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

[Captain Marvelous_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.

Pfft. The self hate in the good old US of A is ridiculous.

OT: I'd play it as long as the game doesn't humanize the enemy.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

I'm an American in that I was born here and can't afford to travel out for a short amount of time, let alone permanently...and anyway, yes I would absolutely love to play a game in which the US is the enemy! It would be a great change to finally fight against an insane American collective that finally went full on Dolores Umbridge.

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.

This is very true...I've pissed off a bunch of teachers by refusing to "stand for the pledge" [sub](I'm sure you already know but if you don't, every morning before classes start from Kindergarten up through the final year of school...pre-college, students are REQUIRED to stand, place their right hands on their hearts and pledge their allegiance to the flag via monotone chant)[/sub]. Anyway, That could easily be a neat hook of the narrative. Every time you have to go through a loading screen you see American newspapers talking about you and/or your forces and how smelly and evil you are with small puff-pieces in the margins about how great American things are and how people caught watching Soccor are being detained, etc...

 

[Ihateregistering1]

Uh, we've already had plenty of games like this.

-Basically any Red Alert game (since you can play campaigns as the Soviets, Japanese, or Yuri, and America and it's allies are 'the villain").

-Prototype 1 and 2: You spend most of the game fighting the US Military.

-Half-life: See Prototype.

-Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction: See Prototype.

-Spec Ops: The Line.

-Any Fallout game where the Enclave is the villain.

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.

Ouch!! Sorry, I cut myself on your edginess.

 

[M0rp43vs]

As someone else mentioned it, Bioshock: Infinite was a prime example of America gone wrong; enabling it to be the antagonist towards the player.

Like someone mentioned earlier, I'd argue that doesn't count because they broke off from the US and were trying to build massive zepellins to firebomb the US. Also, it's less America is the bad guy and more "racism and blind extremism" are the badguys.

OT: I would love to see it but not for any political or "those Silly americans" reason. I used to watch and read up on experimental US warfare and thought "Wow, imagine going up against that". I would LOVE a alternate universe where America tries to take over the world (either humanise them by making them think they're doing the right thing or don't and go full cartoon) and the other countries try to stop them. America is very nationalistic and full of neat weapons, they would make the best "empire" to go against the rebel "underdogs".

 

[Sean Renaud]

Sorry didn't read the entire thread so I'll say a few things.

First, assuming the game was good I'd play a game where America (specifically America. Given that Romero makes it pretty clear that Zombies are a critique on commercialism I think a case could be made that all zombie flicks are vs Americans) is the bad guy.

Second, yes there have been a few games where non-German Europe has been the bad guys. Lets temporarily ignore that Russia is generally considered part of Europe geography be damned. There are games set in the Revolutionary War. Hell isn't Assassin's Creed III or IV set smack dab in the Revolution?

 

[Elfgore]

If you're looking for people to say no, you're most likely coming to the wrong site. Most Americans here don't seem like the uber patriot type.

No complaints on my end here. Don't really care what group the villain belongs with, so long as they're well written or interesting.

 

[Dalisclock]

Having just seen an article on the front page for the game 'All Walls Must Fall', I read the description and thought, "Ugh, yet another 'Murkia & Friends vs Soviet Nazis' game."

-snip-

weren't the US government technically the supporting the villains in Infamous Second Son with their Bio-terrorist lock up camp and anti-bioterrorist organisation funding?

Also wasn't Britain the villain in part in Assassins creed 3. Also I thought the British and Spanish were villains in part in Assassins Creed Black Flag too as they were the two main navy's trying to combat pirates.

I'm assuming you're also ruling out merely the villain being British themselves here.

In Black Flag: Freedom Cry, you spend most of the game fighting the French(French Slavers and Slaver-owners in particular) in order to liberate slaves.

Though now you mention AC, The ACIII DLC, the Madness of King Washington, has you fighting the Evil US Army under Dictator In Chief King George Washington with magical native american powers. Though, it's such a fantasy that I can see why it doesn't count.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

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.

By now I'm sure your inbox is straining under the weight of replies. I'll try to be less cutting and sarcastic here.

