War is great for games. You have battleships and bombers! You defend your homeland and destroy the enemy!
Boom boom, plan battles, fun!
So many problems are because people don't view them enough as problems. War is abstract, and for the history of mankind people have chosen war over 'shame' for the nation. Things like genocide happen because of distorted views - as did slavery, and people largely just had a distorted view of it and a lack of understanding of the harms and options and obligations morally. A lot of problems happen from this.
War is monstrous, and most top generals and others I see who have experienced it agree. But it's so often sold to and accepted by the public that it's sanitized, turned into 'victory' and 'glory'.
So I'd like people to think of war to be far worse than they do - to think of the people devastated and to feel a huge moral compulsion to prevent it, not to accept it as an option.
And so we have this dilemma - 'but it's fun' as a game. It's entertaining and only pixels are hurt.
But I can't help but think that taking the 'fun' things about war and having millions 'play' it is a blinding thing as to the real horrors of war.
It's hard to resolve how to have people do both.
It 'normalizes' war - which is already far too normalized. It used to be we didn't want a standing army at all - just to organize a military if we got invaded from the citizens. Instead now we have hundreds of bases covering the globe and we're one sentence away from a monster running North Korea deciding to launch a nuclear missile, every day, it's all just 'normal'.
A rare exception was a game that did the opposite of normalizing war - one to educate people about some of the harm, called "This War of Mine". What a great message it had, as limited as it was.
So, I'm ambivalent as war makes for such good games, about how to have them not make war more likely, to reduce the awareness of it as utter horror.
I think that Nazis, aliens, and zombies became stand-ins for the dehumanization of war - slaughtering thousands of a real group can get a bit touchy, so replace them with zombies and enjoy.
I guess it's a little like 'black-face' entertainment that was popular until people developed in their thinking to realize it was harmful and offensive and a bad idea. All good fun until then.
Not clear what a 'solution' is. I'm not calling for censorship. I don't know how to have games include both the fun and the messages of war as horror or to have 'war is horror' replace 'fun' war games.
Just discussing that I feel uncomfortable about the enjoyment of the war games by so many who seem to have no idea how bad war is.
I guess this topic could have been written about war movies also - movies that celebrated largely sanitized war that had drama, bravery, heroes who got the girl - I call it 'war porn' as a genre.
Movies where 'your side' is shown to be so in the right, and justifying the war.
At least they tended to have some more appreciation of SOME of the harm of war, usually. There isn't nearly as much of that in most war games other than scripted bits.
I guess this is related to the popularity of violence in entertainment. But war seems worth singling out as an issue.
There are a lot of entertainment products making violence fun, and very few - like a few books and movies - with the message of the horrors. E.g., Gallipoli, or The Red Badge of Courage.
I write this as I was considering buying a game in the 'close combat' series and asking which is best, and then considering more, is that the fun I want?
I've long thought of the idea of a game that's a 'Nazi simulator', for artistic purposes to encourage people to think about 'fun' and sanitizing horror - have a person run genocide like a 'sim' game, being awarded for efficiency, have a 'human medical experiments' project where they can select what to do and gain rewards for good pick - a game that's 'fun' yet horrifying. It'd be controversial - but help people understand a little how evil happens. When it becomes people's jobs and is how they're rewarded and there aren't easy alternatives.
What would happen to pioneers who said 'hold on, what about the Indians' rights?' To a southerner who said, 'hold on, slavery is wrong'. A few did, and were met by great hostility.
A game where you, say, play a Palestinian who is oppressed, or an undocumented worker in the US avoiding problems, would be quite educational - but don't sound as 'fun' as 'fun' games.
Once in a while entertainment not promoting war is pulled off, a bit, such as when M*A*S*H was a top TV show that had anti-war tones.
This raises an issue, of what effects entertainment has on the views of violence.
Gamers are quick to defend their games against attacks of the claim that 'violence in games causes violence by players'. But that doesn't mean they don't have some effects.
So, we just need people to try to recognize that war is horrible, while having a great time 'playing' it.
And to think about it. If a game was made where you play a mass school shooter, people would say, 'oh that's in poor taste!' But what's really the difference, if it was otherwise a 'fun' FPS?
