Opting Out of Playing the Bad Guys

[Capt. Harlock]

An entertaining but also thoughtful take on the issue of video games with Nazis or Terrorists:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCj8lly ... L2Rlqme4pQ

Especially valid is the point that a game needs to *be* historically accurate if the defense is that you have to have Nazis (or others on the wrong side of history) to be historically accurate.

[rico21]

I totally agree to play only the winners.
Who knows when will come the next games with the Chinese army?[:D]

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: rico21

Who knows when will come the next games with the Chinese army?[:D]

Total War: THREE KINGDOMS was released just recently on 23.5.2019 and ROMANCE OF THE THREE KINGDOMS XIV is coming soon. I'm sure Chinese have made few more, and I guess many (most?) of them haven't been translated. Did this forum have a visitor from China few years ago who told something about Chinese war games?

[Lobster]

This video is such a piece propaganda it's not even attempting to hide it. [8|]

It's telling you that you can't play an Axis soldier in any WW2 game because it:

a) makes you a Nazi

or

2) makes you a Nazi supporter. No not THAT kind of supporter.

So throw out all of your WW2 war games because they all have Nazi or Nazi supporter elements. Someday they'll come for you if you don't throw these games away. [X(]

[RangerJoe]

I was taught to do terrible things to protect those that I love. Does that make me a bad guy?

If so, become a hippie then visit ISIS and other terrorists.

[demyansk]

The media and kooks out there have gone insane. Luckily, we have two oceans in between us.

[Gilmer]

I think we may have already had a thread about this and that it was locked already, as well. I may be wrong, though.

[RangerJoe]

I think that there was a similar thread that went awry.

How about a war game where the good guys fight the good guys . . .

[operating]

Can't wait to see the thinking of a certain group of people when they find out the Chinese have a history of being slave owners.

Slavery in China has taken various forms throughout history. Slavery was reportedly abolished as a legally recognized institution, including in a 1909 law fully enacted in 1910, although the practice continued until at least 1949.

[Kuokkanen]

ORIGINAL: Lobster

So throw out all of your WW2 war games because they all have Nazi or Nazi supporter elements. Someday they'll come for you if you don't throw these games away. [X(]

They are more concerned about violence, sexuality, and ethnic representation. Video game violence has been on the table since 1970's and sexuality at least since 1980's. What are the concrete results thus far? Censoring of genitals in Japan, mass banning of games in China (few games elsewhere), and Nazi symbols in Germany doesn't target just video games but everything else. There's some more, like changing the colour of blood to something else than red, and some other censorship as imposed by publishers and Sony (PS4 versions of games only). Is that all? Much of the BS goes on Internet and most of those deciding the laws have little interest on reading it (or anything else on Internet). We don't need to be worried.

[JWW]

It is an interesting subject for discussion, but I think the discussion will end poorly on this forum.

[warspite1]

Removed as previous thread locked.

[Gilmer]

Well good! Glad I was wrong.

This won't work well for wargames, because someone is always the bad guy or perceived as the bad guy. Who do you play in War in the East? Surely people don't think the Russians were good guys. And if no one ever plays the bad guy, then everyone will have to play the AI. For myself, I play almost exclusively the AI, but some like the h2h against another player. Someone's gotta be the bad guy.

Who do you play in War in the Pacific? A lot of people play Japan. And believe it or not, they were the bad guy in WW2. [:D]

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: KurtC

This won't work well for wargames, because someone is always the bad guy or perceived as the bad guy.....And if no one ever plays the bad guy, then everyone will have to play the AI.

warspite1

The guy in the video above wasn't saying we can't play the 'bad guys' but he was saying there should be differentiation so that when playing the 'bad guys' (and you have to elect to play the bad guy and can't be simply told you have to play that side) you know you are playing the bad guys.

This in itself is a problem because how do you differentiate? For example, suppose you are playing a game about the War in the Desert game. Yes the Germans and Italians are the 'bad guys' but I've never heard of any atrocities carried out in that theatre that were so common place elsewhere. So what - according to the video maker - would a game maker have to do to 'inform' any player electing to play Rommel or Graziani's forces, that they are the 'bad guy'?

If I am playing World In Flames for example, I know if I am playing the Axis then I am playing the 'bad guy'. But what is the video maker saying that a potential Axis player needs to be told? The game is about the war and yes, as an Axis player I have to go around invading countries to win. But the game doesn't centre in any way on the Holocaust, the comfort women or any of those aspects. It is a war game. So what do I need to be told?

Does every game need to come with a history lesson? But then who writes the history? Was Napoleon bad or good? Depends on your view? Was the Soviet Union the bad guy or the good guy in WWII?

ORIGINAL: KurtC

Who do you play in War in the East? Who do you play in War in the Pacific?

warspite1

I prefer to play the Allies as a general rule, but that is nothing about having qualms about playing a German or Italian or Japanese or whatever - its that I simply prefer to play as the Allies - especially when doing AAR on new games because a lot of people like playing the Axis so it gives a different perspective.

And as said, there is also the question of course of who is the 'bad guy'? In WWII it's relatively straightforward. But what about WWI or even the Napoleonic Wars?

