Red Cross Investigating Virtual War Crimes

[Beryl77]

The Geneva Convention was made to protect humans even during war, which is a good thing but I've never seen someone actually getting killed in a videogame. If someone actually gets killed or tortured in a war game like MW then I will agree with what the Red Cross says.
But that has never been the case yet, so it's just silly and limits the creativity of game devs.

 

[Dr. Crawver]

What a bunch of pathetic morons. They just want to take the fun out of everything. Go spend your time and money on things that mater you useless cunts.

...seriously, do you not know what the red cross do?

I disagree with them on this one, but to say that they try to take the fun out of everything or are useless cunts?

So stopping you from experimenting on real people who are POW is taking the fun out of war?

Tending to the wounded of battle is being useless?

This isn't some government wing, this is an international body that try to maintain peace where they can. This is a incredibly tangential for them, but I don't think anyone would say they're useless

 

[Draconalis]

With the current generation of recruits being raised on FPSs, shouldn't game developers at least acknowledge that there are certain rules about what you simply can't do to the enemy?

That's what boot camp and other military training is for.

 

[maxben]

Vietnam was not a legitimate war due to the tactics the U.S used, not the N.A.

If it had been a real war the objectives would have been different and the outcome would have also been changed. The goal was to keep back the enemy, not win a factual war. Many historians and tacticians have argued that this is why we lost. Not due to the NVA being a bunch of Rambo badasses but because the United States was going through a bunch of shit at the time and couldn't invade North Vietnam.


I could be mixing this up with the other war (Korea) but I'm pretty sure it was Vietnam.

That's a fair point, I just assumed he meant from the Vietnamese side as "not a real war" is usually thrown in a guerilla war situation.
What you are referring to is that the Soviets and Maoists immediately landed support in North Vietnam ion case of an American attack,
In Korea, China sent in its forces AFTER the war started, leading to a stalemate that partitioned the country. America knew it couldn't attack the North and gain even half if the Soviets and Chinese were already entrenched there.

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

How about the geneva convention's rules are applied to real war, then we'll talk.

 

[Use_Imagination_here]

Are you people fucking serious? Are you gonna ban fucking books from descripting violence?

In the progress of this did anyone actually sit down and think, "are the games actually hurting anybody?".

 

[CapitalistPig]

Riddle me this, if the U.N decrees something does it make a sound when its being enacted? These are video games here. They are meant to entertain. Go ahead and try to argue against the fact that violence is the most entertaining thing throughout human history. AND don't use junk science speculative correlations to prove it. I'll give you a hint, a history book will prove you wrong. More importantly i'd like to point out this is a waste of man hours. People actually get paid to think about this stuff and never have to produce any real results. Some stupid enactment could pass and everyone gets a slap on the back for a job well done well i say BOLLOCKS to that my fine internet commentators. In a world with real problems that need real solutions we should really focus our minds on other more informative topics. THIS is best reserved for after idk......world hunger is solved? but ill settle for after we can create a governing body that isn't out to make us all look so stupid as to gobble this crap up.

 

[Kanatatsu]

has the red cross run out of shit to do!?

 

[Gunjester]

Apply it to every other medium first.
Otherwise it doesn't make sense.

 

[rob_simple]

I found this quite compelling to debate in games (speceally warfare games). We see too much violence, video game soldiers take war like a fun adventure. They murder 200 people and not only stay ok with it, most of the time using ilegal tatics or sooo extreme that not even the military would use. Example, shooting directly with a .50 cal to infantry.

Sorry, have you ever seen Commando? Die Hard? Literally any action film from the 80's?

It's exaggeration for the sake of entertainment; people play these games for the same reasons they watch the films: escapism.

Anyone who see's this stuff and then goes mental with a gun had serious problems well before they started playing games.

Oh, and if you think the military is overzealous in CoD, wait til you see what the guy from Dead Space does with the tools that were only sanctioned for engineering purposes.

As moviebob said here: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-episode-59-bat-slap and here: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-episode-57-supreme-responsibility

You could watch it. It's an incovinient truth about how games are becoming more and more imature, not bad, but when a stereotype becomes reality it is kind sad.

Like everything else, you can't tar an entire medium with the same brush. But even if every game was a ridiculous chainsaw-on-the-end-of-a-machinegun slaughterfest I don't care because I possess the ability to separate reality from video games.

Games don't need to be mature as long as they are fun. Likewise just because a game is mature doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable.

Games like CoD and GoW are the Rambos of the video game industry: they shouldn't be taken seriously; they should just be enjoyed for the adrenaline fueled ride that they were intended to be.

If you want a somber, thought-provoking affair play a game like Silent Hill 2 or Shadow of the Colossus.

I love all types of games, so I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me I shouldn't be enjoying one type of shooter just because it doesn't take itself as seriously as people think it should.

 

[ElPatron]

So players in Last Stand already have a unfair advantage, now we can't shoot them any more?

 

[emeraldrafael]

Oh, they'd hate me for what I did to the African and Asian population in risk.

more seriously though, I think this is jsut going to far.

 

[soulfire130]

Then everyone that played that airport level in MW2: you're likely now a war criminal. Congratulations!

 

[ThatDarnCoyote]

This is silly on a number of levels, but the video is the silliest part of all, since it doesn't even support the point they're trying to make.

With the exception of the clip at the end with the tank shelling the field hospital (which the ICRC even concedes is not "incentivized" by the gameplay), nothing in the clips would actually be a war crime even in real life. The people depicted as being "killed" are armed, active combatants.

