Blog FeedWar (Games). What are they Good for? Absolutely Nothing.
The title of the article is overly dramatic, and has probably been used before to boot.
Also, it isn’t a very accurate title. I’m not referring to all war games across all genres. The games I’m referring to are the historically-themed First-Person Shooters that have been choking the video game market for years.
One doesn’t have to look too far or too long to find examples of the games I’m talking about: the “Medal of Honor” series; the “Call of Duty” series; the “Battlefield: X” series, just to name a few. Make no mistake, I do not have a problem with any of these games in terms of their actual gameplay. My problem is with their content.
Each of the game series listed above have had World War II as their backdrop. At least one of those games has ventured into the territory of using Vietnam, and most of them have moved on to a more “modern” version of simulated warfare. While I’m not aware of any game that takes place during the “War on Terror,” I’m sure such a game is only a few years off down the road. However, some of these games are starting feature the Middle East as a prominent theater of war.
“So, what’s the problem?” you might ask. The problem, not to be too cliche, is that war is not a game. Millions of people died in World War II alone, and without sounding like a bleeding-heart liberal, what right do we have to be entertained by their sacrifice? Or, too pull it out a bit more: what right does a company like Electronic Arts have to make a profit out of World War II?
The products of the companies who make these kinds of games are built, either directly or indirectly, on the graves of humanity. Consider the atrocities that happened during World War II: the Holocaust, obviously; 25 million Russian Serfs sent under-armed to their doom; the fire-bombing of Dresden; and the release of atomic weapons in the skies of Japan. Next, consider the atrocities of World War I: the Armenian Genocide; Trench Warfare; chemical warfare. What about Vietnam? Witness: the My Lai Massacre; Agent Orange; the secret bombings of Cambodia; the exaggeration of the attack on the American Navy vessel that started our involvement in that morass. Stop me when I hit on something worth doing for shits-and-giggles.
While I can see the appeal in a theoretical game about shoving pineapples up the asses of Nazi War Criminals, I’m not so sure about the rest of them. Scratch that, I can see the appeal in World War II games. As one ornery video game commentator recently pointed out, World War II was the last war where the sides of (mostly) good and (very) evil lined up neatly opposite one another to have at it. However, even that description overly white-washes the conflict as not all Germans, Italians, and Japanese were War Criminals, and by the same token not all Allied Generals were saints.
Still though, where’s the entertainment? Where are the games that can put me in the boots of a World War I French Soldier suffering from Trench Foot? Where are the games that let me control fifteen or thirty soldiers crossing “No Man’s Land” hoping one or two make it to the other side to be cut in half by machine gun nests? Where are the games that let me wander through dense jungle, hoping I don’t step on a land mine or fall into a pit of sharpened bamboo sticks? Where’s the game that let’s me not salute a commanding officer, lest he be sniped? Where’s the game that let’s me come home from an unpopular war, having risked my life and seen my friends’ lives end, only to be spat on?
Again, stop me when this starts sounding like a good time.
Content aside, I have another problem with these kinds of games: people play them. All kinds of people play them. Young, old, man, woman, you name it, these games are popular. I suppose that if a game is good enough, it should be played by a lot of people. However, how many of those people playing these games are war veterans? How many of these players have served a Tour of Duty, anywhere, at anytime?
Millions of people play these games. Millions of people choose to simulate being in a war, a real war that actually happened or a close approximation of the war we are currently in, for entertainment. I have an idea: why not instead sign up for the military at your local recruitment station?
You want to know what it’s like to be shot at, or to shoot off rockets, or to race humvees, or to watch your friends die, or to hold your own organs in your own hands, you don’t need a video game for that, Uncle Sam just needs you.
There are millions of men and women all around the world who volunteer to serve their country, whichever that country may be, and put their lives on the line daily for that service. There are many millions more who stay at home and for a few hours a day or week pretend to be those brave men and women.
I don’t have a problem with members of the armed forces playing these games. I have a problem with the pretenders to the throne.
