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Does anyone have mature views on this?


The story lines of video games are getting more controversial (realistic?) and video footage of war, which once happened behind closed doors the other side of the world, is readily available on the internet.

Whilst I'm sane and can still tell the difference between real life and a video game, I do find it sad that we replicate some of human kind's darkest moments all in the name of fun. Stand on Omaha beach on D-Day surrounded by hell and tell a young man who's just lost his leg and all his friends wiped out by MG fire in a matter of seconds, that in less than 60 years children all over the world will be replaying these events in the name of fun. I think that'd make said soldier quite annoyed to say the very least.


R.E. "10 dead as Israeli commandos storm aid convoy" (imagine the conflicting media reports that exist on this)

If you haven't experienced real war, then I'd imagine games will always be fun, but I do think it's pathetic that we reinact all this for fun, yet 5 minutes on the internet and you're watching a (real) video whereby people are dying out-of-shot that looks like the first mission of COD4 gone wrong:

• special forces rapelling down from seemingly out of nowhere in the pitch black sky onto the deck of a ship
• tactical shotgun in hand the marine stumbles to find his feet as he is beaten by "innocent civilians" (read beyond the anti-israeli titles of news reports)
• As he runs to cover another "innocent protester" grabs his shotgun and after some very swift and decisive (special forces vs civilian) hand to hand combat the protester falls to the floor after an elbow/butt-of-a-gun to the face.
• And that's the foreground, the background is equally brutal, some protesters adhere and are on the ground being cuffed, others are in the hand to hand combat that only seems to happen in movies and set pieces on COD games.

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This is getting repetitive.

Voodoo

Why stop at video games, "games" like Airsoft and Paintball glorify combat and are even considered "sports". Even movies in movies this is the case, though not all war movies are made to be enjoyed by its audience.

While prevelant in video games I think "war" in general is intrinsic to human kind and there is likely no avoiding it, it's just part of who we are. While I do find it concerning that it's getting to the point where there is a realistic virtual representation of some of the more gruesome things in life I think we just have to accept it as the norm. Even before video games there were different outlets, war stories and the like. Viking culture for example and many other cultures based on battle. I might add to this later when I don't have to be up for work in a few hours.

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Flyt

A few thoughts:

There is some kind of a disconnect between the realities of war and the perception of war.

People, as a whole, have a short memory.

Jingoism is a very powerful tool.

Unfortunately, violence is natural for all living creatures.

Even before computer gaming, war was romanticized with the horror of it marginalized. Read a fiction book about war or watch a movie about it and very rarley will it show all the aspects of war.

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Nibbles

In games such as CoD4 or MW2, it is all fantasy as far as the storyline is concerned so I don't find it to be quite that bad. We are not re-enacting a real scenario, where real people have needlessly died.

If, on the other hand a MW2 expansion pack was released that puts you in control of an Israeli Commando with the task of storming an aid ship, that would probably be a little different.

Playing a soldier on Omaha Beach during D-Day works because of the importance and scale of the operation. It is a major historical event. When presented with a scenario like that as a gamer (and I can't speak for everyone else) - "playing it in the name of fun" doesn't sum up my experiences, in the same way that I don't watch the first half hour of Saving Private Ryan "in the name of fun".

This is similar to my experience with W@W - far more brutal and realistic than CoD4 and MW2 IMO, but it certainly didn't trivialise the nature of war for me, and after playing it, I have a greater deal of respect for those who were really in situations similar to those depicted (a lot of it was pretty far fetched, but there are some pretty strong moments of realism in there which I would expect come close to matching the real thing).

TheHunter360

Videogames are suppose to be for the entertainment of the gamer. Many people enjoy war games and in turn join the military. Many people don't understand the difference between reality and videogames and in turn treat war as a videogame until they realize the severity of their situation. Take for example the "Collateral Murder" video released by wikilinks that shows an Apache gunship firing on suspected insurgent targets which later turned out to be civilians/reporters.



Notice the dialog between the two men inside the gunship as they comment about the nice kills they got as if they got a chopper gunner like in Modern Warfare 2.

As the other guys have said war is part of human nature and therefore will appear in pop culture, however I feel that war should never be treated as a videogame by anyone.

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