Game On War In Syria Explores Ongoing Conflict 62
arclightfire writes "So while games have come under spotlight via the debate about the causes of the tragic school shootings in the U.S., it is worth remembering that games are now a broad medium and far from all games are FPS games. Even those about war are not now just about shooting, as Endgame:Syria shows by covering an ongoing war; 'The subject matter for Endgame: Syria should not however be looked on from a trivialized angle; people and civilian casualties are dying every day over in Syria.'" The game is part of a series from Auroch Digital.
Not an FPS, a card game (Score:3, Informative)
Replying off-topic but the summary doesn't mention this very relevant bit of information: The game is not an FPS, it's a card strategy game. Like Magic or something.
Which is disappointing, I was hoping it was an FPS and that some Russians and Iranians could play from the rebels' point of view.
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Too soon?
Too easy. It is a well-known fact that only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun. For a challenging game, the janitor should be armed with a broomstick, a toothpick, a nail file and harsh language.
Re:Idea for a new game (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, a falling boulder can stop a bad guy with a gun. A poison dart can stop a bad guy with a gun. An electric fence can stop a bad guy with a gun. A femme fatale can stop a bad guy with a gun. Psychotropic drugs can stop a bad guy with a gun. Early intervention via counseling can stop a bad guy with a gun.
And not having a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun.
But let's face it, the fantasy of being the "good guy with the gun" is very appealing to the frustrated and insecure and sociopaths who could easily become the "bad guy with the gun".
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Actually, a falling boulder can stop a bad guy with a gun. A poison dart can stop a bad guy with a gun. An electric fence can stop a bad guy with a gun. A femme fatale can stop a bad guy with a gun. Psychotropic drugs can stop a bad guy with a gun. Early intervention via counseling can stop a bad guy with a gun.
Quite possibly so, but in a REAL, MANLY and TOTALLY UNGAY FPS, all of the above would be part of the environment, not part of the gameplay.
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You missed:
"Psychotropic drugs can stop a bad guy with a gun. Early intervention via counseling can stop a bad guy with a gun.
And not having a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun.
Those are not, "one in a million accidents" OR "a person with a weapon that may or may not be a firearm".
Why did you overlook those?
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As a personal aside, I do not concealed carry. Even if I were too, if I were to encounte
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How chilling that we even have to have this discussion.
What is it about us that causes so many mass shootings? Even adjusted for population, it happens in the US about 30 times more often than elsewhere.
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Cars and medicine have a use besides killing people.
But you already knew that.
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So you guys are posting on Slashdot now:
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/12/assadosphere/ [wired.com]
I hope you and Assad die slow, painful deaths.
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Not only that. (Score:3)
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Unfortunately, all the things AC wrote are indeed happening.
Indeed! What is being painted by the Western media as the Syrian edition of the Arab Spring uprisings that have installed Islamic regimes in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt is actually a thinly disguised civil war between the majority Sunnis of Syria vs the rest of the population, which form the backbone of the Baath Party and are under that umbrella. The situation in Syria is more (conversely) similar to Iraq or Bahrein, than to Egypt or Libya.
Honestly, there is little to choose between the 2 sides. The Assa
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Yes, thats exactly what it is. Todays world has new tools for propaganda apart from newsspin.
This game portrays the Syrian fight against terror in simplistic black and white just like most mainstream media likes to show it.
However, nothing in this world is as simple as that.
What you will not see in that game is:
* leading Syrian terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra (categorised so by none other than US of A)
* daily beheadings done by islamist rebels (aka al-Qaeda)
* teaching beheadings to their children (will not post link as anyone can find it if (s)he so wishes)
* daily kidnappings for ransom by islamist rebels (aka al-Qaeda)
* killing of christians en masse by islamist rebels (aka al-Qaeda)
* destruction of churches by islamist rebels (aka al-Qaeda)
* all war crimes imaginable, mostly by islamist rebels
Just some links:
Fate of Christians in Syria [youtube.com]
US designates Syria's Jabhat al-Nusra front a 'terrorist' group at lightning speed [csmonitor.com]
#OpSyria v.2.0 [youtube.com]
I wholeheartedly agree. If the corporate media starts brainwashing people, be it for commercial gain or under political pressure, they usually succeed.
