Do you like games related to war? Don't do that shit IRL or you'll be a war criminal!
41 replies, posted
[release]Video games depicting war have come under fire for flouting laws governing armed conflicts.
Human rights groups played various games to see if any broke humanitarian laws that govern what is a war crime.
The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings.
It said game makers should work harder to remind players about the real world limits on their actions.
War without limits
The study was carried out by two Swiss human rights organisations - Trial and Pro Juventute. Staff played the games in the presence of lawyers skilled in the interpretation of humanitarian laws.
Twenty games were scrutinised to see if the conflicts they portrayed and what players can do in the virtual theatres of war were subject to the same limits as in the real world.
"The practically complete absence of rules or sanctions is... astonishing," said the study.
Army of Two, Call of Duty 5, Far Cry 2 and Conflict Desert Storm were among the games examined.
The games were analysed to see "whether certain scenes and acts committed by players would constitute violations of international law if they were real, rather than virtual".
The group chose games, rather than films, because of their interactivity.
"Thus," said the report, "the line between the virtual and real experience becomes blurred and the game becomes a simulation of real life situations on the battlefield."
The testers looked for violations of the Geneva Conventions and its Additional Protocols which cover war should be waged.
In particular, the testers looked for how combatants who surrendered were treated, what happened to citizens caught up in war zones and whether damage to buildings was proportionate.
Some games did punish the killing of civilians and reward strategies that tried to limit the damage the conflict, said the study.
However, it said, many others allowed "protected objects" such as churches and mosques to be attacked; some depicted interrogations that involved torture or degradation and a few permitted summary executions.
The authors acknowledged that the project was hard because it was not clear from many of the games the scale of the conflict being depicted. This made it hard to definitively determine which humanitarian laws should be enforced.
It also said that the games were so complex that it was hard to be confident that its testers had seen all possible violations or, in games in which they found none, that no violations were possible.
It noted that, even though most players would never become real world combatants, the games could influence what people believe war is like and how soldiers conduct themselves in the real world.
It said games were sending an "erroneous" message that conflicts were waged without limits or that anything was acceptable in counter-terrorism operations.
"This is especially problematic in view of today's reality," said the study.
In particular, it said, few games it studied reflected the fact that those who "violate international humanitarian law end up as war criminals, not as winners".
The authors said they did not wish to make games less violent, instead, they wrote: "[We] call upon game producers to consequently and creatively incorporate rules of international humanitarian law and human rights into their games."
John Walker, one of the writers on the Rock, Paper, Shotgun games blog, said: "Games really are treated in a peculiar way."
He doubted that anyone would campaign for books to follow humanitarian laws or for James Bond to be denounced for machine gunning his way through a super villain's underground complex.
He said the authors did not understand that gamers can distinguish between fantasy and reality.
Said Mr Walker: "For all those who mowed down citizens in Modern Warfare 2's controversial airport level, I have the sneaking suspicion that not a great deal of them think this is lawful, nor appropriate, behaviour."
Jim Rossignol, who also writes on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, said there was scope to mix real world rules of war into games.
"Whether or not the rules of war are included in the game should be based entirely on whether that improves the experience for the player," he said.
Mr Rossignol said there was plenty of evidence that gaming violence is "fully processed" as fantasy by gamers. Studies of soldiers on the front line in Iraq showed that being a gamer did not desensitise them to what they witnessed.
He added: "Perhaps what this research demonstrates is that the researchers misunderstand what games are, and how they are treated, intellectually, by the people who play them."
[/release]
[url="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8373794.stm"]Source[/url]
[quote]GAMES TESTED
24, The Game:
[B]Considering the series has torture scenes anyway I consider this a little biased.[/B]
Army of Two
Battlefield Bad Company:
[B]The whole premise of the game is to make it more enjoyable by blowing the shit out of stuff. Any normal person obviously wouldn't act like that IRL. [/B]
Brothers in Arms - Hell's Highway
Call of Duty 4:
Al-Asad was a prick,no exeptions.
Call of Duty 5:
[B]Oh come on BBC, we all know Activision can't count thus it's CoD:WaW[/B]
Close Combat: First to Fight
Conflict Desert Storm
Far Cry 2:
[B]I highly doubt the rogue soldiers/rebels you shoot give a fuck about the rules of war.[/B]
World in Conflict
Frontlines: Fuel of War
Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter:
[B]The mexicans destoyed half the shit.[/B]
Hour of Victory:
[B]Why would they even touch that piece of shit? WHY?[/B]
Medal of Honour Airborne:
[B]It's the war.Kill or be killed.[/B]
Metal Gear Solid:
[B]PMC's led by evil owners follow rules? Surely they must![/B]
Soldier of Fortune:
[B]Really? They though this was a fair choice? Even when it's blatantly marketed as a brash game? Everyone who has plated the SoF series know's it's OTT.[/B]
Tom Clancy Rainbow 6 Vegas:
[B]See point below, sentance 2. Irena would have fucking shot you if she had the chance.[/B]
Tom Clancy Splinter Cell Double Agent:
[B]Well you are kinda meant to be a agent infiltrating a terrorist cell.You really think terrorists give a flying fuck about the Geneva convention?[/B]
True Crime Streets of LA:
[B]Because this is totally based on a war.[/B]
[/quote]
I love the nuggets of zing at the end of the article. People need to stop treating gamers like idiots, thinking they can't distinguish a game from reality. Most gamers recognise that developers know about the Rules of War ect. They just place gameplay over it. I don't for a second believe the army goes blowing walls away because they can't be bothered with the door and at no point in Bad Company did i think "Shit, what could be the concequences of pummeling this house to shit with my tank?" i just did it and it was fun, which is why i play games.To have fun, not get caught up in the miles of red tape surrounding wars these days.