How I grew up, how I was taught wasn't indoctrination on how America is the best. We were taught that we chafed under monarchistic rule, decided to experiment with a form of government that was more or less unheard of. Taught also was that our way of life isn't to blindly follow our leaders but rather we're supposed to question their actions and words. Freedom of the press, freedom of speech are ideals that are the heart and soul of this country. Discourse and sharing of the ideas in a public forum are part of our way of life. In recent years I do feel those ideals are being swept aside amongst rhetoric and such.
I do love my country, I don't like the people who run it. I love what we're supposed to stand for but not necessarily the image we show right now. I know we do wrong (as I also know there are no countries on this planet without dirty laundry, past and present). We're not perfect, no one country is. Despite the crap flung at us, we are a nation of good hearts. Very charitable as a people.
I also know a lot of soldiers, and like all humans they're mostly good folks and some really shitty ones. Blanket judgments like the one you tossed out is a narrow minded attack that shows you lack any frame of reference beyond what the media sources tell you. I've never been to Europe, Asia or Africa so I couldn't tell you what any of those various places are like nor what the individual countries in those continents are like, nor how each of those countries' people think. Please don't tell me how all Americans think and how our culture raised us. Its not even insulting, not to me but rather you're insulting your own intelligence.

 

[chadachada123]

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

I think it does, there's a difference between the gubmint tekin away mah freedomz and portraying the United States as a whole as a the foreign aggressor.

I'd argue that most Americans, at least under 35 or so, view the Vietnam war as both a failure and unjustified to begin with. I could easily see a Vietnam war game from the perspective of the commies being critically and even financially successful in the US, so long as it doesn't try to paint the commies as total saints. Plenty of them were truly evil bastards, but they were evil bastards defending their homeland from foreign invasion.

Even if, and I don't believe so, but even if (edit: American gamers) had a problem with the US being the aggressor in some conflict, there's plenty of creative ways to make the US the enemy without making the US "the bad guys". Hell, just doing an inverse of CoD MW2's false flag attack (to convince Russia to declare war on the US) could be reason enough for the US to invade some country based on misinformation. Moral grey everywhere, and something that would entice many normal gamers.

Remember, soccer moms aren't part of the potential audience to begin with, and so shouldn't be included when discussing whether "Americans" would play such a game.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I'd argue that most Americans, at least under 35 or so, view the Vietnam war as both a failure and unjustified to begin with. I could easily see a Vietnam war game from the perspective of the commies being critically and even financially successful in the US, so long as it doesn't try to paint the commies as total saints. Plenty of them were truly evil bastards, but they were evil bastards defending their homeland from foreign invasion.

I don't know. Plenty of Americans also make the assumption that the Vietnam war would have been won if they just stuck at it for another 4 years. Which of course leaves a bad taste in one's mouth of; What exactly would you win? While some Americans I've met have said the war was unjustified, I haven't met many that would make the argument that it was pointless.

The North won... and within a decade Vietnam became one of the tiger economies. It was literally: "Victory! Bring on the martinis! Kind of tired of being a revolutionary." The reason families like North Korea's Kim dynasty become entrenched fixtures of political circles, is because you entrench soldiers pointing guns at people for years on end.

 

[Veylon]

The North won... and within a decade Vietnam became one of the tiger economies. It was literally: "Victory! Bring on the martinis! Kind of tired of being a revolutionary."

From what I understand, there was a fair bit amount of slaughter, enslavement, and destitution in between "victory" and "tiger economy". Things were not nice in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the country was, in fact, one of the poorest in the world.

I guess the US could've hoped to win in the sense the that Korean War was won: keep the South a going concern until the North accepted an armistice and then keep a few military bases around for the foreseeable future. Of course, the problem was that American strategy didn't involve actually taking the fight to the North (as was done in Korea), so there was no real incentive for the Communists to come to the bargaining table. They could - and did - simply wait things out. Sticking things out for a few more years using the same strategy wouldn't have accomplished anything.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

From what I understand, there was a fair bit amount of slaughter, enslavement, and destitution in between "victory" and "tiger economy". Things were not nice in the aftermath of the Vietnam War and the country was, in fact, one of the poorest in the world.

