Monday, December 05, 2011
War Crimes in Video Games Draw Red Cross Scrutiny
kotaku: The International Committee of the Red Cross is mandated under the Geneva Conventions to protect the victims of international and internal armed conflicts. That includes war wounded, prisoners, refugees, civilians, and other non-combatants. The question they debated this week is whether their mandate should be extended to the virtual victims of video game wars.
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8 comments:
While I understand where the Red Cross and other people who commented in the article are coming from, but before being convinced this is a major problem, i'd like to see studies that prove putting these restrictions in place effect the effluence of the player. On the grand scheme of things i think there are bigger causes worth fighting for.
Yeah... I'd agree with Dev. Why waste our time with the virtual battlefield when there are always real ones to devote resources to. I am not really sure what the concern is. Are we all going to play video games and then say to ourselves "You know what, screw humanitarian laws??" I do not see that as realistically being the case. I think people can separate for themselves what is right and wrong. I also think that these video games portrayals are not going to override our basic human instincts, that it's wrong to kill/torture/etcetera. I would be open to seeing data proving me wrong though, and then I would surely change my tune.
If you're going to apply the Geneva Convention to video games, then you have to apply it to everything else. I want all movies, books, plays, and TV shows to all be in compliance with the Geneva Convention from now on! I am getting really really sick of general consensus in the news being that video games are akin to a murder simulator that are slowly churning out a generation of mass murders who are ready to fly off the handle at any moment and thanks to video games, are going to be able to murder there way through their class armed with nothing except a plastic bag and sharpened pencil. If the Red cross wants to become interested in video games, that's fine with me. I just demand that any restrictions they place on games they replace on every other media equally.
This seems a tad ridiculous. We are talking about video games here. What makes the Red Cross feel that a VIRTUAL recreation of a conflict that violates rules of war should be censored? And on top of that books depict atrocities far worse than what one would witness in the games cited by this article, is the red cross going to start censoring books because they feel the need to fairly represent the imaginary victims of literary crimes of war? This entire article also becomes a question of censoring art and the effect that big organizations can have on creative thinkers. Video games are an in depth, interactive form of storytelling that involve a considerable amount of thought and artistry to develop. The Red Cross applying real world laws to the virtual world in an attempt to censor and therefore hinder the video game industry is no different than limiting what an author is allowed to write or a painter is allowed to portray. The question of whether this violence is appropriate or not is beside the point, this is a violation of the game developers' freedom of expression.
You cannot legislate morality or the ability to make good decisions. I think that violent video games are bad. I cannot tell game companies to stop making them, I just wish 7 years olds would stop playing them. The trick is, drawing the line when participants begin to engage in the behavior There is an interesting parallel as to what is acceptable violence and what is not. Sniping Germans from behind a rock, Acceptable! Sniping Jews from behind a rock, not acceptable! Sniping Japanese from behind a rock, Acceptable! Sniping prostitutes from behind a rock. (not sure)
It is also interesting that you cannot but a toy gun at Walmart but you can buy a Gears of War.
I'm torn.
On one hand, people shouldn't be taught that shooting the soldier who's surrendered and thrown his weapon down or grenading a church in order to get the insurgent is okay. There ARE some video games which reward the player for doing this. There are also many games which DO NOT reward this type of behavior.
On the other hand, anyone who says, in their defense, "Well, I could do that in Call of Duty and no one got upset!" is an idiot.
There MUST be a quantifiable divide between playing a GAME and doing ANYTHING in real life. I realize that dividing line becomes thinner and more gray every year with technologies advancing as they do; but then knowing the difference between what is acceptable in real combat or in a video game is all the more important.
I can never see a problem with an expanding of education. Make some games that follow the Geneva Convention rules or make others that reward the player for being humane to their enemies whilst still accomplishing their objectives.
I think one point this article is missing is that US soldiers aren't given a copy of Halo in basic training; so are we really talking about WARFARE at this point or another clouded version of "video games teach kids to be violent" debate?
I agree with many of the comments here. This is a really hard issue to digest. First of all there have been games like this for years and years and although people have complained about the violence I have not heard about the way the violence is portrayed in a realistic or unrealistic light. I see video games for what they are which is entertainment. One could argue that movies do not follow these rules either when they depict wars so I am not sure if it is the action of doing something that bothers them or the inaccurate portrayal. I am in no way saying that these are not valid concerns being raised and if we were using these as training tools for people I would agree but in terms of censoring all war games I think that is a bit extreme.
I see why they are discussing it, and I think they make a good point, but I do disagree. I don't think that you can apply rules meant for living beings to ones that are computer generated. The ones in the game will "respawn" as soon as you play the level again. I know that the Red Cross looks at those 600 million people playing games and sees them as somehow a threat to their mantra, but I don't think thats a logical assumption. I do think the answer is having someone making a Red Cross game, in the same way that the American Army made a game. A game that helped all the people who's lives were destroyed in the other violent games. That may just solve everything.
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