Serious Business: Red Cross offended by videogame War Crimes.

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Here's a good question, why would it be a bad thing for the Red Cross to do this? Most of the article makes it sound like their course of action is going to be to advise developers on how they could incorporate international law into their games. It would mean that many games would become more realistic. I can't believe that everybody is bickering and moaning because these guys think games should incorporate the rules by which war is waged. I think that more games following these rules could be pretty cool.

Edit: Enforcing games to follow this through law would be bad and that is not what I am advocating and it is not necessarily what the Red Cross is advocating.

It's more realistic that there are people breaking these humanitarian laws because...well look around at the world.

It would also be more realistic if games even acknowledged they existed. Believe it or not, this is my real main issue with the Modern Warfare franchise, which's plot would not function if it didn't happen in some magical world where the Geneva conventions do not exist.

I see what you're getting at. It's not that people couldn't break these laws in game. It's having your character punished if they do so. The game America's Army is probably as close to that as you're going to get.

Exactly. Most games are made without even acknowledging the rules by which war is waged, and that is just plain stupid. Games have the capacity to say something very impacting about our society, and it would be a great thing if they did.

 

[Headdrivehardscrew]

http://kotaku.com/5863817/war-crimes-in-video-games-draw-red-cross-scrutiny

So... yeah. I'm at a loss of words right now.
I mean, for fucks sake. The Red Cross? At least they seem to be practicing tact on this and not stepping on the toes of gamers. But it is rather insulting to the medium as a whole, especially to the work of developers.

So escapists, what exactly do you think about this whole thing?

The red cross started out with a proper good idea, but seeing as the battlefield reality clearly works against the red cross/blood moon/star of david/thingamabob must be a really harsh lesson in futility. Seeing as they seem to walk into Al-Shabab-controlled hellholes, get shoved around, extradited and taken as hostages, I really must wonder what their grasp on reality is.

If I was with them, I'd be frustrated, and I'd probably pay some marketing guru where we could make an impact without actually risking getting shot, raped or turned into meat soup. Otherwise, I just can't come up with a good idea why they would care about things they clearly have very little experience with.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

Can someone answer me the question, how far books and film are restriced by that stuff?
How can you pick up "hot topics" and show flaws in human nature if you've to be political correct in everything you do?
Where's the controversy in that? It would simply mean, that games would immediatly stagnate and could only picture what would be "socially acceptable" or some bollocks.

I agree though, the usually "Hurr we US, you bad russian, boomboom" is kinda disrespectful and maybe developpers should put more consideration when choosin' which faction shoots which in the buttocks.

None of what you just said has anything to do with what is being talked about here. No medium is currently being restricted by laws telling them that they have to talk about the Geneva conventions if they mention war, and the Red Cross isn't necessarily advocating that. The Geneva conventions have nothing to do with being "politically correct," they are international laws regarding war and military interactions. Incorporating them wouldn't mean American game developers can't make games about the US fighting Russia, because the Geneva conventions never say, "The United States of America is not allowed to go to war with Russia" (I forget the official name of the country).

 

[Manji187]

I have to go with the Red Cross on this one. You cannot look at modern war games without thinking about how tasteless it is.

Tasteless, sure. But where is the ICRC coming from with this one?

Perhaps they believe future soldiers will be inclined to breach international humanitarian law because it was absent in the videogames they played as children/ adolescents? That would be rather disingenuous. Nobody in their right mind would take a game as an accurate portrayal of reality.

Also, state militaries use military manuals/ rules of engagement that to a great extent reflect international humanitarian law. There is just no way that a gamer-turned-soldier would be allowed to come to the conclusion, for instance, that it is perfectly okay to shoot unarmed civilians.

EDIT: I would be more concerned if the USAF would start recruiting gamers to remotely operate Predator/ Reaper drones over Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

 

[owen4evr]

Haters gonna hate.
Still have much love for the red cross though.

 

[NickCaligo42]

... It's a game. Geneva conventions don't really have a place in it. DIGITAL CONSTRUCTS do not have rights, feelings, and are not in fact people. I'd like to say I get where they're coming from with this, trying to promote awareness and whatnot, and I'd be more than happy to see a military game achieve that level of authenticity, but that hardly seems like the entertainment industry's ironclad responsibility.

 

[sifffffff]

I was playing Rainbow Six Vegas 2 with two Marines who were stationed in Iraq and one dude was filling me in on all the different ways I was violating the Geneva convention. You can kill somebody in combat but you cannot return to shoot their body.

 

[Kathinka]

as much as i hate blind video game bashing, they bring up an interesting point.

modern games normalize and trivialize war crimes, and many teenagers keep seeing those games thinking "woaaa...cool!" and whatever. especially in the USA, where violation of international and humatarian law in their wars is already more or less accepted by the public, and any criticism is considered anti-american or unpatriotic, this could worsen the problem of desensibilitating the general public to war crimes.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

...It's a videogame, none of it is real.
Regulating videogames in this way would be like regulating dreams. (Getting sent to jail for having a dream where you infringe on these humanitarian laws.)
Bits of data are not animal or plant, they're not self aware and they're not alive.
They're definitely not human, so humanitarian law shouldn't apply.

