Would Americans play a game in which the United States is the bad guy?

[Gorrath]

German here. Am I tired of the portrayal of my country? Not really, but...
Well, I have no problem with any games where the Nazis are evil, because they were. That is not misrepresentation. I understand why they pop up so much in media (clear and easily identifiable enemy), and I have no problem with historic or Sci-Fi settings with Nazis in them.
What I have a slight problem with is the connotation of Germany and Nazis without context that is sometimes found in media. This normally manifests as german = evil in some subtle or nor so subtle ways. In most Hollywood flicks, the bad guys drive german cars, for example. And while that is not particulary harmful (really, it is rather amusing when you start noticing it), there are worse cases out there. Like the ONE person in the whole Star Wars galaxy I ever heard speaking with a german accent: an evil scientist who delevolped a deadly virus, not out of necessity of war, but because he liked doing so appearantly. In a show marketed towards kids. Developing and using chemical weapons wasn't even a german thing historically, the japanese did that! ...Sorry, pet peeve.
Interestingly, another example comes from the japanese. In the Senran Kagura games, one of the characters has german names for her special move weapons. One of these is called "Wolfsschanze". This was the mountain fortress Hitler and his generals planned most of the second world war in once it had started. I get that this was probably not intentional and they just wanted cool sounding names, but that is another problem in and of itself: Don't use a word if you don't really now what it means. ...Sorry again, pet peeve number two. But yeah, I found this one instance in the game problematic, not the fact that you can dress various "underage" girls down to their underwear.

So in short, saying that the germans were Nazis once is not a big deal. Connotating Germany with Nazis even today, especially without context, rustles my jimmies.

The thing that would make America a great villain in a game is that not only would an invading american army pose an immediate threat, it would be believable. Maybe you remember some of the stunts CoD and Battlefield pulled to make America a dangered and wounded country in their games. None of that here. America invades, boom, you have a mighty big problem, no matter where on the globe you are. America would be another easy villain if it was used, because just like the Nazis, everyone can tell you why America would be dangerous and had to be stopped. They spend more money on their military than some other countries make, so of course they are going to be a threat.

If I may, as someone who is an American and who was born in and lived in Deutschland for a fair few years, we tend to think of modern Germans as being pretty awesome. To many Americans that I've known, Germans have a similar sort of national spirit as Americans and a great number of us are descended from German immigrants. Though we are a nation who has strong English roots, most of the country's land mass was settled by Germans. But that's just an overview of how many Americans feel about Deutschland on the whole.

As to media, I certainly get your gripes but I don't think the bad guy driving German cars is meant to be a shot at Germany. We tend to see German and Italian cars as both exotic and a sign of wealth, which is why the uber-rich mastermind bad guys always drive those. It's not that the car is German specifically. It says more about what we think about German made vehicles than it does about Germans themselves.

We really only connote modern Germans with Nazis in the rare case that we imply there might still be some Germans who support the ideology. While that's pretty far fetched with relation to the government certainly, it's also not entirely untrue. I was in more physical danger from the skinhead gangs in the area where I lived than I was the Turks, and I look German and have a German (based) last name.

OT: As others have pointed out, America is not rarely the bad guy in games but it is true that the protagonist is often American to make up for this. I'd be interested to play a game where I played as a foreign national fighting against an American PMC. I would probably be far less interested in a, "Kill the evil Americans because Americans are evil imperialists" simulator.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I thought Taskforce 141 was wiped out by Sheppard? I actually didnt know it was multinational (sans Soap and Price. Price was kinda drafted into the group and i figured Soap was in it because it was the only non-russian group going after makorov). Multiracial, sure, but i thought it was american.

Truth be told, I have no idea how big a company in the military is, all i know is that Sheppard's troops was called Shadow Company.