I guess the US could've hoped to win in the sense the that Korean War was won: keep the South a going concern until the North accepted an armistice and then keep a few military bases around for the foreseeable future. Of course, the problem was that American strategy didn't involve actually taking the fight to the North (as was done in Korea), so there was no real incentive for the Communists to come to the bargaining table. They could - and did - simply wait things out. Sticking things out for a few more years using the same strategy wouldn't have accomplished anything.

Casualties suffered by peasants on both sides of the divide, were at their highest rates during US occupation. Between the years 1945 - 1975, 7 million peasants died at the hands of foreign occupiers. Not to mention the longterm health effects caused by water contamination with defoliants, use of land mines, and strategic use of napalm over civilian targets.

(Edit) If you destroy such a broad segment of a nation, there is going to be harsh conditions rebuilding a nation. Your 'slavery' I assume you're talking about work camps and prison labour... of which the official deathtoll were met by the deaths from the use of landmines... nothing compared to the 3 million post war casualties caused by chemical warfare alone.

Vietnam itself couldn't afford 4 more years of fighting, and the effects far more worse in the attempt of rebuilding. Which would have been impossible anything North of Saigon.

 

[Level 7 Dragon]

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.

The thing is - no peoples want to perseve themselves as the "bad guys". This is why people don't want to discuss repression and segregation, as vital a topic this may be.

As a russian dude planning on joining the military, it's difficult to see waves of people infamiliar uniforms be used as cannon fodder.

After all, evil is just a matter of perspective. And to doubt oneself in ones actions is to exist. Dubito, er cognito, er sum.

Imagine playing a game as a native american who is attempting to halt the US westward expantion., only to be cut down by plague and superior technology. Yeah, that would be scary.

 

[Amaror]

As a German, no, I don't have any particular problem with nazis always being depicted as the bad guys. They were the bad guys, after all. It's a bit silly that games like these always make it out to be like every german soldier in WW2 was a hardcore nazi that ate babies for lunch, when most of them were just soldiers fighting for their country, but that's just what happens when games want to make people feel good for killing other people.
In fact what pisses me of way more is when american actors try to say things in german in american tv-shows. I never have any clue what they are talking about, because what they are saying is generally just mumbo-jumbo, not german. I have no problem if they want to make a joke about silly-sounding other languages, even if the language is german, but then at least properly pronounce those words. Don't make them sound silly artificially by just butchering the language.
It's actually one of the reasons why I was so impressed by "Shutter Island" since Leo speaks truly flawless german in that movie. Seriously it's perfect, without even the hint of an accent.

 

[CrystalShadow]

While I can't think of any examples of the UK as a nation being the villain, it is quite common for a British character in games (and media in general) to be evil, particularly those that speak with a posh, upper class British accent.

All the Imperial officers in Star Wars?

There's actually a more mundane explanation for that.

Lucas had a lot of British actors and an almost entirely British crew working on A New Hope, possibly because this appealed to his sense of independent filmmaking. This also meant the movie was subject to British union rules, which at the time stated there had to be a minimum number of speaking parts for British actors, so a lot were cast as Imperial officers. A lot of minor rebels parts were actually played by British actors too, but were latter overdubbed by American actors.

The franchise as a whole also has a lot of characters with UK accents on the good side too, like Obi-Wan (Alec Guinness & Ewan McGregor), C-3PO (Antony Daniels), Qui-Gon (Liam Neeson), Mon Mothma (ehm, drawin a blank) and rey (Daisy Ridley). So Star Wars doesn't entirely conform to the Evil Brit trope.

Darth Vader was british as well. (The guy in the suit, not the voice actor, obviously).
So yeah, I can see that there were a lot of British cast members, huh.

Anyway, on topic, I wouldn't care. I doubt you'd see it happen, especially in a mainstream game, but still...
A game where America is the bad guy? Sure.
I don't exactly have a particularly positive opinion of America (or it's foreign policy/military behaviour in particular) as it is, so I seriously wouldn't care.

But then, I'm not American anyway, so... Eh.