Why should simple people question mass-media? They have neither the information nor mental abilities to confront such power.
Also take a look at Alex Thomson at Channel 4 and Robert Fisk at the Independent.
Both are veteran British journos and both are actually raportinf FROM Syria. Not sitting in some comfortable chair 4000 km away.
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The problem with political games is that... they're still political.
Imagine that instead of making a game about the conflict, the same group had simply put out an editorial saying "Here is what we think about the war in Syria, and exactly what is happening there."
If they did that, and it was promoted as much as a game was, and it was typical media quality, everyone here would jump on it in a minute, pointing out that the editorial oversimplifies the war, and that most editorials are made by people with stro
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Hmm, the Falcon series of flight sims featured Israel as a combat theatre. There are very many paper wargames (ya know, old style) that feature conflicts in the Middle East. So it appears you are pretty ignorant - and what appears to be your attempt at anti-Zionism has failed.
Since you are ignorant here's a capsule history in 5 minutes that explains the situation in the Middle East, from Purdue University. The situation is very simple and clear. It is the resolution that is complex. How do you defuse int
What's off limits for a game? definitn. of "game"? (Score:2)
Of course this raises the moral question of "what's off limits for a game" - but also - "what's a game?".
Does something have to be "fun" to be a game? Is this the definition of a game (as opposed to say a "simulation"). Or is a game a "simulated environment where there is a win condition"?
Interested to hear slashdotters thoughts.
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There doesn't even need to be a win condition. Some of the classic games go on forever - pacman, tetris. The objective is to either maximise a score or keep the game going as long as possible.
Re:What's off limits for a game? definitn. of "gam (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't define what a game is, but I know that chess works even when stripped down to the bare mechanics... and if you stripped these games down to their bare mechanics, they might still be games, but most of them would be more or less identical (at least if you consider the maps as input to the game just like players are, not as not part of it's rules). Because of that I'd say they are definately nowhere near as much the games they're perceived as.
What is called "game" these days often enough is just a vehicle for story-telling, super idiotic story telling at that. You know, you wouldn't be able to sit through most of these stories as movie, unless there was a lot of action or hot people in it. And you wouldn't be able to take it as a slideshow on the computer/console, either! So you get to mash a few buttons; that way you feel involved and stay on the petri dish.
That wouldn't be a problem if the people who told stories and their stories amounted to shit -- I am sure you could make a "pseudo-game" about (the effects of) war that has something to say... those games probably exist, they're just rarely hyped, are they.
But you cannot make an actual war game, not really, since war isn't so much about the pong/galaga/pacman mechanics that are used to portray them, as they are about propaganda and using the masses -- and not in an RTS way either, that just simulates the "general grunt" instead of the "infantry grunt". War is waged by planning in super comfy rooms with huge desks -- it's about profit and numbers, not about individual actions. Knowing that it's pretty much clear than 99.9999% of all war games obfuscate war, not explore or simulate it. They are just extensions of power, they are part of those wars. They keep even the people who are not currently out there being hired killers safely embedded in the fabric of war.
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I don't wanna leech karma off Ian Bogost and Jonathan Blow, who for me are the Noam Chomskies of gaming haha, so if you found this post interesting, you will LOVE these two lectures, and maybe more you can find under related videos, exploring indie games, and what games are or could be:
Ian Bogost on Serious Games [youtube.com]
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"What's in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet." (Juliet)
So what's in a game? The subject has been discussed by folks far more eloquent and persuasive than I; but hey, this is Slashdot so what the hell. In some ways trying to define what 'game' means is akin to defining art; grasping at the wind. I think you're pretty close to the mark with your latter definition, although as sibling posters suggest the win condition is not necessary, and the concept of winning itself has been toyed with as a mechanism (see UnwinnableByDesign [tvtropes.org]). "Fun" is hardly a necessity either,
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Theoretically, there could be other forms of interactive art that's not a game. I just haven't seen one, maybe we got too fixed on the gamer mindset to think about anything else.
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Of course this raises the moral question of "what's off limits for a game"
What's "raising" this question?
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A game has to be fun to be relevant. If it isn't fun, it might still be a game, but it doesn't matter since no one's going to play it unless forced to, and if they are, they'll just go through the motions while daydreaming.