Nah, if I remember correctly it was soldiers drawn basically from the entire anglosphere. Videogame logic. As for the notion of company, well ... the exact numbers of what comprises a company vary depending on nation and branch, but the numbers you see/chew through during the jailbreak, the airport, and through the final level suggest nothing smaller than a battalion ... though, once again ... videogame logic.

 

[ManutheBloodedge]

I bet they don't. They live in a culture that teaches them since an early age that 'Murica is the best country and is never wrong and their soldiers are good guys.

I would play the heck out of such game, tho.

...*Cough*

Spoiler

http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/fallout/images/2/2a/Fallout2front.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20081229142345

A game where the main villain is the remnants of the US government, who kidnap the population of main character's village, the inhabitants of Vault 13, massacre a settlement of peaceful and intelligent Deathclaws, and want to kill all mutants. (Which to them is every single person that isn't them and people in Vaults) I don't recall anyone having a problem with this.

Well, to be fair, national identity looses some relevance after the nuclear apocalypse. I think what the OP meant where games in the style of Call of Duty from the viewpoint of a nation that faces America as an enemy. You know, fullfilling heroics while shooting american soilders en masse and ending the game with defeating Obama in his star-spangled bald-eagle mech. You have to admit, this kind of game is missing. If that is a good or bad thing is something everyone has to decide for themselves...

Does a game where you spend a good part of the game killing US Marines count? If so I think a have something.

Spoiler

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/fa/Half-Life_Cover_Art.jpg

Not really, no. For one thing, the Obama-Mech is missing. That thing is vital.
But really, just shooting american soldiers doesn't compare to the nebulous, evil, single-minded entity that the enemy country (mostly Russia and Germany) is portrayed as in some historical and modern shooters.
You are not shooting at US Marines in Half-Life because you disagree with them on an ideological level (apart from the fact that they want you dead and you disagree with that) or they invaded your country. The context is all different.

Really, most of the "America is evil"-plot revolves around some rouge part of the government or the government itself. America is not portrayed as a breeding ground for evil man with rifles. Which is a good thing, because that notion would be stupid. Problem is, it is not getting any less stupid when applied to other countries, real or fictional. Rather than treat the whole country of America as a villain, I would prefer the other countries in media be treated more like America in that regard.

 

[Palindromemordnilap_v1legacy]

I feel all the examples people are listing of games where it turns out some US higher-up was the real baddie all along, or it was all due to corruption in a subset of the US government or whatever probably shouldn't count unless the protagonist of that game is also non-American. Because otherwise you've still got the player character, a square-jawed clean-cut "real" American fixing all the mistakes of those nasty "fake" American who aren't in it for the freedom and liberty at all. Its more of a shades of grey thing than the black-and-white the OP is looking for.

Though speaking as a Brit, I'd have no problem with us being portrayed as the villains largely because we kind of were. The British Empire was one long era of us going round the world, using military supremacy, technological superiority or economic monopolies to basically stamp on everyone with our big shiny boots. Instead of a historical shooter set in WWII, set it during the Boer War and stop the Brits from annexing all of South Africa. Want something a bit more espionagy? How about the Opium Wars, try to stop 19th century equivalents to James Bond from sabotaging important Chinese defences and trade points. Tired of alternate history games taking the predictable route of "the Nazis winning WWII"? Here's one where the British Empire never lost a war and just kept growing and growing. Set something in the far future where we've starting building another Empire, only our monarchy has power again and also just happen to be Sith now or something.
If they were good enough games I'd enjoy the shit out of any of those

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

I bet they don't. They live in a culture that teaches them since an early age that 'Murica is the best country and is never wrong and their soldiers are good guys.

I would play the heck out of such game, tho.

oh wow, look at that yummy bait you threw out there! yum yum yum. Please, tell me more about the culture I grew up in, and how it's never wrong and we are always the good guys.


