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#3934074 - 04/03/14 07:03 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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There was pretty much no other way to play the level other than shoot as many police as possible. That would be an example of one of the more moronic games. It tried to make some sort of political statement, and fails miserably.

Operation Flashpoint, however, is you and some other dudes fighting some generic bad guys and is basically the graphical equivalent of playing army men in the back yard.


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#3934077 - 04/03/14 07:07 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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The older I get, the less interesting I find violence both in passive media as well as games. When younger I tolerated gun culture as something I grew up with but never really warmed up to. Now my feelings about it are nowhere near so passive. So you could say that aggression is a huge turn-off for me and my distaste for it increases with time. However I don't think violent games encourage violence. The conditions that come with true violence such as fear, adrenalin and remorse are completely absent in games. Lacking these things, I feel that they really don't even qualify as "violent". They are simply cartoonish conduits for aggression and competition. Like Earth itself they are "Mostly Harmless".

#3934084 - 04/03/14 07:24 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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I think they do glorify war because real war is a meatgrinder and it ain't pretty.

On the other hand, I think most people realize there is a big difference between reality and simulations, even racing sims, etc.

If there were no young people, there would be no war, because once you reach a certain age, you aren't going to participate unless it's on your front door.


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#3934087 - 04/03/14 07:27 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: Dervish]  
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Originally Posted By: Dervish

If there were no young people, there would be no war, because once you reach a certain age, you aren't going to participate unless it's on your front door.


Right. The old people just order the young people to fight their wars for them. wink

Last edited by PanzerMeyer; 04/03/14 07:28 PM.

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#3934093 - 04/03/14 07:47 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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Quote:
But do you guys think there is any validity in his argument?


Yes, they do glorify war but I dont see a problem with that. In fact by keeping his kid away from such material might glorify war even more in the kid's mind and cause the exact opposite of what he is trying to protect his kid from.

#3934098 - 04/03/14 07:54 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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One thought that was sparked by this topic


Yes every nation should celebrate its military achievements and honour the fallen.
I don't think it matters what country or what war.
But I also think school kids in there late teens should be encouraged to watch documenters with veterans talking about experiences I have watched a lot of documentary's with vets.
Nearly all come to tears whilst recounting there experiences the one that sticks in my mind was
A US army captain who had the job of leading a crew collecting and repairing knocked out tanks. with tears in his eyes he told how they often had to use shovels to clear out the body parts and then had to hose out the Tanks. fifty year later and the guy still had nightmares.

Last edited by marko1231123; 04/03/14 07:55 PM.
#3934111 - 04/03/14 08:20 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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I think Brun is closer to the truth- they can trivialize war, which is not the same as glorifying it. Glorfying war requires a more specific message, and I don't see many games actually take a stance in order to do that.

Presenting the subject matter as entertainment, yes, I get that. But I believe there is some distance between that and inserting values in a game which honors war, which honors the traits of combatants or honors ideals about war in the same way. Glorifying war usually involves glorifying death- putting combatants in love with death. Poems that glorify war often more talk about the values in dying for a cause more than they even glorify killing an adversary.

Games like Battlefield don't really do this- the action is too much running around and dying but re-spawning again playing capture the flag rather than glorifying blood soaked standards on the field of battle. The games just aren't that sentimental.

This doesn't mean you don't get all the leet speak on open comm channels and insults and taunts running back and forth, but that goes more to trivializing war rather than glorifying it- it's still sort of self contained in its own universe, despite the subject matter it emulates.

For example, people might comment on a player's mad skillz, which are wholly unrealistic and unrelated to actual war, but this wouldn't be the same as a game which teaches players the lesson that war is the only necessary and desired outcome, that war is the highest example of human experience and culture, or simply, that war, and death are beautiful. It's more the skills involved in bunny hopping or sniping a pilot through a helicopter canopy rather than a sentimental approach to the subject matter, in other words.

I've met some characters like this, and it wasn't video games that put that in their heads. These usually tended to be very idealistic but lonely people who always felt like they didn't belong or something.


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#3934114 - 04/03/14 08:27 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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No current games or sims that I am aware of glorify war.

Could one be made to do so???

Yep, big time. Propaganda weapon of the future....


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#3934115 - 04/03/14 08:28 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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In my opinion, GTA glorifies violence far more than any war game out there. I'll let my boys play CoD or BF, they're 13 & 10, but I won't allow them to play GTA. I even hated GTA and returned it.


