Wow. This is really fascinating. I have to think about this.

It's not the first time that something like this happens. Ego-shooters with a ww2 setting in which the player takes the role of an american soldier and fights the nazis are not only available, but actually quite popular in germany. Most gamers are just too young to take the theme of those games as an offence. If the gameplay is good, gamers buy it. Recent reports in the german gaming press also indicated that these games attract quite a lot of neonazis.

I'm not personally a big fan of reality-based war shooters, but I am a big fan of good games. I play Battlefield 1942 solely because of the top-notch team-based gameplay (I play multiplayer exclusively.)

From my POV as a white 30-something Canadian, I can stomach a WWII-themed game if it discriminates equally. I think BF1942's done a decent job at avoiding race/national stereotypes (except for the fact that there are only white soldiers in the Allied armies). As far as multiplayer BF1942 goes, a player can choose from 1 of 2 sides to play: Allies (British, Russian, American, French) or Axis (Nazi, Japanese, Italian.) Because there are so many nations to choose from, the issue of nation isn't really important-- it certainly has no impact on game play. If you have a moral issue with killing virtual soldiers from nation X, then play on nation X's side and kill nation Y instead.

I think this is the way to go: allow players to play both sides of a conflict if they wish.

Related sidenote: I have had to desensitize myself to player-initiated slurs such as "jap," "kraut," etc. in order to enjoy the game. It seems WWII-themed games bring out more racism/nationalism than others. I shudder to think how players are going to behave once BF:Vietnam is out.

Any game that pits one country against another in any context is crusin' for a brusin', if you ask me. They could have saved this title by allowing players to play as the Japanese, as other WW2 sims have done in the past. By focusing on Americans only, they automatically get the "hey we are high and mighty and we won the war goddamn it!" feeling, which is sure to turn off some gamers on both sides of the ocean.

The fundamental problem is that there are no winners in a war, really. There are no heros, so idolizing one side never really works.

waka

I'm not really sure what to think of this.

It's good that (despite being unsettling) it's still tolerated in Japan. If the tables were turned, I'm willing to bet my country would at least try to get it censored or banned. (I mean, hell, if they'll spend millions to remove two buildings from a Spiderman movie...)

I guess (for me) it would just depend on how celebratory it is. Historically accurate is one thing, but stepping all over peoples feelings is another.

Uh, Waka...? We DID win. Boy, did we win.

As the son of a German immigrant, I have no problem playing WW2 games where I am, essentially, shooting my own relatives.

(1) The games should honestly depict, but not celebrate, violence and killing. This may sound like an odd requirement for WAR games, but it's simply the difference between CALL OF DUTY, which shows the lethal reality of being a combat soldier, and something like POSTAL 2, where the attitude is one of "We're killing people! Cool!"

(2) As for cultural and racial stereotyping... I can accept it as historically accurate, as long as it's not gratuitous. It might make some people uncomfortable to hear their computer-controlled fellow GIs yell "Eat this, Krauts!" when they throw grenades, but that's how it was back then.

With the Japanese things got much uglier because you were crossing racial lines, whereas most US and British WW2 troops were as "white" as the Germans they opposed. I don't think any Pacific Front game needs to remind us that US Marines were in the habit of sending the cleaned skulls of decapitated Japanese back to their families as war trophies.

(3) I agree you should be able to play all sides. In addition to more gameplay options, this also offers a chance to show what it was like to be a doomed soldier on the losing side, which is something worth experiencing and can be an excellent corrective to all that Rambo-type baloney.

Brian,

I disagree. We were not the losing country, sure. But I don't think we won. America was not made a better place because of the war. I think winning implies achievement, and I don't really think the war achieved much for us. That's not to say that the war had no impact or was not meaningful, but when all was said and done I don't think that either side was really better off (and some sides were quite obviously devastated).

What I mean is, when you play most video games, you assume the role of the hero, the person who is going to to face down insurmountable odds to help the people on your side. That isn't the case with war. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys", only sides. I think that EA's misstep is to implicitly assert that the Americans are the "good guys" in this game, which I think people will find offensive.

waka

Only if those people are very confused, Waka. I think facing off against the Nazis and Imperial Japan pretty well qualifies one as a "good guy."

Why? There were truly evil people within both regimes to be sure, but that doesn't mean the average soldiers were evil people. When the war ended, did the surviving soldiers suddenly stop being "evil"?