On a more relevant point (to me), I wouldn't much care if it was one of the countries that have more personal meaning to my identity was the villain either.
I've seen a few Anime where that definitely appeared to be the case (Brittanian empire? Sounds about right).
Actually, that reminds me of Read Or Die all of a sudden - America isn't the bad guy there, but they are shown to be laughably incompetent, and trigger happy as well (with seriously detrimental consequences)
It's kind of weird to think of the mentality the creators of various series might have - The hero in Read Or Die is Japanese - Unsurprisingly, though the main villain is as well, but the organisation she works for is British. Making the british the heroes, Some weird organisation full of historical figures (but led by the clone of a japanese poet) the villains...
And... Going out of it's way to make fun of America... (The president wets himself. Enough said. XD)

Uhh... Where was I?

Yeah, I don't care about anyone framing America as the villain, nor any other country, including ones I have more of a direct connection with.

But somehow I don't see it as especially likely that such games would be made. At least, not by a mainstream dev, and particularly not by a mainstream American dev...

 

[Dr. Thrax]

-Basically any Red Alert game (since you can play campaigns as the Soviets, Japanese, or Yuri, and America and it's allies are 'the villain").

Eeehhh, I'm kinda hesitant to include the Red Alert games here, because, among other reasons, the canon has the Allies snatching victory from near defeat.

Each of the opposing factions (The Soviets, Yuri, and the Empire of the Rising Sun) all have their own plans for world domination, and the Allies are your enemy just for the fact that they don't want you to take over the world. The Soviets want to stomp out capitalism, Yuri wanted to mind control the entire world, and the Empire of the Rising Sun wanted to bring the world under the leadership of Emperor Yoshiro (AKA: George Takei, the internet's uncle.) To that end, they're not really "The Bad Guy" like the OP is looking for.

It's a shame that the Allied campaign is the canon storyline, I would have liked to see what would happen if, say, the Empire of the Rising Sun successfully defeated both the Allies and the Soviets in RA3 and how that would have played out in the RA3 expansion.

But in the RA series, the Allies were not the first to strike, the other factions launched the first attacks, and the Allies just reacted accordingly. The other faction's campaigns were more akin to you being able to play as The Bad Guys and take down The Good Guys.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

[quote="chadachada123"

 

[CeeBod]

Most of my favorite WW2 games involve being able to play as Germany, taking on the allies: From a purely gameplay point of view - you get lots of cool toys, you start off powerful and aggressive against leaden-footed enemies, and then the challenge starts ramping up as the Allies get their shit together, eventually resulting in being massively outgunned and with a Herculean challenge for the endgame. That's a narrative that fits really well with gameplay.

Fighting the USA in whatever capacity today could maybe give a similar game, but it might be hard to give the same gentle, noob friendly start without overly stretching credibility.

In terms of "Would I be upset to see my country be the bad guys?" - I literally don't understand the mindset of anyone being troubled by this. I'm currently playing a campaign of Distant Worlds:Universe where my empire are crushing the puny humans and committing genocide against them across multiple star systems. Humans, English, American, the guys wearing Dark Blue - what difference does it make how your enemy's pixels are presented, when it isn't actually real? p

 

[Elijin]

My first instinct is to echo the sentiment that there are plenty of those.

Almost every one America is the bad guy against itself or its clandestine operations and corruption of varying levels.

I feel like the topic is asking for more of a war game where the USA is the agitator in an unjust war. With the soldiers being puppy kicking monsters and the folks back home being aware of the war without any lies and actively sending them more puppies. A game where the USA is unambiguously the bad guys in the scenario without any attempt at passing it off as unamerican, corrupt military leaders or any other cop out. A fiction where the "American way" is an insult not an ideal.

To which I say.......eh. I see it being more trouble than its worth to any producer because it would be rejected fiction accompanied with negative media attention and accusations of being intentionally inflammatory and a controversy akin to something like hatred.

Anime sometimes paints scenarios of the next year style future this way. Almost like they have sort of historical beef with American military action.

 

[Dreph]

Anime sometimes paints scenarios of the next year style future this way. Almost like they have sort of historical beef with American military action.

My world view is completely shattered! I thought Akira was story about how drug use is bad, Godzilla was just the Japanese being afraid of sea lizards, and Gate... Yeah I got nothing for Gate. America is pretty unambiguously "not nice" in that and I can't come up with anything there to misinterpret.

OT: Honestly as an american it would be pretty refreshing, but I think Elijin covered the huge media backlash that would follow. Fox News would have a field day. I can already see the headlines, "Video Games are Anti-American Propaganda".