24th November | Reply
World War II, like the cowboys and Indians before them is not something that can be dealt with as strictly a historical event. It has become part of the Cultural mythology of America. Videogames aren’t based on WWII the historical event they’re based on WWII the John Wayne movie about it–the comic book version.
And furthermore this whole Experience it for real argument is completely full of shit. Hey you know instead of playing a fun video game let’s go turn my life over to the Army because instead of having fun playing Brothers in Arms I want to die for no good reason in a desert. Theese comparisons for what you could be doing in real life are always so wildly apples to oranges that it really doesn’t have any bearing on the discussion.
As to the question of what harm is being done you make the contention that it somehow demeans the difficulties of real soldiers. I don’t really find that convincing and even so that generation celebrated the annihilation of millions of indigineous cultures in the Western which was the preeminent film genre. Back then the Wild West was a cultural touchstone that everyone wanted to identify with as the “simpler time” regardless of the historical truths of the matter and decades after WWII began the cycle started hitting on that because WWII was a transcendent event that everyone knows about and seems like a simpler time when we knew who the good guys and the bad guys were.
24th November | Reply
Well, I never mentioned anything about the “Wild West” though now that you have brought it up, I have similar problems with it. Just because something is part of the “cultural mythology” doesn’t necessarily mean it needs to be propagated for all-time.
Regardless of the World War II issue, you haven’t mentioned anything about the other wars I brought up. The only World War I game I can think of required a complete fictionalization of the event, postulating that it never ended and taking place in the 1960s. There are maybe two Vietnam games I can think of, and they didn’t do very well. So, I can’t be too far off in saying that World War II is the only war people have “fun” playing in.
Finally, I don’t really see it as an “apples to oranges” comparison. I wonder how many parents who buy these games for their kids were Vietnam protesters or draft dodgers. I wonder how many teenage and twenty-somethings who went out and bought Call of Duty 4 protest the “War on Terror.” I wonder at the disconnect between reality and fantasy where on the one hand people denounce war and on the other turn to it for entertainment.
That’s my problem with these games and I don’t think a strict “apples-to-apples” comparison is adequate for that kind of discussion.
24th November | Reply
World War I isn’t going to be dramatized like WWII because frankly it’s boring and most people couldn’t tell you exactly what World War I was fought over and it lacks the dramatic flair of the second World War. I mean who would stick in the public’s imagination more….Adolph Hitler and Winston Churchill or David Lloyd George and Clemanceau?
Vietnam on the other hand is the war you can still make people angry over. And it kind of looked like the publishers would turn to Vietnam for a while in 2004, till all the Vietnam games turned out to be terrible save for Battlefield Vietnam. When four were scheduled for release within a short period a lot of magazines were proclaiming how the move from WWII to Vietnam was good to go. If Purple Haze or Men of Courage had sold like WWII games then they probably would have been pumped out.
There is another war that has been game’d to death albeit not in the form of mainstream FPS titles. Any person who plays turn based historical war games has seen so much of the Civil and Napoleonic Wars that they can recount the details of Shiloh, Waterloo, Gettysburg and Austerlitz practically rote. Those battles don’t really suit the First person shooter treatment but the Second World War just has that certain mainstream thing.
Finally I don’t see any disconnect between protesting the war in Iraq which I think was wrong for reasons x, y and z and playing Call of Duty and approving of war in the abstract under the most strained of conditions.
24th November | Reply
Your first two paragraphs basically make my point for me.
Yeah, you’re right, World War I isn’t very entertaining. It certainly lacks the “flair” of a World War II. I mean, we didn’t have tank warfare down pat and the nascent air forces, outside the Red Baron, weren’t very interesting. World War I is what it was: a brutal, terrible conflict brought on by a conflagration of military buildup, alliances, complex political dealings, and sparked by the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. Obviously something your or I would know, but not necessarily the rest of the game-playing population.
Insofar as Vietnam is concerned, yeah, I remember those Vietnam games coming out and I remember reading the reviews with “Battlefield: Vietnam” being the best of the bunch. However, its popularity seemed short-lived and I think a game that lets you ride into battle on a helicopter playing CCR’s “Fortunate Son” is missing the irony.