But of course the straightforward answer to your question is: it depends entirely on how you define a game, and thus varies depending on the context. Which, in this case, is "convenient scapegoat".
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C'mon, the US official policy has been pro-islamist since, at least, 2006 or so. Just look at the Cablegate cables emanating from allied countries, e.g. from Morocco, but not only from there. There, US diplomats are reporting how they cultivated ties to the various islamist groups that were illegal at the time. They also invited them for talks in US universities and think tanks at the
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Here's an idea, sport:
You leave them alone, and they'll leave you alone.
If someone from across town set up a tent in your yard, stuck his nose into your affairs and tried to tell you how to run your life, killed your dog and "collaterally damaged" your child into a hospital or grave, they'd have to eventually have to do something serious about your rotten attitude.
See how that works?
If games were the cause of the school shootings .. (Score:2)
. . . half the schools in the world would be empty by now. Just think of how many people in the world play these games.
Recently, the Connecticut killer has been labeled "a basement dweller." Maybe basements are the cause, and should be outlawed . . . ?
Ancient cultures have always played some sort of war games in tribal ceremonies. It prepares the young for the real thing.
Ooooooh (Score:1)
I despise the 'Witch Hunt" style analysis of the affect(or is it effect?) of video games on children. That's like the 'church' in medieval times saying things were bad just to say they were bad. I'm sure they said 'Studies find that....' right before they sentenced someone to death too...
The point here is, video games are n o t t h e p r o b l e m. The problem is the lack of familial support for the nations troubled children / adults. Families are far more detached now than they have ever been... I think
American's are Being Manipulated in Syrian War (Score:2)
Look at the network-related news. That's all you see is articles about Syria, just like we saw about Iraq and Afghanistan, as if any of they needed our help shooting them. This big issue about Syria is: they fed soldiers and materiel into Afghanistan and Iraq. We're still reading from Paul Wolfiwitz's big book of war. Stop it!
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You are wrong. What is happening in Syria is this. The totalitarian but secular Baath Party has overreached and the citizens got fed up. The citizens started out with peaceful protests but eventually turned to weapons. This is the Revolution. It has evolved from this situation and the Revolution has been co-opted by a jihahist movement (incited, funded and supported by the Saudis and Qatar). They seek to turn Syria into a member of the global Caliphate.
So if you think that the news about Syria is some p
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Well, we didn't seem to mind when this happened:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rwandan_Genocide [wikipedia.org]
Because there was nothing in it for us?
The bottom line is: We have a lot of problems to attend to right here without becoming involved in the internal politics of a sovereign nation.
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Here is the fundamental difference between Rwanda and Syria. The Rwandan Genocide was horrific but it was a national tragedy. It was not as if the Tutsi and Hutus were going to export their fight elsewhere. The fight in Syria has regional and global ramifications - that's a huge difference.
The fight in Syria is of interest to the West because the jihadis fighting there are working to establish a *global* Caliphate (according to their own words) that is coming to an area near you as soon as they can do it
A few games taught me the map of the middle east (Score:1)
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Thank you for mentioning the old DOS Conflict. I spent many an enjoyable hour playing that game. Only now in hindsight do I realize how nice it was to have a fun yet challenging game that wasn't a cliche side-scroller, RPG, or FPS.
It's kind of funny... often when I played Conflict, I'd try to nuke somebody and still win the game... never succeeded. Perhaps that was the game designer's subtle way of saying the nuclear option is a no-win scen
The problem isn't games. (Score:2)
As a child I was an introverted little nerd kid. My father was a police officer who retired from the department when I was four or so. We had a snub nose 38 police special in my parent's closet, loaded and unlocked, and I always knew where it was. I was taught what it was, how dangerous it was and that I wasn't to handle it without my father present.
As I grew older I of course played games. I was given a modem at one point, and on a BBS I found the anarchist's cookbook. It told me how to make all sorts of d
Interactive war porn? Questions about obscenity (Score:2)
Obscene material alone is considered a touchy subject, child porn is generally universally accepted as obscene and not protected by the First Amendment. The act of producing it in the US and most of the world is criminal.
With regards to this particular circumstance, I feel that a violent videogame about a current violent actual real life tragic
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My previous comment above still stands, but isn't directed towards this particular game in question.
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