slapped for doing it, they probably won't do it again -- and if they do, they will have to work extra hard to undo the damage they had done.
Re:Duh. (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know if it goes that far. Certainly, some videogames are more realistic than others (within reason of course... for instance, the original Deus Ex would have enemies simply collapse if rendered unconscious, but actually bleed a pool of blood if killed).
At the same time, the ability to have a "realistic environment" is always a strange goal. I will admit to laughing during Fallout 3 the first time a wasteland wanderer ran up to me to thank me for my work on the Wasteland Survival Guide, handed me a gift... and promptly ran off into the wilderness to be tackled and torn to shreds by the nearest Yao Guai. Not that I was laughing at the circumstance, more the combination of AI limitations and random spawn points that caused it to happen. (Don't worry. I killed the Yao Guai, then looted both corpses. Can't have a maneater running around willing to attack other humans after all.)
But as for the rest... Again, Deus Ex had civilians. Killable ones. So did the first two Fallout games (hell, if you weren't in Britain, there were killable KIDS). And you should expect that people will do stupid things. Sometimes it's going to the dark side in the game for a while. Sometimes it's wasting an entire clip of ammo on that freaking annoying Claptrap. Sometimes it's piling six dozen grenades under a Warthog to see how high it will flip.
Gamers push boundaries. They test things. Give them a sandbox and they (at least some of them) will diligently work to tunnel their way out.
Re:Because then... (Score:2, Insightful)
Kind of sad commentary on the fucktards who think killing innocent people is fun. Even if it is in a video game, it reflects your values.
On another note, they could introduce killing civilians in video games in an "ethical" manner. Just set the rules that if you kill a civilian it will either immediately or eventually negatively impact your game. e.g. some time later in the game when you are found out, your player is executed for murder. But then, the AI would have to figure out whether it was accidental (usually forgivable in the fog of war) or intentional. Fallout 3 rewarded your karma level by sending hit squads (regulators) after you if you did enough "bad" things, and mercs after you if you were too good.
It's easier to go to war (Score:2, Insightful)
It's easier to convince your citizens to go to war if they can't see the suffering of innocents. The bible makes a Big Deal of Herod and all, what would those oh so pious Americans think if he lived in the White House?
Re:Duh. (Score:2, Insightful)
In games I just want to be able to kill people without feeling guilty or sadistic.
Isn't that pretty much the definition of sociopathic behavior?
Note the use of the phrase "in games". That pretty much indicates that OP knows and respects the difference between game and reality.
Thus, not sociopathic.
Re:Because then... (Score:5, Insightful)
So being an actor in a play as "the bad dude", or enjoying a novel about an assassin is bad, or watching a movie about a terrorist is bad, or killing a character you don't like in Sims3 by putting furniture around the pool is bad, or playing Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (late 80s game, I think) to seduce as many women as possible in an evening is bad? your viewpoint is ridiculous, it reflects your absurd values. Plenty of normal people like escapist entertainment where they get to play or imagine themselves the crazy or bad or naughty or slutty person.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Al Gore wanted to restrict access to games (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think you got the politics of that correct.
No, he got it right. Both major parities have censorial tendencies. Occasionally they overlap.
For example:
McCain [ontheissues.org] (just the first major GOP politician I thought to google)
"I can take you to a video game being sold to our children where the object of the game is to kill police. I understand the importance of weapons, but to define that as being the major cause [of youth violence], there’s a whole lot of causes."
Following the Littleton school shootings, McCain was one of four lawmakers who wrote Clinton after the shootings to call for a close look at “the entertainment media and the violent images and message with which they are bombarding our children.”
Saying parents need clear, consistent information about entertainment products, McCain [proposed] a uniform labeling system on all movies, video games, and music products. The “21st Century Media Responsibility Act” amends the Cigarette Labeling Act to apply its warning label requirements to violent media products.
"...when we’re wiring every school and library with the Internet, each should have filtering software to filter out that stuff. We need to know why we’re robbing our children of the most precious treasure, and that’s their innocence."
Re:This can be handled (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps such games could be used to draw attention on how the ROE are callous with regards to civilian lives.
Look at the following stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Body_Count_project#March_2003_to_March_2005_report
37%. US-led forces killed 37% of civilian victims.
9%. Anti-occupation forces/insurgents killed 9% of civilian victims.
36%. Post-invasion criminal violence accounted for 36% of all deaths.
11%. Unknown agents (11%).
The USA until 2005 were those who killed the most civilians, way ahead of their enemies.
Now, most people typically believe that the USA killed about 10% of civilians while the insurgents killed 40% or more by using callous tactics such as placing IEDs and attacking US forces in the middle of crowded streets. (I was actually surprised by those numbers myself).
Also, in comparison, the USA lost only about 5000 troops while civilian casualties for the whole war are around 100,000 (possibly up to twice as many). Assuming the stats above did not change much since 2005, this means the USA killed 37,000 civilians while losing only 5,000 of their own troops...
I understand troops do a hard job, they want to get back home alive... BUT:
- The USA started the war, those civilians didn't ask for it
- Who's doing the fighting? The soldiers should be doing it, not the civilians.