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#3934121 - 04/03/14 08:43 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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I think military simulations should be as realistic as possible. Not just the gore and agony of those taking part, but also the collateral damage inevitably inflicted on civilians and the refugees that war causes.

Military games tend to focus on the glory of war that is distilled into a simplistic good vs evil conflict, and almost totally ignore the horrors. I know seeing bodies realistically torn apart by modern weaponry, experiencing inadvertently dropping a bomb on the wrong house, and passing columns of physically young men whose exhausted eyes look as if they've already died inside won't sell games. But it's part of the terribly terribly sad thing that is war.

I also don't think that striving to depict the true nature of human conflict diminishes the courageous deeds of those survived them. Rather, it highlights the difficulty and truly extraordinary will that it took overcome those difficulties and do something more than survive.

But that's just me.

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. - Robert E. Lee

#3934122 - 04/03/14 08:44 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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He should protect his kid from guns and such. The world still needs interior decorators.


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#3934126 - 04/03/14 08:51 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: radicaldude1234]  
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It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. - Robert E. Lee [/quote]


One of my favourite quotes.
The only thing worse than a battle lost is a battle won.
Arthur Wellesley, Aftermath of the Battle of Waterloo,

#3934144 - 04/03/14 09:12 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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Just helping because I like the quote too its:

"Nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won."

#3934146 - 04/03/14 09:15 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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In contrast to video games presenting the subject matter for the purposes of entertainment, some gangsta rap videos glorify a lifestyle- it doesn't trivialize the lifestyle so much as it rather elevates it. Not only do you get money and hoodrat biatches added to your collection, you even get to go to prison- as if that's actually a good thing. You might even get to pay the ultimate sacrifice, and then, surrounded by your homies at your own funeral, you get proper respects as a G. The only thing that's missing is a golden halo around your body to really make the point glorious. It makes no distinction between what people normally consider good or bad, it's all the same thing. All of it is a specific ideal.

But video games and war simulations generally tend to lack the sentiment to go there. The subject matter isn't even 'deep' enough to present itself that way.

The intro to Warhammer Dawn of War sort of glorifies war (albeit in a fantasy setting) because of the way the space marines are hard charging and the flag goes up even though all of them are killed, and sort of elicits a sentimental notion about the heroic effort. The actual gameplay doesn't really do that, though. The gameplay doesn't feel as heroic whether in life or death as the intro. Just plays like any generic RTS click fest.




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#3934154 - 04/03/14 09:24 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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Whilst I would agree that the parent obviously has a right to say what his son can or cannot play, I personally think it comes down to the mindset of the child.

My honest opinion is that anyone who even raises a doubt about how their child might react to 'glorification' of war games or violent films has bigger concerns. I think it all comes down to the ability to differentiate right from wrong, violence or war on a screen to the real world.

I have let my kids play pretty much any game they want and watch films that are rated older than the recommendatation, this is because both my kids are fully aware of the difference between reality and fiction. Swearing is another classic example.....some of the '18' films may have excessive language but at the end of the day let's not pretend that kids are hearing something they probably haven't heard in the school playground even from a young age, or that they may on occasion use a word they shouldn't......however, if a a kid knows they shouldn't be using this sort of language in the first place and are capable of maintaining control then I don't see it as a problem.

Some of today's youth simply need a damn good hiding from their parents, there is a severe lack of respect and maturity these days. If my kids were any different I'd have reservations about the issues above but I don't see it as a problem at all. Ultimately, it's up to the parents to make a decision and any parent worth their salt will make a decision based on solid justification either way.


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#3934162 - 04/03/14 09:47 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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From a developer's perspective - and from peacenik Germany to boot - it's not easy to find a good balance between entertainment (I mean, a game has got to be somewhat fun and challenging), and the absence of trivialization. Indeed, that's the biggest danger as far as I can see. Glorifying war is easy to avoid by design and by content, and IMO it would be such a blunt instrument to influence the audience that it'd be next to worthless except for the most naive and uncritical of all people.

I mean, apparently with 17 you're old enough to enlist and pick up a real rifle. I say, before you do, have a faint glimpse of what might await you in the form of movies, games, and above all, talking to other people about the subject. Military simulations that take the simulation aspect seriously don't glorify. They inform about a specific (and limited) aspect of (contemporary, or historical) conflict and technology. Ideally they serve as a starting point for the audience to read up the subject matter and inform themselves more.

