Modern Warfare is a Comforting Lie

[Manji187]

If a game claims to be about modern warfare, then shouldn't it represent that warfare realistically?

It should but it never will.

Of course. In the end, videogames are just physico-spatial simulations and very limited ones at that.

I don't see a game getting a publisher or distro deal in the US (or many other places) if it included:

- screaming into a headset for a medevac that you know could never come in time, even if all the helicopters weren't all tasked out, because an IED just took off your best mate's legs and wedding tackle and spread them over 100m^2 area.

- intelligence failures that send your platoon right into the staging areas of one of the enemy's battalions

- snipers being forced to watch a squad get wiped out because they've got hostiles sitting right on top of them as well

- ooo, yeah, a combat engineer having to crawl around in a mass grave to make sure to bodies can be retrieved without any unpleasant surprises.

- the local kid, the one who smiles and waves at all the patrols as they head out and return, catching a stray round or a piece of shrapnel in the face.

- playing as an MP having to investigate accusations of misconduct by US personnel.

- playing as the ground crew who hose out the medevac choppers

- working the morgue on a US/allied base

- watching a mate's mental deterioration that finally ends with him being led away by MPs when he starts showing up for duty, naked except for boots, cap and weapon and with his rank insignia drawn on with a marker.

- HI-LAR-I-OUS practical jokes involving shitting or wanking into other troops' boots and hats... probably while they're not wearing them but there are some real fucking ninjas at doing that sort of thing.

- pointed out how many rules of warfare you broke in 5 minutes in the average shooter.

Again, of course. Videogames are digital interactive entertainment. Leisure. Fun. Basically, they are the opposite of real warfare and everything it entails. If you think about it, it is kind of sick that warfare is made entertaining by way of simulation.

... and I could go on. At length. For hours.

Actually, that could be interesting. No really. I take it you are former military?

What would be your personal top 10 errors/ misrepresentations/ inconsistencies/ oversimplifications in contemporary modern military shooters?

 

[Elijah Newton]

Robert, you're going to have to demonstrate a causal link between playing a videogame and having one's attitudes or perceptions about reality altered - with evidence - instead of just asserting it as fact like you do in the article.

I politely disagree with this sentiment. I think it is reasonable to write to an audience with the assumption of shared anecdotal experience. While I haven't known people to be motivated to violence by games, I certainly have known several modern shooter fans whose experiences in games shaped how they percieve real wars.

A great piece overall. I thought the criticism of depicting inevitable conflict with Russia was particularly trenchant.

If a game claims to be about modern warfare, then shouldn't it represent that warfare realistically?

It should but it never will.

I don't see a game getting a publisher or distro deal in the US (or many other places) if it included:

[ ...snip... ]

... and I could go on. At length. For hours.

If I was king of the world someone would be calling you right now, offering to throw buckets of money at you to inform a new game. Personally, I think it's only a matter of time before someone makes a game like that, and once someone gets the formula for something like that right history will look at the current franchises with the same bemused tolerance / embarassment modern movie audiences give the WWII "Why We Fight" films.

 

[Seneschal]

To be fair, and I know nobody pays attention to the MW series' plot, but I always felt they were closer in spirit and atmosphere to Bond movies: British action-stars scour the globe, visit exotic locations, square off with the natives, attack bases, infiltrate submarines, all in pursuit of an elusive megalomaniac villain who plays the world's politics like a piano. It lacks a bit of camp and humour, but if you put David Arnold's music on during all the over-the-top action setpieces, it would suit them marvellously.

But we don't harp on Bond for bastardizing how intelligence and espionage works. I've never heard anyone say "I want Bond to be like Zero Dark Thirty; decades of flipping through papers, watching videos, listening to phone calls, barely-legal torture, and gathering evidence to send a Seal team after one man, THAT's what the spy life is all about". Well... yes, yes it is. And there's nothing objectionable about either the whimsical and fanciful approach, or the documentary-level-realism approach; it's only objectionable that someone would argue one of them is wrong or harmful to public perception, and should be supplanted by the other.

 

[Namewithheld]

To be fair, and I know nobody pays attention to the MW series' plot, but I always felt they were closer in spirit and atmosphere to Bond movies: British action-stars scour the globe, visit exotic locations, square off with the natives, attack bases, infiltrate submarines, all in pursuit of an elusive megalomaniac villain who plays the world's politics like a piano. It lacks a bit of camp and humour, but if you put David Arnold's music on during all the over-the-top action setpieces, it would suit them marvellously.