But you’re also right, Vietnam is a war that you can still get people angry over. Which is probably the same logic behind not having a game based on the “War on Terror” just yet. Call of Duty 4 gets around that by having a conflict involving the old-standby villain, the Russians, allied with the enemy du jour: the Arabs. The conflict is, of course, fictionalized, but the enemies and weapons are certainly analogous, if not identical, to their real-life counter-parts.
As to your last point, I never said anything about protesting the war in Iraq. I’m referring to everyone who denounces war, any war, not just what’s going on now. I just find it interesting that some people can be absolutely against war in the specific, yet turn to it in the abstract as entertainment.
So, back to the beginning, you’re making my point for me. War is, generally, not entertaining and I have a problem with companies creating visceral simulations of real-life wars for the entertainment of the masses.
29th November | Reply
Does this mean you also have a problem with films about war?
30th November | Reply
In Reply to #5:
I was wondering if someone was going to bring that up.
My thoughts on the movies are a bit more complicated and I might be parsing my position too finely to avoid charges of hypocrisy, but I’ll try.
The last war movie I watched was “Saving Private Ryan.” I watched it on the Fourth of July and I didn’t really think of it as entertainment. I was watching it as a reminder of what war is like and how it affects the people trapped in its current.
There isn’t anything really “fun” about “Saving Private Ryan.” The opening scenes on Omaha Beach with hundreds of soldiers being cut down by machine gun fire don’t elicit feelings of joy. The story of Private Ryan being the last of his brothers to survive the war isn’t uplifting. Seeing many of the characters you grow to like be used as sniper bait or be slowly stabbed, bleed to death, or being destroyed by a tank isn’t a fun experience.
While Spielberg and everyone else associated with the movie surely made money, the film seemed respectful of both the situation and the people involved.
I don’t get the same impression from the games. Death has no finality in a game, therefore, it has no meaning. That, to me, is the main difference between war games and war movies.
The other difference is I play games to have fun. If I’m going to see a war movie, it isn’t because I want to have a good time in the same way I expect from a game.
2nd December | Reply
So, let me get this straight - you don’t like video games based on war, because “war is not a game”? In that case you shouldn’t like any type of shooter game, because in reality shooting enemies is “not a game” either. And that can be said for a lot of other game types out there as well.
A game that is based off an actual event doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be turned into a game. The game doesn’t disrespect the event or people in it. Sure, a developer can disrespect the event, but in the games you mentioned that doesn’t happen (or in any war game for that matter).
You can’t make the comparison that people who actually fought in WWI/WWII/Vietnam don’t play these games, for the simple fact that video games are not part of their generation. There are several people I knew in high school that are now over in the Middle East, serving their country. One is a good friend of mine who I keep in contact with. In their off time they will play video games. Their favorite being war-based games. I actually picked up CoD4 because my buddy over in Iraq recommended it to me.
Are these people upset that a game was created based on the war their fighting? No. Do they feel disrespected? No. Are you the only person who feels this way? Probably.
2nd December | Reply
In Reply to #7:
Either I didn’t make my position clear enough, or you had trouble understanding my article.
I state specifically, that I have a problem with FPS games based on real wars, not on war games or FPS games generally. If you were going to attack my position, you might have been better served by questioning why I don’t have a problem with RTS games based on historic wars instead.
Furthermore, I didn’t: “make the comparison that people who actually fought in WWI/WWII/Vietnam don’t play these games” anywhere in my article. I said that those are the only people who I don’t have a problem with playing those games.
Finally, you’re probably right, I’m sure I am the only person who feels this way.
17th December | Reply
I completely respect your opinion but I do have to ask a question: have you ever thought that historical war games serve for more than just entertainment? There are some games out that that depict what happened in history very well and that helps today’s youth, and anyone else for that matter, learn a little more about history, granted that which is learned may be small. Another point which can be debated, but not overlooked, is what positive aspects war games, and many other video games, offer. The art of strategy, reaction, and some hand-eye coordination are contributed to from these games.
