This game will be a serious let down if I can't unleash mustard gas on my enemies and hear their cries of anguish.
EA Concerned Kids Don't Know About WW1 For Battlefield 1
- Thread starter Steven Bogos
- Start date
It was known as 'the great war' until WW2 started when it started to be called WW1.Karadalis said:
Also as a UK citizen WW2 is the toned down sequel after the over the top original. The UK lost far more lives in WW1 about 3 times as many as in WW2
Amaror said:
How old are the EA execs? as many mid 30's people call those in the early 20's kids remember Moviebob? he calls actors 5 years younger than himself kids all the time in his reviews and on twitter.
If you listen to the source (http://investor.ea.com/eventdetail.cfm?EventID=172935) it's just a throw away line in an investor meeting where I am sure anyone under 25 is a kid.
You would think, but growing up in the American educational system in the '90s and 2000s, WW1 was almost never talked about. It was all either WW2 or the Revolutionary War when it came to recent history, and even the ancient stuff was almost all North America-centric. If it wasn't recent "America, oo-rah!" wars, it was old Mayincatec stuff.lacktheknack said:
Now I have an interest in history myself so I've branched out a little more, but I have to admit even my knowledge on WW1 is limited. I do hope DICE decides to go in-depth on the topic, as far as a shooter would allow anyway. I'm fascinated by that stuff, and I think they have an untapped market considering how many fans have piped up with "Oooh, WW1? Neat!" Even just reading comments and watching reaction videos over the BF1 trailer, I see a lot of people expressing interest not only in the gameplay, but what kinds of warfare from that period it'll touch on.
Well... Yeah.
I live in Washington state and our schools are fucked.
It wasn't until High School that WW1 was even MENTIONED, and even then it was more of a reference. No real detail. Public education is a joke in America, every adult knows it. Kids are just sent to school because there's no alternative.
In grade 6 my class started learning about Hitler, the Nazis, and Anne Frank. Not World War 2. We learned about nazis. We learned about Auswitz, the meticulous details of how concentration camps worked, how victims were organized, etc. in Language class, we'd read and take tests about specific details in Anne Frank's Diary.
American-Japanese Internment was never mentioned. The nuclear bombings on Japan were mentioned briefly, and the motive was basically justified as "because Pearl Harbor."
The WW2 Nazi campaign works great for "realistic" fiction (audience already knows who the villains are), and a great boogeyman ("At least we aren't nazis!") in American schools. Also, the 9/11/2001 attack happened in grade 4. We were NEVER taught anything about the history, culture, or current events, of the middle east, except for "Bin Laden, Bin Laden, freedom haters."
MOST of the time, American teachers are just gloifyed babysitters. It's both grossly underfunded, yet overprotected (No Child Left Behind act). Everyone knows it. EA knows it. Their audience might be able to recite all 50 U.S states and their capitols, but only know WWI as "The one before WWII".
I live in Washington state and our schools are fucked.
It wasn't until High School that WW1 was even MENTIONED, and even then it was more of a reference. No real detail. Public education is a joke in America, every adult knows it. Kids are just sent to school because there's no alternative.
In grade 6 my class started learning about Hitler, the Nazis, and Anne Frank. Not World War 2. We learned about nazis. We learned about Auswitz, the meticulous details of how concentration camps worked, how victims were organized, etc. in Language class, we'd read and take tests about specific details in Anne Frank's Diary.
American-Japanese Internment was never mentioned. The nuclear bombings on Japan were mentioned briefly, and the motive was basically justified as "because Pearl Harbor."
The WW2 Nazi campaign works great for "realistic" fiction (audience already knows who the villains are), and a great boogeyman ("At least we aren't nazis!") in American schools. Also, the 9/11/2001 attack happened in grade 4. We were NEVER taught anything about the history, culture, or current events, of the middle east, except for "Bin Laden, Bin Laden, freedom haters."
MOST of the time, American teachers are just gloifyed babysitters. It's both grossly underfunded, yet overprotected (No Child Left Behind act). Everyone knows it. EA knows it. Their audience might be able to recite all 50 U.S states and their capitols, but only know WWI as "The one before WWII".
Not quite. There are no laws governing it (in most places), true, but every physical retailer has its own policies, and very few of them of any notable size are going to sell games without an ESRB rating. Which is why...chadachada123 said:
...that although individual cases may (and will) vary, it's actually under 18.chadachada123 said:
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this were the case across the pond. It's a little different where I live though. But that's to be expected, since it's Belgium.