But we don't harp on Bond for bastardizing how intelligence and espionage works. I've never heard anyone say "I want Bond to be like Zero Dark Thirty; decades of flipping through papers, watching videos, listening to phone calls, barely-legal torture, and gathering evidence to send a Seal team after one man, THAT's what the spy life is all about". Well... yes, yes it is. And there's nothing objectionable about either the whimsical and fanciful approach, or the documentary-level-realism approach; it's only objectionable that someone would argue one of them is wrong or harmful to public perception, and should be supplanted by the other.

You know, it's all about presentation. If the MW series didn't try and present itself as realism, then we'd not compain about it not being realistic...if that makes sense.

Right?

 

[Darth_Payn]

Modern Warfare is a Comforting Lie

If a game claims to be about modern warfare, then shouldn't it represent that warfare realistically?

Read Full Article

TL;DR Modern Warfare is bad and you should feel bad. This piece of fiction and entertainment isn't like real life so we should all stop doing it. Why can't all games be gritty and depressing like Spec Ops: The Line?

I don't mean do be that guy, but any article on modern warfare, the series or it's imitators, is predictable to the point of parody.

Because games should be FUN, that's why! This should not bear repeating! Games are ESCAPIST fantasies, and if you use them for a reinforcement of your political views, whatever side of the fence you stand in, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Izanagi009_v1legacy]

I have to wonder how the modern military FPS scene might look today if Six Days in Fallujah [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Days_in_Fallujah] hadn't been cancelled, and it ended up being a success--a game that really tried to recreate the reality on the ground with the guidance of people who experienced it first-hand. Would we have a whole subgenre of realistic FPSes? Would games finally be seen as a form legitimate artistic commentary on the human condition? Or would we still be awash in a sea of Tom Clancy/Michael Bay-esque cartoon fantasies?

Many would probably give it accolade after accolade like they did with Spec Ops: the Line and then habitually retreat back to their CoDs and Battlefields. This could be Social Desirability Bias: we want to sound profound and smart so we say we like it but we know that we prefer something else.

Honestly, this reflects poorly on our society that we prefer comfortable lies than honest truths. A person doesn't get far if they don't experience hardship.

 

[Seneschal]

To be fair, and I know nobody pays attention to the MW series' plot, but I always felt they were closer in spirit and atmosphere to Bond movies: British action-stars scour the globe, visit exotic locations, square off with the natives, attack bases, infiltrate submarines, all in pursuit of an elusive megalomaniac villain who plays the world's politics like a piano. It lacks a bit of camp and humour, but if you put David Arnold's music on during all the over-the-top action setpieces, it would suit them marvellously.

But we don't harp on Bond for bastardizing how intelligence and espionage works. I've never heard anyone say "I want Bond to be like Zero Dark Thirty; decades of flipping through papers, watching videos, listening to phone calls, barely-legal torture, and gathering evidence to send a Seal team after one man, THAT's what the spy life is all about". Well... yes, yes it is. And there's nothing objectionable about either the whimsical and fanciful approach, or the documentary-level-realism approach; it's only objectionable that someone would argue one of them is wrong or harmful to public perception, and should be supplanted by the other.

You know, it's all about presentation. If the MW series didn't try and present itself as realism, then we'd not compain about it not being realistic...if that makes sense.

Right?

Well, games have no marketing push over here, and at the time CoD4 came out I didn't go to gaming websites to see the ads. When I first got my hands on a borrowed copy of CoD4, I thought the single-player was incredibly deftly designed, and also hilariously over the top. I didn't know it was supposed to be realistic, I only knew that is wasn't, and I enjoyed it for the romp it was. The sequels only upped the Bond-quotient to ripoff-levels, as James, I MEAN Price goes all rogue-agent in pursuit of Blofeld, I MEAN Makarov.

But yes, I suppose the games lied. There are frequent digressions from the Price-Soap story into the shoes of an interchangeable American soldier fighting Russian invaders, and while those tend to be fun, they are clearly meant to resemble real-life war footage in the most superficial way possible.

