Red Cross wants gamers [virtually] jailed for war crimes in realistic war games

http://www.dailytech.com/Red+Cross+Wants+Punishments+for+War+Crimes+in+Realistic+Video+Games/article33514.htm

Red Cross wants gamers jailed for war crimes in realistic war games. Is it April 1? I am destined for jail then. I shoot to wound and burn men alive in Far Cry 2, see you there.

neubejiita said:

I shoot to wound and burn men alive in Far Cry 2, see you there.

As long as you don't used banned weapons such as NBC WMDs or Dum-Dum bullets, you should be alright.

Apparently -almost- anything that "merely" burns, explodes, pierces, penetrates, dismembers, guts, cuts and slices is A-OK with all current Laws Of War conventions. As a rule of thumb: if it sets things ablaze, explodes or uses pieces of metal* to maim you, it's A-OK.

* The only exceptions are incendiary/explosive/expanding munition but only if fired from small firearms as direct anti-personnel bullets, e.g. in theory you can't shoot uncovered infantry with soft lead or dum-dum bullets, nor with explosive rounds if fired from an assault rifle. But it's OK if you mortar-bomb the shit out of them, or bake them alive with white phosphorous bombs, or if you use soft lead pellets in a land mine or a large-caliber canister shot round.

Hey! How about you actually read the article you've linked before to start jumping to dumb conclusions about (of all people for fucks sake) The Red Cross:

International Committee of the Red Cross
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wants realistic war games to imitate the real thing by employing virtual consequences for war crimes like torture during interrogation, attacks on medical units, and deliberate attacks on civilians.

Isn't that a reasonable request by people who deal first hand with the horrible effects of Modern Warfare regularly? That's all they're doing you know: Making a request. Not lobbying your fucking government or organizing boycotts, they're saying "hey can't help but notice a bit chunk of modern media is glorifying the fuck out of warfare! Seeing as video games are as close as a lot of people get to war noways, we feel that some of the import factors that our organization are involved with are being ignored or glossed over. Maybe that should be looked at?"

Holy Christ gamers are awful.

Captain Red said:

Isn't that a reasonable request by people who deal first hand with the horrible effects of Modern Warfare regularly?

It isn't just a reasonable request, it's a great idea. I've always wanted to see more realistic choice and consequence in video games, rather than the current "do something horrible and get a free from jail card to go with it!" We need games where you can do both very good and absolutely terrible things and then be faced with consequences of those actions as you would in real life.

Jodwin said:

We need games where you can do both very good and absolutely terrible things and then be faced with consequences of those actions as you would in real life.

Are you sure they would really agree to model e.g. the USAs impunity/non-recognition of the Hague's International Court? Or the selective application of "Laws of War" according to opportunistic geopolitics (e.g. Syria)? Even assuming that realistic politics were implemented, that would end up sending all kinds of wrong messages for the wrong reasons.

Otherwise, there already is the simplified concept of What the Hell, player, where if you break some special rules of perform some particular "free will" acitons, you get your ass handed to you. But especially war crimes is subject to heavy and underhanded politics, in real life, far from being a divine absolute form of justice.

Maes said:

Are you sure they would really agree to model e.g. the USAs impunity/non-recognition of the Hague's International Court? Or the selective application of "Laws of War" according to opportunistic geopolitics (e.g. Syria)? Even assuming that realistic politics were implemented, that would end up sending all kinds of wrong messages for the wrong reasons.

Like the part in Command & Conquer where Nod makes up some propaganda vids showing GDI guys burning African villages and then the UN takes your funding away. Meanwhile you get your CO replaced while the regular one goes to the UN and tries to get funding back. Cue two or three levels of repairing old hardware and desperately trying not to shoot civilian NPCs. Done as a plot device like that, it as pretty fun. :D

neubejiita said:

Red Cross wants gamers jailed for war crimes in realistic war games.

And about time too. If you let those young sociopaths get away with virtual war crimes it's only a matter of time before they're massacring women and children in some third world conflict. A bit of court enforced downtime for thought crimes should do them good, and as part of their rehabilitation they shouldn't be allowed to play anything more realistic than Super 3D Noah's Ark.

I almost started flipping out when I saw this, and then I read the article, and I completely 180'd. I was almost stupid enough to jump to the conclusion that the Red Cross actually wanted gamers jailed due to seeing your (heavily) misinformed conclusion that obviously hadn't been made without even so much as taking a peek at the article.

In short:

lol i'm just repeating Captain Red but with more euphemisms lol

Jodwin said:

It isn't just a reasonable request, it's a great idea. I've always wanted to see more realistic choice and consequence in video games, rather than the current "do something horrible and get a free from jail card to go with it!" We need games where you can do both very good and absolutely terrible things and then be faced with consequences of those actions as you would in real life.

So I launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike on that two-faced fuckerhater of freedom Ghandi in Civilization, big deal. Sue me and I'll invade your country too. And rename your captured capital to Buttville.