Words can't express my joy that this is getting more recognition here.Souplex said:
The trailer clearly showed trench bits. The jump you're making is ridiculous anyway, considering that WW1 was more than trench warfare. To not show that would be making the same stereotyping mistake popular culture has been making untold times already.Fulbert said:
There was a World War 1? All I know is there was a World War 2, named as such because earth 1 and earth 2 fought and
earth 2 won after Powergirl and Jay Garrick beat Supergirl and Barry Allen.
Oh wait I remember, I learned about it in the 5th grade, something about arch duke Ferdinand and telegraph poles making Germany mad enough to start WW2 (I assume with a giant portal created by dark magic and a sign that read "earth 2 sucks!") as well as the Ottoman empire falling apart... What a boring war, they didn't even invent super powers yet...
earth 2 won after Powergirl and Jay Garrick beat Supergirl and Barry Allen.
Oh wait I remember, I learned about it in the 5th grade, something about arch duke Ferdinand and telegraph poles making Germany mad enough to start WW2 (I assume with a giant portal created by dark magic and a sign that read "earth 2 sucks!") as well as the Ottoman empire falling apart... What a boring war, they didn't even invent super powers yet...
I would say it says more about the attitude of EA's high ups towards their consumer base than it does the consumers. Given the way EA likes to do business it probably shouldn't be a surprise.
This strikes me as something of a repeat of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare's development. Activision were infamously resistant to the move away from World War 2, until the response to the announcement.
Well of course they don't know much about it. It's almost exactly 100 years ago. No kid is going to be super up to date on events from that far back or later. It's history, and most people on this planet don't pay history anything more than lip service.
I bet you if you went up to any random group of adults, they wouldn't be able to tell you all that much about WW 1 either. Time moves on, and the older events get, the less relevant they are to the people who are alive. I bet nobody really knows much about the Spanish American War either, or *insert old war of your choice*, aside from history buffs. This isn't unique to kids of this generation, this is humanity in general.
I bet you if you went up to any random group of adults, they wouldn't be able to tell you all that much about WW 1 either. Time moves on, and the older events get, the less relevant they are to the people who are alive. I bet nobody really knows much about the Spanish American War either, or *insert old war of your choice*, aside from history buffs. This isn't unique to kids of this generation, this is humanity in general.
they have been doing that for a whileloa said:
Halo, COD, Battlefield all have mega block/Lego deals
Which is a market dominated by young children.
So Blake Jorgensen claims that younger people not knowing that WW1 happened was a major concern while at the same time, EA is actively trying to erase gaming history ala Star Wars Battlefront (THREEEEEE!!!!!)?
This. So much this. Much more than WWII, The Great War has this sense of hopelessness and futility associated with it that really could be an amazing experience to see in a game. Based on the trailer though I don't think we'll be getting a tone of reverence or respect for the war. I would have liked to see a trailer similar to the Gears of War Mad World trailer. A much more somber affair. Obviously this needs to be marketed to tweens though so I understand the direction they went. I'm still looking forward to the game and I'm hoping DICE sneaks in some more thoughtful moments.Joccaren said:
OT: Not surprised at all. I was a history major so I'm used to this feeling.
In the US, WW1 gets low-billing because it doesn't fit narratives oddly enough about the cold war. The US little aside from profiteering, failed to prevent Versailles from being a disaster, then double-crossed the world re: League of Nations. Oh, and not learning about dividing all of Europe into competing alliances almost destroyed humanity. Oh, and being part of the allied expeditionary force in Russia would show the US in a bad light, so get the brooms out there's rugs to sweep under!
There's actually a good point made stupid (kids don't know about the subject of your m rated game huh) in there. Aside from history buffs, trivia nerds, and the college educated who made certain choices with electives and paid attention, there's a lot of no/bad info in the collective conscious.
There's actually a good point made stupid (kids don't know about the subject of your m rated game huh) in there. Aside from history buffs, trivia nerds, and the college educated who made certain choices with electives and paid attention, there's a lot of no/bad info in the collective conscious.
I think a large part of that feeling, getting off topic for a bit, is that the whole war WAS utterly pointless. It was a waste of lives for the sake of wasting lives.JUMBO PALACE said:
World War II had its reasons for occurring on both sides. The losers from WWI ended up with huge debt in reparations, no resources they could use, and utterly failing economies. This caused them to prepare for war and go into conquest mode in "Blitzkrieg" to get those resources, allowing them to survive a prolonged war. Thankfully, they failed, and Russia joined the allies rather than the axis. The whole Jewish persecution was horrible and pointless too. I know there are reasons for why it happened, but the sheer brutality of it was just unwarranted. That, in addition to "Holy shit they're trying to conquer us", drove the allies to fight back and stop the axis advance. It was a classic war of resources though, and what happens when collapsed and economically deprived states are pushed over the edge [Here's hoping Africa doesn't turn out the same...].