Oh wait, that's right, that's not how I grew up at all, thanks for using our piece of shit media as an excuse to make horrible assumptions about most of us. Most of us aren't this nationalistic "hur dur america is the greatest and never wrong!", and I'd greatly enjoy more games where the united states were the bad guys, there are plenty of conflicts where I think we are in the wrong, but there is nothing the majority of the public can do to stop that.

 

[ManutheBloodedge]

If I may, as someone who is an American and who was born in and lived in Deutschland for a fair few years, we tend to think of modern Germans as being pretty awesome. To many Americans that I've known, Germans have a similar sort of national spirit as Americans and a great number of us are descended from German immigrants. Though we are a nation who has strong English roots, most of the country's land mass was settled by Germans. But that's just an overview of how many Americans feel about Deutschland on the whole.

As to media, I certainly get your gripes but I don't think the bad guy driving German cars is meant to be a shot at Germany. We tend to see German and Italian cars as both exotic and a sign of wealth, which is why the uber-rich mastermind bad guys always drive those. It's not that the car is German specifically. It says more about what we think about German made vehicles than it does about Germans themselves.

We really only connote modern Germans with Nazis in the rare case that we imply there might still be some Germans who support the ideology. While that's pretty far fetched with relation to the government certainly, it's also not entirely untrue. I was in more physical danger from the skinhead gangs in the area where I lived than I was the Turks, and I look German and have a German (based) last name.

OT: As others have pointed out, America is not rarely the bad guy in games but it is true that the protagonist is often American to make up for this. I'd be interested to play a game where I played as a foreign national fighting against an American PMC. I would probably be far less interested in a, "Kill the evil Americans because Americans are evil imperialists" simulator.

Interesting point with the cars, but I would not say that it is the only factor. For another example, the whole "made in" malarchy where products had to have a notification on them stating where they were made started as a way to, among other things, stifle the german economy after WWII.

I don't mean to say that modern Germany has no problems with Nazis. However, I would disagree with the fact that the only connotation of Germany with Nazis is made in this context though. If it were like that, I would have no problem, but I refer you to the Star Wars: Clone Wars example I made earlier.

 

[Gorrath]

Interesting point with the cars, but I would not say that it is the only factor. For another example, the whole "made in" malarchy where products had to have a notification on them stating where they were made started as a way to, among other things, stifle the german economy after WWII.

I don't mean to say that modern Germany has no problems with Nazis. However, I would disagree with the fact that the only connotation of Germany with Nazis is made in this context though. If it were like that, I would have no problem, but I refer you to the Star Wars: Clone Wars example I made earlier.

That may have been part of the original purpose of the "made in" label, I can't speak to that, but I can say we tend to think of German cars as masterfully built machines. The general trend in the American psyche is that Germans are great engineers and scientists. Which leads me to your point about that German scientist in Star Wars. This isn't a Nazi reference specifically. It is derived more from the idea of Germans being especially competent scientists than it is a reference to the Nazi's specifically. This is why we see this character trope on both the good-guy and bad-guy sides in a lot of movies. Need an evil scientist? He or she will probably be German. Need a good scientist who's kind of wacky? Probably also German. Need a scientist who's a protagonist but ethically questionable? Name him Krieger. The trope of the competent/ brilliant German scientist/engineer certainly has some roots in the wonder weapons of WWII, but it's not really tied to that anymore and manifests in lots of different ways.

 

[DefunctTheory]

Spoiler: I've been told that American map usually looks like this

The United States is a big place, and education varies depending on State, but this is the map I was brought up with.

Spoiler

 

[MrFalconfly]

As a Dane, I'd just like Denmark to get noticed a bit more.

"Western Forces" are always US American with a smattering of British troops. Where's all the Germans, the French, the Dutch, the Danes, the Norwegians and so on?

 

[Specter Von Baren]

The inherent issue with creating a game, or rather just a story in general, with present America as the bad guys is that you have to get past one very important fact about America.

National identity.