E: spelling

dew said:

So I launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike on that two-faced fuckerhater of freedom Ghandi in Civilization, big deal. Sue me and I'll invade your country too. And rename your captured capital to Buttville.

E: spelling

Heh, I remember one game of CivV where I had the most powerful economy in the world, and Sweden which was the lowest scoring civ asked me for most of my current goal. I told them no and next turn they and their allies all denounced me and the turn after they declared war.

Of course, they all ended up losing despite a 5v1 situation because that game has absolutely terrible tactical AI. :P

Spec Ops: The Line did a good job making you feel horrible for doing what would be routine in most military shooters.

I agree with the Red Cross in this one. It's a great idea.

We need games where you can do both very good and absolutely terrible things and then be faced with consequences of those actions as you would in real life.

Games like that are out there. They just don't get any press, because as it turns out most people don't find realistic depictions of war that much fun.

Couldn't link to any example offhand, but I recall a WW2 game that was about being a German soldier standing guard from his watchpost. I remember seeing plenty of games on the topic, and seeing those games dropping off the map after the first passing mention on a website, if any.

About the only games that seem to get away with it are those making a demagogic political statement in line with what their target playerbase is already thinking; i.e. Papers Please or Cart Life play the whole "little guy victimized and powerless against an inhumane system bigger than he is, aww shucks" card, and seemingly got decent commercial success.

But actual realistic consequences for your actions? As Maes put it, things get a lot murkier than the simple black and white rationalizations people are willing to live with.

Edit: come to think of it, I'm missing the most obvious example. Many older MMOs had full PVP enabled, harsh penalties for death and little if any overseeing from omnipotent GMs. As a result, you saw community policing, rules and punishments built from the ground up, real consequences for being a dickwad. Some games even had jails.

Player retention was abysmal in those games. Note I'm not saying player *population*, which you could blame on most people lacking an Internet connection at the time, but player *retention*, the number of people who kept playing the game after trying it out. Cue in the Themepark MMO, which to an extent started with the original EQ, the whole Holy Trinity and raids deal, and went on with WoW, and numbers exploded.

Implying war crimes are ever enforced on the western world.

Phml said:

Games like that are out there. They just don't get any press, because as it turns out most people don't find realistic depictions of war that much fun.

Well, I was not talking about war crimes alone. There are a lot of things - both good and bad - that you can do in video games, and you very rarely get either rewarded or punished for your actions in a realistic fashion.

For one topical example it's outlandish that in GTA or SR you can massacre tens of people and then just escape the cops and hide until you're clear, only to go back and do it again. Or when you die you just come back with a little less money. Give me a GTA game where death means death and being jailed means that you'll be sent to some ridiculously tightly locked up correctional facility and you'll have play from there.

Or give me a medieval RPG with some fantasy elements, where casting spells in a peasant village will get you burned for witchcraft (assuming you fail your escape, of course). Or sure, make a Vietnam war FPS where as the American hero, if you so choose, you can rape and massacre innocent civilians and get away with it because MURRRCA. It's happened, thus having it in your game is realistic. Show that stuff in games rather being one giant pussy who's scared of pissing off their audience.

I do wonder what GTA would be like if it emphasized the horror of what you're actually doing rather then setting it in wacky parallel parody land. Have love ones weep over the recently slain, media coverage comparable to how actual atrocities are covered, the psychological effects on the player character. ect

I'm not sure it'd be a game I'd want to be comfortable playing.

Captain Red said:

I'm not sure it'd be a game I'd want to be comfortable playing.

I'm pretty sure no one should be comfortable playing that...which is also why it needs to be done (IMO). I have nothing against the fictional massacre than you can do in GTA and others, but as a media games need those serious, strong counter points that film and literature already have. Besides, as an interactive media games could be even more effective since you could give player the choice over whether they want to be evil or not. Spec Ops: The Line might be the closest we've had, but even that waters it down by being a purely linear game where you have little choice over the atrocities that you, as the player, do.

For the love of God...

Jodwin said:

It's happened, thus having it in your game is realistic.

There's your killer: such a game would cause such an amount of angry, vitriolic backlash by revisionists, convervatists, veterans, jarheads, lobbyists etc. (even officially by the DoD) or anyone else with a different political belief or level of tolerance about the facts (or "facts"), that it probably wouldn't be worth it for the developers.

For that matter, games such as KZ Manager could be considered realistic, but nonetheless demeaning and offensive to certain groups (hint: the Jews).

There are countless of controversial topics to draw game scenario insipirations from, but there's a reason why most draw the line at depicting war as a heroic action movie where the player is as detached from his enemies as Chuck Norris was in Delta Force, and don't dare delve in to the more unpleasant, politically and emotionally charged aspects.

PETA gonna hate Super Mario.

Anyway the jailing gamers is one of those 'good luck enforcing it.' Maybe having characters jailed for war crimes is okay. Plus most of the wars are fictional.