Saying that games do not influence the audience at all is IMO propaganda of the video games industry. Apparently some developers (and especially the industry organizations and their lawyers, far more influential in a litigious society than they ought to be) do not really want to take responsibility. They get their rating, and that's it. If video games had no effect at all, we couldn't sell our software as an actual tool for training and education. But I don't think that the effect is much stronger than watching a movie, or reading (powerful) literature. And in none of these cases you can control what the audience will be taking home with it.
Example: Full Metal Jacket.
Critics still aren't sure if it's an anti-war film or a war film. Apparently it is ambiguous enough to confuse the knee-jerkers. Usually that's an indicator for a complex piece of art. If the message is a blunt, one-sided piece, it's usually to the detriment of the work's artistic value.


How can we educate people doing the right thing in video games if there is no meaningful choice to be made?

If the player is never given the freedom to make questionable choices in a frakking game, how can we trust a 20 year-old lieutenant to make the right decision in life or death situations?

It is my impression that most critics of electronic entertainment are simply not at ease with the fact that the player enjoys freedom to make his own decisions, for better or for worse.


Anyway, as far as visuals are concerned, as a developer you can't win. If you don't show guts & gore you can be accused of showing a "clean" war. If you have plenty of it in it, you're glorifying violence. To be honest, I find these recurring debates about new media utterly boring. Since the 1850s it was literature that tainted the youth, followed by cinema, comic books, television, cinema again, VCRs, video games, the internet, video games again, and it seems as if the debate is now shifting to the social media (and I agree, those really are the devil ... a sure sign of age, I guess: Condemning what you don't understand).
The debate is sometimes even literally, down to the words, the same. Malleable young minds are exposed to filth, indecency, and this just inspires young people to disrespect the elderly, to not listen to their parents, and somehow the world is going down the drain soon, very soon! if we don't do something about it. Like, censorship. Rating systems. Access control. Age barriers. Has it ever worked? Aren't the same people who now ask for video games to be banned those who fondly remember when as young kids they snuck into a cinema and watched films way above their age rating?
But of course, that was totally different, cannot be compared, better times ... until you start researching the 1950s and 1960s and you realized that there was bullying at schools back then as much as it is today, that some sick people went to schools back then to shoot children and teachers, that domestic violence and alcoholism was just as bad if not worse than it is today, that the rate of sexual assault has actually dramatically receded over the decades.
"Good old times" never were. They are the result of selective memory and unquestioned gerontocratic propaganda.

#3934165 - 04/03/14 09:50 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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Great thread BTW, and good comments by all.

bump


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#3934168 - 04/03/14 10:00 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: radicaldude1234]  
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Originally Posted By: radicaldude1234
I think military simulations should be as realistic as possible. Not just the gore and agony of those taking part, but also the collateral damage inevitably inflicted on civilians and the refugees that war causes.

Military games tend to focus on the glory of war that is distilled into a simplistic good vs evil conflict, and almost totally ignore the horrors. I know seeing bodies realistically torn apart by modern weaponry, experiencing inadvertently dropping a bomb on the wrong house, and passing columns of physically young men whose exhausted eyes look as if they've already died inside won't sell games. But it's part of the terribly terribly sad thing that is war.

I also don't think that striving to depict the true nature of human conflict diminishes the courageous deeds of those survived them. Rather, it highlights the difficulty and truly extraordinary will that it took overcome those difficulties and do something more than survive.

But that's just me.

It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. - Robert E. Lee


You're right, no one would buy it, because we want simple entertainment and not a sob story documentary about humans and why all war is bad bad bad.

In my opinion those that would enjoy the above may have mental health issues beyond wanting to play games. All of that can be learned and understood easily without games, and I would argue that the above actually runs a damn good chance of glorifying horror more than anything else.

Basically this seems like a case of looking too far into something that's very shallow. Sims are the evolution of running around in your backyard like a fool making airplane noises. If one is mentally sane neither should cause any urges to go shoot someone. Additionally, there's a time and a place for learning why war sucks, and it's not entertaining and honestly when people sit down to dink around with friends they don't care about any of the above for good reason.

Really what I'm trying to say in a nutshell is what I said before. The parent needs to get the panties unbunched from the butt and actually raise their kids instead of blindly letting some sims (which are all evil because they involve war and war is bad m'kay) somehow raise them.


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#3934169 - 04/03/14 10:03 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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By the way Ssnake, nice post.


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Mulder: *throws her a file* Ever heard of the knife alien?
#3934171 - 04/03/14 10:09 PM Re: Are Military Sims glorifying War. [Re: marko1231123]  
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Reminds me of back in the day when they said listening to Metallica, Megadeath, AC/DC etc etc will turn me into
a Devil worshiper. shedevil

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