A point that I noticed in your original argument stated that it is wrong for a company such as Electronic Arts to profit off the deaths of thousand of soldiers, but you can’t look past the fact that numerous companies profited directly off WWII. Are you to say that this is wrong too? You must remember that war in general can have some positive effects; an example can easily be seen as the great depression ended due to a large contribution from WWII.
You write a convincing argument but I feel it is too easy to attack.
18th December | Reply
In Reply to #9:
I must confess, I did, rather purposefully, build something of a straw-man here. I do back each of my points fully, though I drew them out to more of an extreme than I normally would, hoping to incite some real debate.
Ever since the first “Age of Empires” game by Microsoft, I have thought of the potential for video games as education tools. Not merely the “edutainment” brands of software, but mass-market based games. I don’t know if you’ve ever played the game, but before each mission, the load screen contained a number of historical facts related to the two sides engaged in conflict on that particular map.
Now, I wouldn’t want to site those games on any paper or even necessarily in college, but what if the games were certified? What if a publisher had a historian on-hand to provide verifiable facts? The game wouldn’t have to be didactic but something simple like providing facts on the load screen would certainly add value to the product.
As to the specific point about these war games, sure, they could be educational. However, if that were the case, I think a lot of players would be miffed about certain facts. What if you could have, for the sake of argument, ten thousand players on one map of Normandy. Each player is on one of the landing ships and each gets one life. Now, to teach people about how brutal the Normandy invasion was, I’d say at least fifty percent of the players would be killed seconds after the doors drop and the “game” starts. Another percent would die running up to the bunkers and machine-gun nests, and so on. It could be a very “Saving Private Ryan” moment. A real lesson in what it means to fight a war, harsh though it may be.
The positive effects of war games that you mention, I don’t really consider being very positive. Sure, you could train people in strategy, that, I believe, is one of the main points of the United States Army developing their own video game/recruitment tool. Now, while I do agree that video game do increase hand-eye coordination, if you’ve ever fired a gun, the movements involve are not quite analogous to playing with thumbsticks or a mouse and keyboard. So, those benefits are probably negligible, assuming you think training civilians to be killers is a good thing. Finally, I’m not sure how valuable playing a game is in regards to reaction time, when the full effects of having bullets whiz by your head and mortar rounds quaking the earth around you cannot accurately be simulated in today’s games.
Speaking to your last points, I don’t think I’m too far outside of the mainstream when I say that, yes, I do think it is wrong that many companies profited from World War II. Sure, the rapid industrialization necessary to fight World War II ended the Great Depression, but what started the Great Depression in the first place? A Stock Market inflated by a number of questionable practices. I don’t remember all of the reasons, but the example that still sticks out in my mind from high school was of the Empire State Building being built on a foundation of match sticks. Not too far off from the situation the market is facing today, though that’s neither here nor there.
I suppose it is acceptable that in a capitalist society, companies that were directly responsible for producing necessary war materiel were able to turn a profit off of it. However, that’s not a situation I’d like to see repeated too often as it is, to say the least, troublesome. Perhaps you are aware of President Eisenhower’s warnings against the vast military-industrial complex built up to fight the communists. Getting back to EA, I do have a problem with a company trading on the lives of millions of people for entertainment. When the WWII vets were trying to collect money for a national monument, maybe EA could have blunted some of my criticism by offering a large donation from the games based on that very conflict. Maybe they did, I haven’t looked into it all that deeply, but I’d be very surprised if they did, and would issue an apology here on Aelon. Not that they would necessarily care one way or another.
Finally, to your larger point about war having beneficial affects…I mostly disagree. Sure, World War II was probably necessary. I’d be hard-pressed to find a rational human being willing to say Hitler and the Nazis should have been left unopposed. However, World War II was the direct outgrowth of a conflict that didn’t really need to happen, obviously, World War I. War is rarely a good thing and largely represents a catastrophic failure in the governments perpetuating it.
I do agree with you. I’ve certainly created an argument that is easily attacked from a number of vectors. However, and this may be my pride in authorship, but I have yet to face an attack capable of dealing a fatal blow to my hypothesis.