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Post-War Iraq And Videogames 44

Posted by simoniker from the awfully-shocking dept.
DarkBlackFox writes "MSNBC has an article on how gamers relate to the rebuilding of Iraq, and how current world politics influence strategy and action games." A slightly odd article, but it begs the question - considering there are already games based on the Vietnam and Gulf Wars, how soon will it be before the Operation:Iraqi Freedom shooter or RTS, and how delicately should recent wars be handled in games?
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Post-War Iraq And Videogames

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  • Desert Storm...? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by neostorm ( 462848 )
    It wasn't long after the first gulf war fiasco that they started cashing in on it. If I recall correctly, 3D0 released a Gulf War themed game the same year that it ended.

    Add to this that the US government has recently embraced interactive media as a form for spreading propaganda (Americas Army) and training troops for the field. It's a great way to convince another subculter who's "right" and who's "evil".

    They put on a straight and sombre face when talking about it, but in reality it seems it's a disgra
    • Americas Army has nothing to do with "propaganda" pull your head out of your antiAmerican ass and realize its a friggin game.
      • I don't know about that. That project is funded by taxpayer dollars. The government isn't going to fund something like that because someone in the government said "wow, games are neat - I wanna make games too".
        They're doing it because they know it reaches millions of people in a particular audience, and that it has the power to convey ideas and perspectives in a way that is unique to interactive media.
        This is something the US has been doing for generations. Look at the real, original purpose of the GI Jo
    • For RTS... I don' tthink I would want to be the Iraqi side.. Get Out gunned too badly :) That or I would be worried I would wear out the "Flee from battle" button :)
  • Stage 1: Create an atmosphere of distrust in the global community so you can be the only one to have to split the spoils with.
    Stage 2: Immediately declare the war already over, then invade. Ruthlessly crush your enemy using your advanced weapons technology while holding press conferences warning of the enemy's really big, scary weapons.
    Stage 3: Threaten all of the neighbors of the country in an attempt to spread the war without having to go through all the nasty 'diplomacy' this one took.
    Stage 4: Captur
    • Actually, it would make a good sequel to Tropico [gathering.com]....

    • ------> 1) Capitalism -------> 2) Globalization----|
      |------ 4) Rebuilding---- 3) Liberation (a.k.a. war)---
  • ...of why running things by the boys in PR is a good idea.

    "The fires along Baghdad's Euphrates River waterfront had barely subsided when Sony registered "shock and awe" with the U.S. Patent Office. (Sony then quickly retracted, proving that even game companies have limits.)"

  • Did you catch the Sony comment? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Ayanami Rei ( 621112 ) <rayanami&gmail,com> on Friday May 02, 2003 @12:38AM (#5859754) Journal
    He alluded that Sony tried to register the name "Shock and Awe" with the USPTO just after we withdrew, and then decided against it. I thought Sony was in the process of registering it already?

    Anyway, the idea of a video game that involves practicioners of political science to implement their policy in a virtual world does sound interesting. But it remains to be seen how valid such a (relatively) simple model can be used to predict something so complex.

    I want to see that sort of idea tried on a smaller scale. For example, residential planning, college boards, business deals, etc. Of course, the starting point will be "studies" staged by shrinks, think tank eggheads, pol. sci and comp. sci graduate students, where they get undergrads to brainstorm ideas to solve problems around campus using a virtual forum/interface. Then the let the thing chug and present the outcome to see how the kids react. Then maybe they let them implement one of the proposed solutions to the "problem" (which may not even be real...) and see how it plays out in comparison.

    If that shows promise, excellent. But why bring in the game developers now? He doesn't seem to address that. In fact the article sort of drifts off into talking about upcoming games about Iraq.

    Yawn indeed (oooh, Hollywood and video game designers look to real life for inspiration, how novel!) ::blink::

    • Re:Quick: most popular BF:1942 mod? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Reptile ( 675 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @01:07AM (#5859889) Homepage
      Desert Combat rocks, for a number of reasons.

      First and simplest (on the surface), it's based on a conflict that's very en vogue right now. While DC is currently based on the first Gulf War, the basic conflict of Coalition (U.S. et al) vs. Opposition (Iraq) is something everyone's been thinking about.

      Second, it takes some of the funnest parts from BF1942 and makes them even better. Tanks are faster and they shoot better. Missile launchers are awesomely powerful versions of artillery. The classes and their abilities are all shuffled together, making a number of new class concepts that work really well. And aircraft, arguably the most popular part of BF1942 (see all those plane campers for proof), are even awesomer--jets are fast and maneuverable, the Harrier can take off vertically, and there are HELICOPTERS! The DC team totally extended this 1942-themed game and added a whole new type of unit! That's pretty impressive for a game with no mod SDK available.

      The last reason is really just the quality level of the mod. Even though the current version is an alpha version, numbered 0.3, it already feels like enough. I can only imagine the level of quality that their 1.0 release will have.