Is it really the subject - or that our views are biased to view one as more bad taste than the other?
Boom boom, plan battles, fun!
So many problems are because people don't view them enough as problems. War is abstract, and for the history of mankind people have chosen war over 'shame' for the nation. Things like genocide happen because of distorted views - as did slavery, and people largely just had a distorted view of it and a lack of understanding of the harms and options and obligations morally. A lot of problems happen from this.
War is monstrous, and most top generals and others I see who have experienced it agree. But it's so often sold to and accepted by the public that it's sanitized, turned into 'victory' and 'glory'.
So I'd like people to think of war to be far worse than they do - to think of the people devastated and to feel a huge moral compulsion to prevent it, not to accept it as an option.
And so we have this dilemma - 'but it's fun' as a game. It's entertaining and only pixels are hurt.
But I can't help but think that taking the 'fun' things about war and having millions 'play' it is a blinding thing as to the real horrors of war.
It's hard to resolve how to have people do both.
It 'normalizes' war - which is already far too normalized. It used to be we didn't want a standing army at all - just to organize a military if we got invaded from the citizens. Instead now we have hundreds of bases covering the globe and we're one sentence away from a monster running North Korea deciding to launch a nuclear missile, every day, it's all just 'normal'.
A rare exception was a game that did the opposite of normalizing war - one to educate people about some of the harm, called "This War of Mine". What a great message it had, as limited as it was.
So, I'm ambivalent as war makes for such good games, about how to have them not make war more likely, to reduce the awareness of it as utter horror.
I think that Nazis, aliens, and zombies became stand-ins for the dehumanization of war - slaughtering thousands of a real group can get a bit touchy, so replace them with zombies and enjoy.
I guess it's a little like 'black-face' entertainment that was popular until people developed in their thinking to realize it was harmful and offensive and a bad idea. All good fun until then.
Not clear what a 'solution' is. I'm not calling for censorship. I don't know how to have games include both the fun and the messages of war as horror or to have 'war is horror' replace 'fun' war games.
Just discussing that I feel uncomfortable about the enjoyment of the war games by so many who seem to have no idea how bad war is.
I guess this topic could have been written about war movies also - movies that celebrated largely sanitized war that had drama, bravery, heroes who got the girl - I call it 'war porn' as a genre.
Movies where 'your side' is shown to be so in the right, and justifying the war.
At least they tended to have some more appreciation of SOME of the harm of war, usually. There isn't nearly as much of that in most war games other than scripted bits.
I guess this is related to the popularity of violence in entertainment. But war seems worth singling out as an issue.
There are a lot of entertainment products making violence fun, and very few - like a few books and movies - with the message of the horrors. E.g., Gallipoli, or The Red Badge of Courage.
I write this as I was considering buying a game in the 'close combat' series and asking which is best, and then considering more, is that the fun I want?
I've long thought of the idea of a game that's a 'Nazi simulator', for artistic purposes to encourage people to think about 'fun' and sanitizing horror - have a person run genocide like a 'sim' game, being awarded for efficiency, have a 'human medical experiments' project where they can select what to do and gain rewards for good pick - a game that's 'fun' yet horrifying. It'd be controversial - but help people understand a little how evil happens. When it becomes people's jobs and is how they're rewarded and there aren't easy alternatives.
What would happen to pioneers who said 'hold on, what about the Indians' rights?' To a southerner who said, 'hold on, slavery is wrong'. A few did, and were met by great hostility.
A game where you, say, play a Palestinian who is oppressed, or an undocumented worker in the US avoiding problems, would be quite educational - but don't sound as 'fun' as 'fun' games.
Once in a while entertainment not promoting war is pulled off, a bit, such as when M*A*S*H was a top TV show that had anti-war tones.
This raises an issue, of what effects entertainment has on the views of violence.
Gamers are quick to defend their games against attacks of the claim that 'violence in games causes violence by players'. But that doesn't mean they don't have some effects.
So, we just need people to try to recognize that war is horrible, while having a great time 'playing' it.
And to think about it. If a game was made where you play a mass school shooter, people would say, 'oh that's in poor taste!' But what's really the difference, if it was otherwise a 'fun' FPS?
Is it really the subject - or that our views are biased to view one as more bad taste than the other?