You are hurt, get to cover!
snip
No shit sherlock.
Remember kids, when you join the army, you can drive tanks and fly helicopters and kill terrorists with nukes and swords just like in the vidya games!
Adults are so afraid of children tying real life and video games together, yet adults tie video games to real life more than children do. In a video game, I'm going to destroy a city because it's a god damn virtual world that doesn't matter. That doesn't mean I'm going to go around blowing up peoples houses in reality.
This is exactly why I think they should stop selling "The Sims" games until they fully realize and implement building permit regulations.
We already have a thread for this news story, this is a few days late man.
I hope they don't start banning books about war too. :gonk:
Why would they pick games where [b]YOU ARE MEANT TO FUCK AS MUCH ENEMIES UP AS POSSIBLE[/b] (Far Cry 2, Army of 2) instead of picking a game depicting realism. (Modern Warfare 2)
Solder of Fortune was awesome.. It still has a semi active MP demo. If can you call 4-5 servers with more than 12 people semi active, that is.
[editline]12:22AM[/editline]
[QUOTE=Spork-Juct;18535911]Why would they pick games where [b]YOU ARE MEANT TO FUCK AS MUCH ENEMIES UP AS POSSIBLE[/b] (Far Cry 2, Army of 2) instead of picking a game depicting realism. (Modern Warfare 2)[/QUOTE]
cause codmw2 is cool lol donth8 or discimin8
To horribly try and defend Call of Duty: WaW the Geneva Conventions were done in 1949, in fact why the hell should I defend it? If you can't tell the difference between a game and the real world you're just pathetic really.
Just around 25 more years until the tech savvy begin to take over...
25 long... irreversible years...
Or much sooner, hopefully
Fuck they're going to take away my Pokemon games because I'll start throwing colorful balls at animals
"Conflict Desert Storm" lmao that game was fucking awesome
Also if a kid imitated Splinter Cell and successfully broke into a terrorist cell and got information from them I don't see how that's bad.
I'm all for human rights, but come on, this makes :foxnews: look intelligent.
In command and conquer you use napalm D:
:munch:
Your not a war criminal if you win...
Especially during CSS Jailbreak.
If i were to play games with prisoners in a jail and kill the ones i didnt like i'd probably be given the death penalty.
[QUOTE=Spork-Juct;18535911]Why would they pick games where [b]YOU ARE MEANT TO FUCK AS MUCH ENEMIES UP AS POSSIBLE[/b] (Far Cry 2, Army of 2) instead of picking a game depicting realism. (Modern Warfare 2)[/QUOTE]
modern warfare 2: most realistic game [b]EVUR[/b]
[QUOTE=Spork-Juct;18535911]Why would they pick games where [b]YOU ARE MEANT TO FUCK AS MUCH ENEMIES UP AS POSSIBLE[/b] (Far Cry 2, Army of 2) instead of picking a game depicting realism. (Modern Warfare 2)[/QUOTE]
surely you jest
But they didn't test ArmA 2 or America's Army 3.
I wonder what they would say if they tested Garry's Mod.
[QUOTE=Root Beer;18541596]But they didn't test ArmA 2 or America's Army 3.[/QUOTE]
What I thought of right away.
[QUOTE=Spork-Juct;18535911]Why would they pick games where [b]YOU ARE MEANT TO FUCK AS MUCH ENEMIES UP AS POSSIBLE[/b] (Far Cry 2, Army of 2) instead of picking a game depicting realism. (Modern Warfare 2)[/QUOTE]
Modern Warfare 2 shows the "good guys" committing torture. (Or, it implies it before the garage door shuts)
Which is probably pretty realistic.
Hahahahahh! I actually laughed while i readed that, ahaha oh wow. Can't belive how stupid they keep us (gamers) "can't distinguish between fantasy and reality." Yeah well supose i could be drinking beer on the city at night or something that my fellow classmated do instead, yes that's good for my brain. Morons they wasted to much time to this for nothing. Oh no that wounded german is shooting at you and you're aren't allowed to kill him!
[QUOTE=Angua;18545542]Hahahahahh! I actually laughed while i readed that, ahaha oh wow. Can't belive how stupid they keep us (gamers) "can't distinguish between fantasy and reality." Yeah well supose i could be drinking beer on the city at night or something that my fellow classmated do instead, yes that's good for my brain. Morons they wasted to much time to this for nothing. Oh no that wounded german is shooting at you and you're aren't allowed to kill him![/QUOTE]
this is exactly why they assume gamers are all morons
people like you in overwhelming numbers
Army of Two and Farcry 2? You play as mercenaries. They are not subject to these laws. Nor are they protected by them.
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