Killing an enemy soldier in combat is not a war crime. That the ICRC doesn't seem to understand this doesn't inspire a lot of confidence in their pronouncements. Or, Heaven forbid, any "advice" they plan to offer the games industry.

 

[brazuca]

I found this quite compelling to debate in games (speceally warfare games). We see too much violence, video game soldiers take war like a fun adventure. They murder 200 people and not only stay ok with it, most of the time using ilegal tatics or sooo extreme that not even the military would use. Example, shooting directly with a .50 cal to infantry.

Sorry, have you ever seen Commando? Die Hard? Literally any action film from the 80's?

It's exaggeration for the sake of entertainment; people play these games for the same reasons they watch the films: escapism.

Anyone who see's this stuff and then goes mental with a gun had serious problems well before they started playing games.

Oh, and if you think the military is overzealous in CoD, wait til you see what the guy from Dead Space does with the tools that were only sanctioned for engineering purposes.

As moviebob said here: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-episode-59-bat-slap and here: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-episode-57-supreme-responsibility

You could watch it. It's an incovinient truth about how games are becoming more and more imature, not bad, but when a stereotype becomes reality it is kind sad.

Like everything else, you can't tar an entire medium with the same brush. But even if every game was a ridiculous chainsaw-on-the-end-of-a-machinegun slaughterfest I don't care because I possess the ability to separate reality from video games.

Games don't need to be mature as long as they are fun. Likewise just because a game is mature doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable.

Games like CoD and GoW are the Rambos of the video game industry: they shouldn't be taken seriously; they should just be enjoyed for the adrenaline fueled ride that they were intended to be.

If you want a somber, thought-provoking affair play a game like Silent Hill 2 or Shadow of the Colossus.

I love all types of games, so I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me I shouldn't be enjoying one type of shooter just because it doesn't take itself as seriously as people think it should.

Yet how many serious games you see?!"For video games, the real world is the final frontier." in: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/arts/video-games/la-noire-by-rockstar-games-review.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=LA%20Noire&st=cse
That is the main issue with games. Too many Rambos and Too few Metal Jacket. Movie bob, but not by the letter. Red Cross won't change your liberty rights, nor the developers. Bitching about how war in video games are displayed will make at least a few gamers more acknowledged of this particular subject.

 

[JoesshittyOs]

I'm gonna be honest here... This sounds insane enough to work.

I agree with one of the facebook comments down below (which I try oh so hard not to look at), that it's acknowledging videogames as a legitimate form of media instead of a joke.

 

[rob_simple]

I found this quite compelling to debate in games (speceally warfare games). We see too much violence, video game soldiers take war like a fun adventure. They murder 200 people and not only stay ok with it, most of the time using ilegal tatics or sooo extreme that not even the military would use. Example, shooting directly with a .50 cal to infantry.

Sorry, have you ever seen Commando? Die Hard? Literally any action film from the 80's?

It's exaggeration for the sake of entertainment; people play these games for the same reasons they watch the films: escapism.

Anyone who see's this stuff and then goes mental with a gun had serious problems well before they started playing games.

Oh, and if you think the military is overzealous in CoD, wait til you see what the guy from Dead Space does with the tools that were only sanctioned for engineering purposes.

As moviebob said here: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-episode-59-bat-slap and here: http://www.screwattack.com/shows/partners/game-overthinker/game-overthinker-episode-57-supreme-responsibility

You could watch it. It's an incovinient truth about how games are becoming more and more imature, not bad, but when a stereotype becomes reality it is kind sad.

Like everything else, you can't tar an entire medium with the same brush. But even if every game was a ridiculous chainsaw-on-the-end-of-a-machinegun slaughterfest I don't care because I possess the ability to separate reality from video games.

Games don't need to be mature as long as they are fun. Likewise just because a game is mature doesn't mean it isn't enjoyable.

Games like CoD and GoW are the Rambos of the video game industry: they shouldn't be taken seriously; they should just be enjoyed for the adrenaline fueled ride that they were intended to be.

If you want a somber, thought-provoking affair play a game like Silent Hill 2 or Shadow of the Colossus.

I love all types of games, so I'll be damned if anyone is going to tell me I shouldn't be enjoying one type of shooter just because it doesn't take itself as seriously as people think it should.

Yet how many serious games you see?!"For video games, the real world is the final frontier." in: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/arts/video-games/la-noire-by-rockstar-games-review.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=LA%20Noire&st=cse
That is the main issue with games. Too many Rambos and Too few Metal Jacket. Movie bob, but not by the letter. Red Cross won't change your liberty rights, nor the developers. Bitching about how war in video games are displayed will make at least a few gamers more acknowledged of this particular subject.

You are speaking entirely in buzzwords. And your insinuation that gamers need to be educated about the subject matter of their games is frankly insulting.

When I play Modern Warfare I don't think, 'yeah, WWIII would be fucking awesome I can't wait' I usually think, '************ you just shot Ghost I am going to fuck your day up.'

Leave these people alone.

 

[OutsiderEX]

In the immortal words of those brave, glorious Planes and Mercs...

WAR CRIMES, FUCK YEAH!

 

[AlphaEcho]

I would actually like to see a more realistic war game where we do not blow the face off of every surrendering enemy.

 

[SyphonX]

"You are to be tried by a jury of your peers. I present to you: ROB, Johnny 5, Sony PSP, an iPad...."

Well, it's a "Virtual" war-crime, is it not? Since it's not real. Hrm. The Red Cross committee should look into that.