[demyansk]

Warspite is accurate, no need for me to say anything. Good job, the only thing I don't like to play is anything to do with al-Qaeda side.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: demyansk

Warspite is accurate, no need for me to say anything. Good job, the only thing I don't like to play is anything to do with al-Qaeda side.

You know, that's funny. While I've been able to bring myself around to playing the Axis powers in WWII in many games, I've never been able to stomach playing the al-Qaeda side of games like "Modern Warfare". Too visceral still?

[Zap]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: demyansk

Warspite is accurate, no need for me to say anything. Good job, the only thing I don't like to play is anything to do with al-Qaeda side.

You know, that's funny. While I've been able to bring myself around to playing the Axis powers in WWII in many games, I've never been able to stomach playing the al-Qaeda side of games like "Modern Warfare". Too visceral still?

They have to be completely defeated along with its ideology and 20 or so years passed before stomaching playing that side. And maybe not even then!

[Kuokkanen]

I watched it. This is something worth of note:

We're not even saying we shouldn't make games where you play as a Nazi or a terrorist, but what we are saying, is that the fact that you're playing as a Nazi or a terrorist in a game has to mean something, and it can't just be a skin.

I see that as straight jab at Battlefield V. I haven't played it myself, but I can make a guess the game has a skin for black female Nazi. So in this respect, I can get behind of what is said in the video.

Also focus of the video is on first-person shooters like aforementioned Battlefield V; not war games. First-person shooters are mainstream, war games are not.

[JWW]

Okay, I got the impression that the video was more about first person shooter type online games. Those present many more questions than the type of abstract and more complex computer games played here. There is the whole layer, as mentioned above, about the question of whether those type games promote violence or desensitize young people especially regarding gun violence, and whether they might trigger young people who are mentally unstable. That is a legitimate question for discussion. There is a huge difference between Fortnite and War in the East.

Then there is the question of the interaction in online games. I have no firsthand experience there because I have purposely avoided online games since they came into existence and have just never played them, including playing an online opponent in a more sophisticated game. However, as an American high school (grades 9-12 in the US system, and I teach English to students in grade 12) teacher, I know that many of my students play online games like Fortnite and others. They talk about them a lot and try to play them on their phones in class when they can. Some are quite addicted.

On the other hand, I played real life make believe battles with my buddies as a child using toy guns, getting "shot" and dying multiple times a day. We also had easy access to BB guns and real guns and went out in the wood with them in rural Louisiana. During that whole time I never saw an incident in which one kid pointed a weapon at another kid even jokingly, and I only heard of one such incident in school, an argument in which one kid briefly pointed a rifle at another kid. We were all horrified and that kid was socially ostracized for some time. Yet I think there is something fundamentally different about the make believe culture we created and the current video game Fortnite type culture of today. And I do think that culture is harmful to kids. I just don't know how harmful.

Where am I going with this ramble. I don't think the question of which side you play is as important as the question of the overall effect on violent multi-player video games on young people. I think that is a legit question.

I don't think which side is played in a Matrix type game matters, and I don't think it has any negative effect on anyone. I guess people who already glorify Nazi Germany, for example, might enjoy playing Nazi Germany more, but I don't think playing Nazi Germany has any effect on an adult player. In my own WWII games, I tend to play Germany on the East Front. Anything on the West front I tend to play the Allies. Games like Strategic Command I will take either side. In Cold War hypotheticals I always take the NATO side. I spent five years in Germany in the US Army during the Cold War. I'm not going to play the Warsaw Pact. I agree with others that I am just not going to play AQ in a modern game.

Bottom line, I think which side you play is a much smaller matter than the overall effect of modern youth-oriented multi-player first person shooter type games, and that their effect on young people needs to be more closely studied.

Edit -- This could lead to game censorship that might even affect Matrix type games if taken to its end.

[MrRoadrunner]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

Does every game need to come with a history lesson? But then who writes the history? Was Napoleon bad or good? Depends on your view? Was the Soviet Union the bad guy or the good guy in WWII?

ORIGINAL: KurtC

Who do you play in War in the East? Who do you play in War in the Pacific?

warspite1
I prefer to play the Allies as a general rule, but that is nothing about having qualms about playing a German or Italian or Japanese or whatever - its that I simply prefer to play as the Allies - especially when doing AAR on new games because a lot of people like playing the Axis so it gives a different perspective.

And as said, there is also the question of course of who is the 'bad guy'? In WWII it's relatively straightforward.

Interestingly this sparked a memory from the past.
I was running a game tournament at at club where a "medal" was given out. The Swastika was on one side of the globe and the Hammer and Sickle on the other. A few of the players did not want to receive the medal because of the Swastika. When I asked if they were offended by the Hammer and Sickle they each said no.
To me, the two were equally "bad guys" and I was unsure of their reasoning.

That discussion quickly morphed into a back and forth of model kits no longer having German WWII planes displaying the Swastika but the Soviet one's displayed the Hammer and Sickle.

If we do not know history we are doomed to repeat it's mistakes?

Go figure?

If you play a side in a combat game there are winners and losers. Winner write and define the history?

RR