World War I? There were so many things leading up to it that could have stopped it. So many things that almost did. And the tipping point of it all was an assassination. An assassination that wouldn't have lead to a war, but because of the distrust between the two nations, led to rising escalations. The mix of things trying to stop the war only made it worse, with a very rapid and quick occupation of... Forgotten the city sadly, likely have satisfied all parties, showing Austria wasn't out for conquest, so Russia wouldn't have to mobilise their troops, which wouldn't lock Germany into having to mobilise its troops which... Honestly, a small amount of distrust between two nations sparked the greatest war in history. And was anything resolved at the end of that war? No. Nothing. The original point of the war had been forgotten. The only things that had been gained were a more independent female workforce, and a great number of new ways for us to kill each other. The world lost its innocence in that war, in more ways than one. It collapsed empires, and sowed so much instability into the world it just isn't believable, and in the end it didn't even accomplish that which it set out to do. Because there was no point to the war. It was almost just a formality. And then it turned into one of the biggest disasters mankind has ever seen.
I think its a message that especially needs repeating these days; war for war's sake is not a good thing. It is an utterly horrid thing. In this day where people advocate war in the middle east against Muslims, where Putin is waving his nuclear banner around, and videogames show war as fun and games and heroism, there needs to be something that says no. War is horrible. War always destroys more than it creates. There are no heroes. There is no victory. There are only casualties, and losses. The only possible victory, is if there was no war at all. Its a world that we will likely never see, but one we should strive for. We are lucky to live in a day and age where, walking down the street, there's a large chance you'll see nobody who has lost someone they knew to war, where we're united not by the knowledge that those we love may never come home, but by the knowledge that they will. This doesn't mean we should forget about those days though, as if we do, we'll forget how important it is to never again let them happen. And I feel that's something we are forgetting, generation by generation. The horrors of war fade, and we again see it more and more as an answer to our problems, rather than the problem itself.
I hope to hell Battlefield gets this right. As much as the devs and publishers probably want to shy away from it and just make a teen shootfest, properly portraying that message, alongside the core gameplay Battlefield fans know and love, would elevate the game to a whole new level. Spec Ops went viral for having a similar message. Tastefully covering WWI, getting that message right, and offering a great game on the side could see the game explode into popularity in a way the series hasn't before.
As said though, I doubt they'll get it right. It may briefly touch on the idea, but it'll focus on the shooting and 'heroism' in the war. It'll miss the point. I pray that it won't, but I'm more than ready to be disappointed.
Except that that's not actually how anything works in reality. Most schools, especially grade schools, don't give a flying fuck about supporting inclusivity, which is part of why bullying has always been a huge problem. I think you should probably take a break from the internet, it'll help you stop seeing SJW Boogeymen everywhere you look.LysanderNemoinis said:
OT: Boy, the cynicism and projection in this thread is just bowling me over.
Guys, not everyone has the same shitty schools you had. In fact, some schools are actually pretty good. Your bad personal experiences (or even worse, anecdotal stories that you just heard from the internet) aren't enough to extrapolate on the situations present in entire countries.
Yes, public schooling has major problems, but stories of things like illiterate kids graduating from high school are not the gorram majority.
I don't have much to add except that I agree completely. As the memory of major conflict fades, more and more the idea of war as something glorious and heroic makes a resurgence. WWI (and every other war of course) was a tragedy, and WWI specifically for the reasons you mentioned. Millions were killed, homes lost, families destroyed; and for what? Some binding alliances that did nothing but breed distrust.Joccaren said:
Thanks for that eloquent response. I enjoyed reading it.
I don't think "war as something glorious" has ever faded, at least not in the United States. As Garibaldi stated on Babylon 5 "Why do we always break up history by the wars? We slice up history by the periods of war, why not the peaces? Easy, because war is exciting, and interesting, and deep down, we like to see things get destroyed." This is hardly a new phenomenon. The only thing that changes is what war is being glorified. I mean come on, we successfully glorified the Battle of Thermopylae only a few years ago with 300. This is something people just do.JUMBO PALACE said: