EA on women in Battlefield V; "If you don't like it, don't buy it"

[CaitSeith]

THIS. This is goddamn Spot. On.​

The technology is there. So is the audience. All we need now is a developer with the balls to research and tell authentic stories without all the schmaltz, instead of the same old shallow artificial garbage that marketing keeps saying the audience wants.

Probably you should look outside the AAA industry for that, because publishers and marketing are its rulers.

 

[Squilookle]

And this is what really gets me riled up- that even now, there are people out there that still think Saving Private Ryan is historically accurate. Once the 30 minute mark arrives and the beach scene is done, it turns into a goddamn cartoon just as much as Fury was.

You'll notice that the operative word was 'authentic' and not realistic. I know you and I have had this discussion before, that people who call media based on real wars realistic are often not looking for actual realism. They are looking for something that conforms with their idea of what is authentic. SPR feels authentic, it has a heavy pathos meant to evoke the feelings of despair and dread that veterans have reported feeling during the war. It is a costly production, it gets its weapons, uniforms and vehicles right and the actors are even pretty convincing as soldiers. But for all that, it contains a ton of historical errors.

Actually your operative words were 'authentic' and 'historically accurate' when SPR is anything but. Satinavian covers this pretty thoroughly already, with notable points like

Tora! Tora! Tora! manages to evoke the feeling of the war where Saving Private Ryan decidedly does not.

And I'm not trying to single you out here either, by the way, but the fact that even you- someone with actual combat training, can watch a well financed movie featuring soldiers talking loud and walking line abreast in open enemy country, squabbling and openly defying their commanding officer in the field and to their face and actually think it's somehow authentic is exactly what I'm talking about here. People watch this garbage and are actually led to believe it is what it was like. Things like Inglorious Basterds are fine because they're not even trying to show you what it's like. But SPR starts like a really good harrowing depiction of a real battle, before flying off into cuckoo-land and expecting us to still take it seriously. That's what I can't stand. People looking for what 'conforms with their idea of what is authentic' is no excuse- certainly not for the filmmakers that have no idea what that bar is for individual audience members in the first place. If you portray your media as being authentic, then make sure it's bloody authentic!

Battlefield has never been historically accurate. I mean just look at the last Battlefield game

"Robin Hood has never tried being period correct! Just look at the most recent movie starring Taron Egerton!"

First off, that's a false equivalence.

Pot, meet Kettle. At least you know the name of what you're doing, I suppose.

Battlefield 1942 could very easily have just thrown you into the maps, labelled them whatever they wanted, and called it a day. When it released in 2002, Unreal Tournament and Quake 3 had been showing for 3 years now that you could put out a shooter with the absolute bare minimum world building in singleplayer and still be financially successful. And yet, fire up the campaign, and the singleplayer greets you with screens like this:

Have a look at that- in a single paragraph they outline the wider strategic situation of the war at the time, the location this battle is set, and explain why a clash will happen there. Nothing groundbreaking, perhaps, but it is clearly giving more than -as you so eloquently put it- "a single shit" about the history of the war. As Satinavian quite rightly points out, the WWII games that at least tried for accuracy and to get as close as possible despite technical limitations was seen as something to be proud of, and considering the sheer amount of WW2 variety this game from 2002 was trying to cram in, it at least was clearly 'making the effort'

These days we have PCs with processing power that early 00s computers could only dream of, with hyper-realistic graphics and super-sophisticated game engines supposedly capable of far more than we ever had in the past. Battlefield 1 finally returns the series to a World War and how does it show the most horrific war in modern times? Among other things, by showing a 'touching' story of two brothers in the Dolomites mountains, where the protagonist dons an iron bodysuit to mow down Austro-Hungarians mindlessly like an Italian Terminator. Now THAT is shitting over what actually happened there.


Since the dawn of the series, people whinged that Battlefield was a series set within historical conflicts. Then Battlefield 2 came along set in a fictitious war, throwing out that idea. They whinged that it was a series that focussed on real-world weapons. Then 2142 silenced them with far future sci-fi. Throughout the series people moaned that Battlefield should ditch singleplayer entirely because multiplayer was clearly 'where it was at', then Bad Company came along to shut them up (it might have pulled it off too had it also come out on PC). A series of graphical realism then? Battlefield Heroes. Strictly for PC? Bad Company again, and BF 1943. Always set in large scale wars? Hardline. And on and on and on.

There will always be idiots saying what Battlefield has supposedly 'always been' and worse- what it should always be. But Battlefield has the potential to be so much more. For crying out loud, if it wanted to it could be the interactive equivalent of The World At War.

Instead, for the moment, it seems content to be that stupid History Channel show about Hitler escaping to Argentina.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Just like when I said I wanted stories about the war told right, I fucking meant it. Just like when I said I wanted stories told about the women who actually fucking fought in the war, I fucking meant it. You take that weaselly, intellectually dishonest, straw man bullshit elsewhere.

You know that bit where some shows have a disclaimer that says "people and situations are made up", or "based on a true story"? Same deal here.

They can't make the game about specific, actual people because, baring paying out to said people or their estates, they aren't allowed to. And that just balloons out and becomes more complicated due to the number of people and nations involved.

So we get the "based on a true story" version.

 

[SAMAS]

Pardon my french, but that's Connerie.

If you were really that concerned about hearing authentic WWII stories while you still could, you would get off your ass, go to the nearest Veterans' center, and get the story from the men who lived it, not from a freaking VIDEO GAME.

If soldiers without Y-chromosomes are were you draw the line when it comes to realism, we have been WAY past that for decades now.

Both my granddads served, one was in the 12th Infantry which means he landed on Utah and stayed in the shit straight through to Luxembourg. The other was a POW for two years right up until the point the 14th Armored division liberated his camp, and in that time he caught TB and lost two of five lobes of his lungs. One of my great uncles was also in the Army, another was in the Navy, and a third was a Marine but you did not ask him about the war or try to talk to him about the war, ever. When I said I grew up on stories about the war, I fucking meant it.

Just like when I said I wanted stories about the war told right, I fucking meant it. Just like when I said I wanted stories told about the women who actually fucking fought in the war, I fucking meant it. You take that weaselly, intellectually dishonest, straw man bullshit elsewhere.

So now every game set in WWII has to be 100% AUTHENTIC, despite the fact that they haven't been since arcades were a thing?

 

[Squilookle]

So now every game set in WWII has to be 100% AUTHENTIC, despite the fact that they haven't been since arcades were a thing?

If you can find the part where Satinavian alluded to that even in the slightest, I'd love to see it. Far as I can tell you're the one dealing with absolutes of what WW2 games can be. I suggest you broaden your horizons just a tad beyond the 1942 arcade game, Wolfenstein 3D, and Iron Harvest, which isn't even set in WW2.