      Any surprise that more people are currently playing DC than the original BF1942? Any surprise that the DC team has been approached by EA to get their mod on store shelves someday?

  • Sim-Baghdad (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Associate ( 317603 )
    How about a Civ/Sim type game where you rebuild Baghdad. Manage the building of new hotels, government buildings, markets... If the Iraqi's get out of line, send in more troops and what not.

  • Not a game, but... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Per Wigren ( 5315 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @01:58AM (#5860087) Homepage
    ...a really funny flash-animation: The Real Hussein [cjb.net] :)

  • How delicately? Not at all. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Babbster ( 107076 ) <aaronbabb&gmail,com> on Friday May 02, 2003 @02:41AM (#5860217) Homepage
    I think that given the capacity for realism in terms of graphics and sound in today's games, they shouldn't handle war games delicately at all. I think it sends the wrong message when you tone down violence and bloodshed in a purportedly realistic game. Much like movies such as Saving Private Ryan can bring home the brutality of war, games can potentially do the same given the chance.

    What would be wrong, for example, with a game wherein you're part of an infantry regiment/division in Takrit and your goal is to take the city with as few civilian casualties as possible? You could be penalized for causing civilian death and even end the game court-martialed because you didn't exercise good judgement in a firefight. Such a game would include all the carnage of a real war and, handled properly, encourage the player to think about the lives lost in the process of winning or losing the game. No doubt it would be rated "M" for Mature but it might be a game that actually deserves the rating for good reasons as opposed to bad.

    We all know that war games (strategic, tactical, FPS, etc.) will be made. It would be good to see a high-profile war game, though, that tried to really address the negative side of war instead of simply glorifying violence and conquest without consequences.

    • Re:How delicately? Not at all. (Score:1, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Disclaimer: i watched Saving Private Ryan a few weeks ago and was seriously underwhelmed after the amazing immersive experience that is Black Hawk Down.

      Have you ever played Medal of Honor: Allied Assault? The Omaha Beach scene in that game blows SPR away. Drop the assault ramp on the boat, you're dead. Try again, you're dead. Try again, you're dead. Make it halfway to the beach, you're dead. SPR didn't show anywhere near the level of death that occured at the real battle for Omaha Beach. MOH:AA doe
      • Modern computer games that depict war can in fact do so much better than movies (in a sense) because YOU die.

        The problem with this theory is that computer games have ALWAYS had situations where you (the player's avatar) "die." I like Donkey Kong but I don't consider it particularly "immersive" even though I, as Mario, can be killed by a barrel. Pac-Man is cool but I don't feel emotionally invested in his character because the ghosts can get me.

        Player/avatar death has become even more meaningless since

  • Semantics and simulation (Score:4, Informative)

    by RobotWisdom ( 25776 ) on Friday May 02, 2003 @03:13AM (#5860287) Homepage
    It's great to see these issues addressed at all in the popular press-- in the world of artificial intelligence, puzzles like 'how-to-model-diplomacy' are usually classed as 'semantics'... and then swept under the rug!

    For at least 100 years, wargamers have understood that to make their models accurate they have to include diplomacy and other subtle sociological factors. [great long history of wargaming] [af.mil]

    More recently, when Chris Crawford did his breakthru nuclear-armageddon sim Balance of Power [google.com] in 1985, he read all the basic texts on international diplomacy and found them almost completely useless-- his model ended up being entirely about 'saving face', which was something the texts hardly ever spelled out. (If you let your enemy get away with anything, you lose face, so to avoid that you have to rattle your nuclear 'sabre'.)

    But what's most alarming is that as long as AI's been around (almost 50 years) and as popular as computer games and simulations have gotten, I'm not sure there's any university program yet that surveys how to do this kind of semantics, for games and other simulations. (I've been scouring the Web about this for my timeline [robotwisdom.com].)

  • I like games a lot, which is why news like this worries me. Just like a GI-Joe, games like this always need to be less realistic to be fun, so why start with the pretense? Are games a good way to revise history, or do people know better?
  • "BEGS THE QUESTION

    An argument that improperly assumes as true the very point the speaker is trying to argue for is said in formal logic to "beg the question." Here is an example of a question-begging argument: "This painting is trash because it is obviously worthless." The speaker is simply asserting the worthlessness of the work, not presenting any evidence to demonstrate that this is in fact the case. Since we never use "begs" with this odd meaning ("to improperly take for granted") in any other phrase,

  • In America's Army, the enemy force (which is always the other guy) looks like terrorists in Soviet-style desert camo. Some of the maps are even set out in the middle of the desert, and some of the missions have a definite terrorist/counter-terrorist theme.

  • it would have to be a slaughter...

    Misson 3. Hold the bridge.

    You have orders to fire at anyone or anything crossing the bridge, unarmed civilians included.
    (Hint: use your night vision goggles to insure nothing gets by.)