 

[Imp_Emissary]

I have to wonder how the modern military FPS scene might look today if Six Days in Fallujah [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Days_in_Fallujah] hadn't been cancelled, and it ended up being a success--a game that really tried to recreate the reality on the ground with the guidance of people who experienced it first-hand. Would we have a whole subgenre of realistic FPSes? Would games finally be seen as a form legitimate artistic commentary on the human condition? Or would we still be awash in a sea of Tom Clancy/Michael Bay-esque cartoon fantasies?

Call me a pessimist, but I think it would probably be the second thing. That is, assuming that Six Days in Fallujah didn't somehow get turned into it first. Even if SDIF was great, I'm not sure publishers would understand what made it great. Likely they would think all they have to do would be, copy the way it looked/played, but not bother to put a good story in.

"media isn't only supposed to show us our fantasies, it also has a major role in informing citizens about a conflict."

When people say they want games to have better more realist characters and stories, I hear a lot of people put up the argument that games are suppose to be fantasies, and we shouldn't complain about the"unrealistic" parts of them. I will remember this article later should I see that argument later.

Thanks again Rob Rath!

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

You know, you keep relying on technology. I can tell you one thing for a fact, being Russian myself and having heard a lot of stuff from my grandparents about WW2, if there's one thing Russian military truly excels at it's fucking up enemy's expensive military hardware.
On a more serious note, while Obama and Putin are trying to establish a stable relationship between their countries, some backwards idiots from both sides are screwing it up one way or another, it's almost painful to watch sometimes. And stuff like Modern Warfare doesn't help.
Just be honest, at this point US has a huge record of war crimes. Worse than nazi Germany. This isn't something you should really celebrate, as in yay - we're getting away with it because at the moment balance of power in the world precludes said world from getting at us for these crimes...
Back on topic of games, that's one thing that affects public perception of things, and we all know that that thing is just as important as actual history. And some of those games, MW included, don't really improve public opinion on US.

Anyway, eventually Hideo Kojima will save us all.

 

[RJ Dalton]

And now you've listed all the reasons why I don't play modern warfare shooters. Or most shooters, really.

 

[The Wooster]

I have one geivance with your piece, it is the use of Vietnam as an example of a technologically inferior foe acheiving victory.

The Vietnamese were supplied by the soviets who gave them weapons and assets that were on-par with the american tech and in some areas, even surpassed it.

True. Washington still hasn't fully recovered from those devastating napalm strikes.

 

[Ganrao]

Robert, you're going to have to demonstrate a causal link between playing a videogame and having one's attitudes or perceptions about reality altered - with evidence - instead of just asserting it as fact like you do in the article.

Not only that, he tried to paint the cannibalistic Syrian rebels as the "good guys" in that conflict despite them pledging allegiance to Al Qaeda and filming themselves eating human organs @_@

Doesn't exactly seem like the kind of group I would characterize as the underdog we all want to root for. In something as brutal and terrible as war it IS possible for neither side to be "good".

 

[Mr Companion]

Modern Warfare is the hundred swords of Aegon's fallen, a story we keep telling each other over and over until we forget that its a lie.

 

[kajinking]

I know it's not much but this kinda why I like Strategy games, you do have to deal with the aftermath in a sense. I know it's not dealing with civilians who belived you just conquered their country for pure greed but if I send half my army to take a particular piece of real estate I better have some idea about what I'm gonna do with it afterwords.

"Ok just just lost half my army to take this oil rig...and I have no way to make use of the resources because my supply trucks just got bombed, great"

 

[Machine Man 1992]

TL;DR Modern Warfare is bad and you should feel bad. This piece of fiction and entertainment isn't like real life so we should all stop doing it. Why can't all games be gritty and depressing like Spec Ops: The Line?

I don't mean do be that guy, but any article on modern warfare, the series or it's imitators, is predictable to the point of parody.

Well, personally, if I wanted to contradict an article which carefully and logically explained why there were problems with the portrayal of modern warfare in games with several examples to back it up, I'd to more than simply pointing at it and going "You love Spec Ops! You love Spec Ops! Nuh nuh nuh-nuh nuh". I mean, heaven forbid that game analysts want to tackle the very serious topic of the real events of modern warfare (and its catastrophic real-life impacts), even if it means criticising a franchise that you enjoy.

That wasn't at all what I said.

And I loathe The Line.

 

[AkaDad]

I have an idea for a realistic war game.

The game starts where you're an Iraqi kid leaving school to go home and when you get there it's a pile of rubble and your whole family is dead. Cut to 10 years later and now your an "insurgent" fighting the American invaders who occupy your country.