As much as people like to talk about how we become hypocrites when push comes to shove in hard situations, us Americans really do believe in the idea of us being "the good guys". That's our national identity, its who we want to be, we want to be heroes in rights and war and being a great example. If you want to see a war where those ideas are in full display then read up on the Spanish-American war.

The American people do not want to be villains, we don't want to just go conquering nations for our own gain. Even in the cases where our government wants to get us involved somewhere for personal gain they still need to reconcile our national identity to the public in order to do so.

This makes it so the only way to make America as a nation a true villain in a story would be to drastically change our past or engineer some sort of radical change in our politics to the point that you're no longer actually making a story about current America being the bad guy but some sort of bizzaro America.

You can make Americans be the bad guys on a small scale, atrocities in a small village, a government cover up of assassinations and political intrigue, but you can't make a story that has America invading countries or the world to conquer, plunder, and destroy their enemies and still have it actually be current America unless the other countries were doing terrible things too.

Keep in mind that I'm not saying that America is the best thing ever, we have many faults, however, it's no lie that that is how we WANT to be.

 

[Jadedvet]

If the conflict has more nuance than the typical "We have the bomb; mua ha ha" US depicted in so many anime then yea, I wouldn't mind. Come to think of it, I've watched plenty of anime over the years with the US taking a villain role. My final opinion depended on the quality of the story overall.

The US would be a great opponent in some kind of war setting, as long as there is a believable reason us to be wrongfully stomping on someone. I'm not saying this is impossible or even difficult. I could easily see a misdirected US going after some innocent country or group - especially if something terrible has been done and blamed on that innocent party.

 

[MrFalconfly]

The inherent issue with creating a game, or rather just a story in general, with present America as the bad guys is that you have to get past one very important fact about America.

National identity.

As much as people like to talk about how we become hypocrites when push comes to shove in hard situations, us Americans really do believe in the idea of us being "the good guys". That's our national identity, its who we want to be, we want to be heroes in rights and war and being a great example. If you want to see a war where those ideas are in full display then read up on the Spanish-American war.

The American people do not want to be villains, we don't want to just go conquering nations for our own gain. Even in the cases where our government wants to get us involved somewhere for personal gain they still need to reconcile our national identity to the public in order to do so.

This makes it so the only way to make America as a nation a true villain in a story would be to drastically change our past or engineer some sort of radical change in our politics to the point that you're no longer actually making a story about current America being the bad guy but some sort of bizzaro America.

You can make Americans be the bad guys on a small scale, atrocities in a small village, a government cover up of assassinations and political intrigue, but you can't make a story that has America invading countries or the world to conquer, plunder, and destroy their enemies and still have it actually be current America unless the other countries were doing terrible things too.

Keep in mind that I'm not saying that America is the best thing ever, we have many faults, however, it's no lie that that is how we WANT to be.

How about this scenario to make the US the bad guys.

The US economy is in the drain (that is not a current observation, that's just a requisite for the scenario to work), and to get it going again the Senate (or Congress, I don't actually know who has the real power in the US, but it certainly isn't da Prez) need to find more oil they can claim.

They know there's oilfields under the Arctic sea, but unfortunately that territory belongs to the kingdom of Denmark.

So the US government makes up a story how the current regent of Denmark is a despotic royal (not true, at all just to make it clear), and badabing badaboom, there's your "righteous good-guy" motive for invading a benign country (which in this case is actually an ally of the US).

EDIT:
Or maybe we could forget about the oil, and just go with a fiercely uber-republican USA that wants to eradicate all "undemocratic royal families" (regardless of the wishes of the citizens in the respective countries).

 

[Veldel]

I bet they don't. They live in a culture that teaches them since an early age that 'Murica is the best country and is never wrong and their soldiers are good guys.

I would play the heck out of such game, tho.

I hope that's sarcasm because I don't believe any of that.


Yea I would and I have in the past and prob will in the future

 

[AT God]

I would really like to see a video game address the incredibly messed up drone situation. I know its a complicated issue but I do feel that video games are pretty good at presenting complicated things in simpler terms, for better or worse. It would be incredibly easy to miss the point so I am at least glad no one has tried and failed to address it so far. I don't think it would be something that could be accurately construed by a western writer, having someone affected by drone strikes would need to at least write and direct the game. A bit tangential to the point but if a game attempted to depict drone warfare from the perspective of the victims, like This War of Mine does for the more general aspect of war, there could be some excellence there. And I think at this point a game where a military uses drones unethically would be obviously in reference to the US.

As for other genres and things, while it is definitely rare, many games have the US as the bad guy, but there are major caveats to that. Spec Ops The Line was largely about the US doing bad things, and even some of the more prominent video games have featured Americans as the ultimate evil, its just never directly associated with the United States government being entirely evil. Which actually applies to the other countries as well. While Russians are often the bad guys in military shooters, its never the proper Russian government being stereotypically evil, they are usually being deceived or simply reacting to a threat, its always fictional mercenaries that are the ultimate bad guys. Outside of games based on actual wars like WW2 or Vietnam, games rarely blatantly state that the enemy is the true government of a nation. Regardless of who the big bad is, there are way more games that have you fighting grunts from Russia or China than grunts from the US or even any English speaking nation. That's something that would be nice to see, Spec Ops attempted to address that when you were fighting the 33rd but that game was too busy making a different point about war to really address them.

Oddly enough, since many of the Sandbox games take place in fictional US cities, if a virtual death toll was available for innocent civilians killed, it the USA would probably be the highest. Most GTA games and "GTA Clone" sandbox games take place in the US, but often in fictional cities. GTA, Saints Row, Mafia, True Crime, and Watch Dogs all took place in the US. The only GTA-esq game that wasn't in the US in the last decade or so was Sleeping Dogs to my knowledge. Far Cry and Assassins Creed are sandboxy and take place elsewhere but those games aren't really as popular as rampage simulators like GTA is. Its an interesting line of thought.

To answer the OP, as an American, I wouldn't be put off by a video game where it was clearly established the the US was the bad guy, however I think if a game came out that was about how the US Government was blatantly being evil and doing bad things, I can see that not going over well here because of how sensitive some parts of US culture is to any form of criticism, especially with regards to our behavior in war.

 

[Lightspeaker]

Do we ever see Britain or non-German Europe as the enemy?

Brits are routinely 'bad guys' in basically every form of media. Something to do with the accent I think.


Even when companies explicitly state they don't want to make the Brit's "baddies"...they basically do it (see Assassin's Creed 3's portrayal).

Not that I'm particularly against that. It keeps British actors in jobs.


As far as America goes...few game companies are going to take the risk of making Americans unambiguously the antagonists. It'll always be a rebel, or a traitor, or a secessionist; typically opposed by other 'true Americans'. Because to do so would be sales suicide. You'd get absolutely crucified by the US media and the backlash and boycott from particularly patriotic people in the US wouldn't be worth the effort of doing something different.

Far safer to just make a bland, brown-haired, chisel-jawed, 'true American' protagonist and sell well.

 

[Something Amyss]

From the OP I'm guessing they mean the US as a foreign enemy, rather than internal civil strife or the rogue general/merc/big business corporate asshole trope.

I'm not sure it'd make a huge difference, given the level of American paranoia revolves around the gummit being corrupt and untrustworthy.

 

[Qizx]

I'm neither German or Russian, but I'm always annoyed that Germans in WWII area usually called nazis. Newsflash, most of them weren't.

Wow, nice to seem someone else care about that. I gave up that battle a long time ago. I am just happy if no one is called a Nazi TODAY without reason.

Ehhh,
as a German living in America I have been called a nazi before. Granted it was in highschool and highschool children aren't the best to measure things with.

 

[COMaestro]

All I want is a good story. If they make a good story where America is the bad guy and you are fighting against it, then I'd be all for it.