    Sorry for the flame, but there's a reason why they don't make games about the Indian wars of the west. Because the U.S. calvary rarely had trouble decimating the native tribes.

    The best war games are those were both armies were basically equal strength, and had to rely on tactics instead

    • Re:To be realistic... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by vjzuylen ( 91983 )

      The best war games are those where both armies were basically equal strength, and had to rely on tactics instead of raw power.

      Hear, hear. Even ignoring the issue of 'how soon is too soon?', Operation Iraqi Freedom was such an unbalanced war that any game based on it could hardly be called challenging - unless the challenge was derived from secondary objectives, such as keeping casualties to a minimum or remaining undetected.

      Either way, the bulk of the Iraqi forces consisted of ordinary men whose own liv

      • When we play games based on World War II, we already know the full outcome of the war, and we (well, most of us anyway) feel that this outcome is worth fighting for. That simply isn't the case yet with Iraq.

        How about wargames that allow you to play the German side? Does that make the game less tasteful?

        I don't know an answer but I like to play games that involve war and war involves shooting people. It doesn't get better after slapping on convenient semantics (the "Hey! It's okay! I only shoot German

      • I'll put that down as a "No Thanks."

        The skinnies even throw rocks at you, which do damage, and you're still not allowed to kill them. Well a lot of them. Of course the real challenge in that game is keeping the stupid computer squad members alive.
  • It really disturbs me to read all the comments made about this topic. Almost all of them are extremely biased, politically. The question posed by the article wasn't "How would you feel about games based on Operation: Iraqi Freedom", the question was when those games will be made, and so far, I've only seen two people even attempt an answer. I understand that many of you are against the war, and some of you are for it, but this isn't the forum to discuss whether the US forces killed more civilans than Saddam

    • I think a video game company, like all other media, has the ability (and some might argue, responsibility) to provide people with diversions from their own lives and focus on more universal concerns (even things like aliens invading, or killing demons). In this case, I would think it's almost unethical NOT to make a game based on the war. People seem to enjoy something about the war, whether protesting against it, advocating for it, or just watching it all unfold.

      But aren't you afraid that this war will

      • Actually, no I'm not "afraid that this war will be regarded as nothing more than a diversion from their own lives by people". In the long run, I don't feel that this war will have anything but a positive outcome for everyone involved. And yes, I've heard all the conspiracy theories about how the poor Iraqis are suffering at the hands of the evil corporation-led America, and I think that anyone that spouts such useless and mindless babble is nothing more than an instrument of their chosen political party. A
      • The real question is whether entertainment should have boundaries. Is a mass murder FPS acceptable? How about a rape simulator? Or a kiddie porn strategy game?

        Excepting the kiddie porn example - which I can't find a way to implement without running afoul of established laws regarding the depiction of minors in sexual situations - the answer to those questions comes by way of normal free market economics. People will buy things that they enjoy, and not buy things that offend them too deeply on a personal l
        • (Side note: one might argue that GTA is not based on actual recent events, and therefore not as morally repugnant. Even so, for many people outside the gaming hobby, this distinction will seem trivial.)

          What I'm trying to say is that - although free market economics might deem an Operation Iraqi Freedom game viable - the developers should still consider whether it is in good taste. My personal belief is that it isn't, but like you said, I won't buy something that offends me. However, the publishers should a
      • A short list of cool things that wouldn't exist without war.

        Godzilla
        The Death Star
        99 Luftballoons
        All First Person Shooters
        Time Life's Music of the 70's would be all disco were it not for war
        Any movie with Nazi's as villians
        Any spy movie
        Any movie that features nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons
        Any movie about the morality of war
        Any movie about the fraternal nature of men at war
        Any movie about people suffering injustly durning war
        The History Channel

        And if a game about the destruction of Saddam's regie
  • The american campaing is based on the invasion of bagdad.. atleast one of the missions (actually a multipart mission) where you rescue pow's shoot suicide bombers .. shoot angry mobs attacking.. snipers... all units on the terrorist faction. They make no reference to actuall iraqi troops/goverment but insinuate that the goverment/troops of iraq are the terroist faction.

    And if you din't like the "patriotic" ending to spiderman (spiderman swinging to the top of a building with an american flag on it) you wo
  • Realize that the video game business is pretty new. Only recently, relatively, have games been mature enough (technologically and theme-wise) to really handle wars. Sure, there were strategy games but those are abstract, and there was the odd Nintendo war game, but again, hardly immersive. Now, just in the past five years, we have incredibly realistic and immersive games, and they're using wars as themes - World War 2 primarily, but also a couple of Vietnam games and now a lot of Gulf War/Somalia games.
  • Any game based on the war in Iraq with any semblance of realism would be too easy to be fun for the American side. Bombing Baghdad with only scattered AAA and no air opposition? That'd be no fun.

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