Troops should be taking more risks than civilians. When I see so many civilians are dying, and I see the USA killed so many of them, I start to question the tactics used by the US military. I mean what, are they bombing entire buildings full of civilians just because an insurgent with a pistol is hiding inside and they don't want to risk sending troops to get him? What is going on? It's suspicious and I wouldn't trust the US military to tell me the truth... They've been caught repeatedly hiding facts that cast a bad light on them or the war, so they aren't credible. Now, if they were not afraid to come forward and admit their ROE sometimes endanger civilians, I'd have more faith in them.
Anyway, my point is, games that show the real ROE could be a good thing. I don't expect any war to be perfect, I know civilians will always suffer. My question is, how much do they really need to suffer? When are civilian casualties too many casualties? How many of these casualties could have been avoided? How easy were they to avoid, how reckless are the ROE exactly? Video games could help us have an opinion. Of course no game could be 100% unbiased, but it could still help us get closer to the truth.
There's a war going on for hell's sake! Innocent people are dying by the thousands and we're all busy trying to pretend it isn't happening because that would be bad for public relations. Let's have a sense of responsibility for a moment and admit to what is really going on. Let's discuss the issue, all of us, not just those suits in Washington! Let's all decide whether or not the US military are doing things properly or if they're needlessly endangering innocents. Let's show the American public what war really is, maybe next time they'll think twice before paying taxes so their government can start a war on some innocent people. Because that's what it's really about: we don't want Americans to know how murderous war is for civilians. We want the American public to think the USA are kicking terrorist ass while saving innocent civilians. We want to think US soldiers will gladly catch a bullet for an Iraqi child. Well in reality things are not like that at all and the American public should know.
Also, a game that presents US troops as the bad guys could be interesting too. It could show the perspective of the civilians and the insurgents, and people would realize it's not all black and white but very grey. Yes, even insurgents have good reasons to fight, sorry to break it to those of you who didn't realize that. Kicking the asses of people who came in your country with
Re:Because then... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Here's a hint - it's not the developers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh. (Score:4, Insightful)
If I wanted to grapple with reality, I wouldn't be playing a video game.
Nice platitude, but in the end it's bullshit. Are front-line battles with civilian casualties considered "reality" in most peoples' lives? No. People play video games to simulate situations they couldn't or wouldn't otherwise experience, whether they are fantasy, or an aspect of reality they either can't or don't want to experience for real.
LS
Re:Because then... (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, what they taught me was that if Joe Farmer gets shot or or bombed or captured by Westerners while tending his garden or defending his family, the US government will announce that he was a terrorist and Al Qaeda will announce that he was a martyr, or if he gets shot by the Taliban then the US will announce that he was a friendly civilian and the Taliban will announce that he was an infidel traitor.
And if Joe Farmer is carrying a rifle, if he's in Texas the US right wing will say he's protected by the Second Amendment, but if he's in Afghanistan, they'll say he's a terrorist, whereas realistically, if he's a goat herder then of course he'll be carrying an AK47, because otherwise the Taliban or the government's army or the local warlord or some other guy with an AK47 will steal his goats.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:This can be handled (Score:2, Insightful)
See and that is where it is not realistic, because IRL the military would just define them as 'insurgents' and destroy the evidence.
So instead of 'soldiers raid house and slaughter family' it becomes 'brave soldiers wipe out terrorist stronghold'.
Already the use of the term 'collateral damage' in the article is in itself a joke.
Cold War troops can't fight insurgencies. (Score:4, Insightful)
The reason civilian casualties were so high in the initial years of Iraq is because the US military had been deliberately equipped and trained to fight conventional wars against ex-Cold War opponents. The US military had NO INTEREST at the highest levels in counter-insurgency or "small wars" as a result of Vietnam and Operation Gothic Serpent (aka Black Hawk Down). If you go back and look at Gulf War I the leading Generals tried to get their Arab partners to carry most of the load because they did not want to "get involved" and end up with another Vietnam (and all those guys were Vietnam vets, so they knew the reality). In the Balkans conflicts the US tried to limit its involvement to an air campaign only, despite such an approach probably increasing civilian casualties (as you don't have eyes on the ground to verify targets).
This led in the early 21st century to a military that was not equipped in the slightest to fight either a counter-insurgency OR fight in a way that limited civilian casualties. It was trained in the Cold War style where a commanders number one priority was carrying out the mission and keeping his troops alive, even if this meant dropping a 1000 pound bomb on a village with two snipers in it. In conventional war civilians have always got the worst of it, the various bombing campaigns of WWII mostly did no real military or industrial damage and just slaughtered civilians.
This is way so much of the direct fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan after the invasions fell to Special Forces units as they were trained for counter-insurgency and limited warfare. But Special Forces soldiers take a long time to train.
You can't take an 18 year old, give them 6 months to a year of basic infantry training, and expect them to be able to fight a counter-insurgency with low civilian casualties. Especially when, politically, every friendly casualty costs you more then a thousand foreign civilians dead, which is the reality of the modern media war.