Exactly this. If videogame crimes are going to become crimes against humanity, they should count dreams too.

...

I'm going to be executed for my dream crimes.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

...It's a videogame, none of it is real.
Regulating videogames in this way would be like regulating dreams. (Getting sent to jail for having a dream where you infringe on these humanitarian laws.)
Bits of data are not animal or plant, they're not self aware and they're not alive.
They're definitely not human, so humanitarian law shouldn't apply.

Exactly this. If videogame crimes are going to become crimes against humanity, they should count dreams too.

...

I'm going to be executed for my dream crimes.

If video games are outlawed, only outlaws would have video games!

 

[Exterminas]

These people realize that the geneva convention only applies to real wars, right?

I mean, what is next? Do they step up to kids playing cowboys and indians (sorry, native americans!) and see if they execute their prisoners?

 

[Sjakie]

They want to censor war depicted in videogames..wth? How retarded is that?

I think they should do the opposite: make wargames more shocking, best way to breed more awareness of what kind of horrible shit really goes on during wartime.
We dont have those 16 and 18+ ratings for nothing.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

...It's a videogame, none of it is real.
Regulating videogames in this way would be like regulating dreams. (Getting sent to jail for having a dream where you infringe on these humanitarian laws.)
Bits of data are not animal or plant, they're not self aware and they're not alive.
They're definitely not human, so humanitarian law shouldn't apply.

That's not what they want. They want the Geneva conventions to exist within the worlds of the games and they do not necessarily want to enforce that by law.

 

[NastoK]

It's funny because just yesterday on Skyrim I walked into an imperial camp, I killed everyone and found a tent for the wounded in the back, at first I was like "hmm, should I?", then I realised it was a video game and blew them all to pieces.

Sacrebleu, that's exactly what I did yesterday! Didn't happen to be a Stormcloak camp located somewhere near Whiterun, a tad up towards High Hrothgar (when not walking the 7000 steps)? Because that would be scary weird.

OT: I don't pay much attention to whatnots such as this, as long as it didn't actually affect the games industry.

 

[Tohuvabohu]

I'd argue that the interactivity could be a part of it, but it should also be acknowledged that films and books do at least seem to follow such laws more often. Those that don't are generally brainless summer blockbuster types, and even some of those still mention international law (I believe Iron Man mentioned the Geneva convention or something of that sort). I really can't think of an occasion where a game has dealt with the subject material though. Some would even have some huge plot holes in them if they so much as acknowledged the existence of these laws, such as the Modern Warfare franchise.

Well, the complete ignorance of the geneva conventions just seems to be evidence that developers want as much violence as possible. It's actually kinda funny that Modern Warfare can fall apart entirely if you try to put the Geneva Conventions into it.

But.. Even some of the superpowers just don't follow geneva themselves too. But maybe we should ignore that.

Then again, I don't think Call of Duty: Slobodan Milosevic would be as successful.

The interactivity just means that the ideas of the Geneva conventions can be better shown.

Yes, they can be better shown. And perhaps, they even should be. A competent dev with care in a product could produce something potentially strong if the Red Cross was there to not only ensure events in the game adhere to Geneva, but also help in presenting humanitarian issues they see for themselves on a real world basis.

A game could get a lot of positive attention if the Red Cross assisted in such a manner, and could perhaps even bring profound meaning and context to the tired old War game genre. I wish they chose that kind of approach instead.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

They want to censor war depicted in videogames..wth? How retarded is that?

I think they should do the opposite: make wargames more shocking, best way to breed more awareness of what kind of horrible shit really goes on during wartime.
We dont have those 16 and 18+ ratings for nothing.

They do not want to censor war in video games. They want the Geneva conventions to exist in video games, since most games do not acknowledge them. These people are not dumb enough to think that people never break the Geneva conventions, they just want games to actually mention them. They also are not necessarily advocating a law to enforce this, they simply said it was an option.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

They want to censor war depicted in videogames..wth? How retarded is that?

I think they should do the opposite: make wargames more shocking, best way to breed more awareness of what kind of horrible shit really goes on during wartime.
We dont have those 16 and 18+ ratings for nothing.

They do not want to censor war in video games. They want the Geneva conventions to exist in video games, since most games do not acknowledge them. These people are not dumb enough to think that people never break the Geneva conventions, they just want games to actually mention them. They also are not necessarily advocating a law to enforce this, they simply said it was an option.

And that's a productive use of time and a realistic goal... how?

 

[SnakeoilSage]

At the very least these games should provide Achievements for following the Geneva Convention.

Humanitarian! - Don't Kill Any Wounded, Surrendering, or Non-Combatant NPC's. Also, no Genital Torture.

 

[ckam]

I'm sure characters from other mediums such as films and books don't get this crap even though they ignore the Geneva Convention, too.