This is such a retarded and misleading thread. Like Red said, read the article.

how many millions they have to throw into jail?

I think it's a brilliant idea. I'm not saying all games need to be like that, but to have a game that enforces the rules of war would be interesting. We have games that deal realistically with injuries, why not other aspects of war? Sure, you can go play Call of Duty wherein hiding behind a wall for five seconds heals all bullet wounds, but there are other games wherein one or two shots and you're dead no matter what.

geekmarine said:

We have games that deal realistically with injuries, why not other aspects of war?

How about :

• CoD: Collateral Damage MaXX
  
• CoD Kosovo edition: Ethnic Cleansing
  
• CoD Bosnia & Herzegovina edition: Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
  
• CoD Syria: False Flag Ops
  
• CoD Operation Condor: Plausible Deniability
  
• CoD Iraq: Democracy Edition
  
• CoD WW I: The Ghastly Trenches (where most of the things you'll be killing will be rats)
  
• CoD Khmer Rouge edition: the Killing Fields
  
• CoD Greece 1976: in the dungeons of the ESA (secret police torturers)
  
• CoD Greece 1944: Smash Them Commies!
  
• CoD Guantanamo edition: try not to talk
  

etc.

This has the potential of becoming WAY too politically inflammatory, so I don't think any company will risk portraying war as anything other than a glorified and yet somehow politically neutered version of itself, and with enemies being the current acceptable targets, or entirely imaginary enemies ("terrorists" and generic "evil mastermind" criminal organizations work just right).

The only "real" wars that seem "acceptable" to portray in games are those of eras long gone (antiquity, middle ages etc.) and WW II (WW I is less interesting, for some reason), but then again only SOME aspects of them, especially since the Cold War is now over. Now, try making a game where you play e.g. as the Japanese and invade China in WW II and you get to torture and rape civilians...see how "well" that will go down.

Jodwin said:

I'm pretty sure no one should be comfortable playing that...which is also why it needs to be done (IMO). I have nothing against the fictional massacre than you can do in GTA and others, but as a media games need those serious, strong counter points that film and literature already have. Besides, as an interactive media games could be even more effective since you could give player the choice over whether they want to be evil or not.

Grand Theft Auto VI: Allahu Akbar!

Shoot twenty people within first six minutes of game play.

Police shutdown city and declare martial law.

Police find you hiding in basement they broke into without warrant.

Jailed indefinitely without hearing.


Somehow I think realism may not be for Grand Theft Auto.

Maes said:

Now, try making a game where you play e.g. as the Japanese and invade China in WW II and you get to torture and rape civilians...see how "well" that will go down.

That would be grand! We can reenact how America let the people of 731 go unpunished in exchange for all their medical date.

I dunno, I'm all down for a Vietnam game where your CO orders you to torch a village of civilians and you're given the choice... do you follow your orders, or turn on your CO? What happens then? Honestly there are some interesting storytelling possibilities in that.

Maes said:

This has the potential of becoming WAY too politically inflammatory, so I don't think any company will risk portraying war as anything other than a glorified and yet somehow politically neutered version of itself, and with enemies being the current acceptable targets, or entirely imaginary enemies ("terrorists" and generic "evil mastermind" criminal organizations work just right).

It's as if this stuff hasn't been discussed in any other media. Why the fuck should games be left out?

Is this a quid quo pro? I'll sit around bored while my character rots for war crimes if that means Doom can have real medkits again.

Also lol at an organization that thrives from violence to tell others not to part take in simulations of it.

Jodwin said:

It's as if this stuff hasn't been discussed in any other media. Why the fuck should games be left out?

Yeah, but if you notice, most films that take a critical stance towards such historically delicate periods (or anti-war films in general) tend not to be great box-office successes, especially if they are about a war that consumers of the most powerful nation (AKA: the USA) don't give a rat's ass about.

They'd take WW II, Vietnam and even Operation Condor anyday before Russia's or Japan's strifes, and even classics like Full Metal Jacket, Born On The 4th Of July etc. don't go down well with a sizable portion of the USA's population.

Let's face it...you can't make a game about WW II Japan and hope to attract players WITHOUT giving them the option to play as a brainwashed pillager that believes he's superior to the Chinese you'll be killing. You can somehow "lighten up" the tone by playing as the Chinese Resistance or something...but still no, too far away a story from the Western mainstream, and too easy to offend the Head Hancho at the moment (China).

Future CoDs and Battlefields: day one DLC "the military court pack".

It would be hilarious if a game would force you to sit in court for the rest of the game, instead of continuing the actual campaign.

Maes said:

Yeah, but if you notice, most films that take a critical stance towards such historically delicate periods (or anti-war films in general) tend not to be great box-office successes, especially if they are about a war that consumers of the most powerful nation (AKA: the USA) don't give a rat's ass about.

And that is an issue because...? Not every game that's being made today is a smashing hit with millions of copies sold either.