The world isn't binary: things are not just black and white. I am glad that the Nazis were crushed, but I don't think that makes the average American any better than the average German. Games typically deal with very stark divisions between good and evil, but in the case of war there is no such division. While you can argue that the Nazis and Japanese did evil things with their military (which they did), the people who were actually in combat were not the people making the decisions. If you think that there is an "axis of evil," that we must fight against for the sake of all mankind, your view of the world is simplistic to the extreme.

waka

"when all was said and done I don't think that either side was really better off (and some sides were quite obviously devastated)."

That's a contradiction, Waka. If any side is devastated where as others are less devastated, obviously the less devastated sides are better off. That's just easy logic. War is horrible and while I agree with the "There are no winners in war" attitude, it's logically wrong. There are winners in war. There is prosperity from winning. That doesn't make war any less horrible, but come on. Be realistic. The side that wins is the side that is way better off. If you don't agree, I'll be kind enough to let you be on the losing side. I don't fall into the ignorant mindset that America is pure and everyone else is evil, but from a strictly moral standpoint it's very questionable to treat two sides as morally justified when one is engaged in mass genocide while the other is not.

Why? There were truly evil people within both regimes to be sure, but that doesn't mean the average soldiers were evil people. When the war ended, did the surviving soldiers suddenly stop being "evil"?

No, they stopped being instruments of two fascist dictatorships and went back to being soldiers of their respective countries.

The world isn't binary: things are not just black and white.

Fuchsia and chrome, actually.

I am glad that the Nazis were crushed, but I don't think that makes the average American any better than the average German. Games typically deal with very stark divisions between good and evil, but in the case of war there is no such division. While you can argue that the Nazis and Japanese did evil things with their military (which they did), the people who were actually in combat were not the people making the decisions.

And yet without legions of troops to march out and conquer on their behalf, would-be Caesars like Tojo and Hitler wouldn't be much of a problem. I don't personally hate my great-uncle for serving in a Panzer in WW2, but the fact remains that he was fighting for leaders who wanted to establish a Nazi world order. And had my OTHER great-uncle (the maternal one, who fought under General Patton) blown Great Uncle Kurt's tank away with a bazooka... well GOOD. One less Nazi tank.

If you think that there is an "axis of evil," that we must fight against for the sake of all mankind, your view of the world is simplistic to the extreme.

And if you dwell in a bottomless well of relativism, so is yours. :)

As far as making games that will please all of the people all of the time goes, well, you know the saying.

I say please some of the people all of the time is a much better business decision. You make the game for your primary market, and if your secondary market happens to turn a profit, well then, bonus.

You can't possibly make a game that's targeted to please American WWII fans with a deep single player storyline and hope to be able to make it just as tailored to your Japanese market. (Fairly balanced multiplayer (WWIIOnline, BF1942) is a different argument altogether.)

You might as well just start from scratch and make a completely different game, and seeing as how the Japanese are notoriously ambivalent when it comes to FPS's, it's not worth the trouble. Better to just regionalize it and hope that it sells enough units to pay for the regionalization.

It's easy to depict the war in Europe as one of good vs. evil. It's not so easy in the Pacific, Korea and Nanking notwithstanding.

After all, the Japanese were practically welcomed as liberators in Indonesia and, to some extent, in the Phillipines, and in building their empire, they were largely displacing colonial governments, not native ones. (In order to create a home-grown Asia-Pacific empire, it's true.)

Before one gets too sentimental about the role of the allies in the Pacific front, you should probably get a better sense of just what situation Japan was operating in. And that's before even bringing up Hiroshima.

It would be wrong the accept at face value the Imperial Japanese rhetoric of them as liberators against European colonialism - but it would be wise to also consider what that rhetoric wasn't completely ineffective.

It's easy to depict the war in Europe as one of good vs. evil. It's not so easy in the Pacific, Korea and Nanking notwithstanding.

After all, the Japanese were practically welcomed as liberators in Indonesia and, to some extent, in the Phillipines, and in building their empire, they were largely displacing colonial governments, not native ones. (In order to create a home-grown Asia-Pacific empire, it's true.)

Before one gets too sentimental about the role of the allies in the Pacific front, you should probably get a better sense of just what situation Japan was operating in. And that's before even bringing up Hiroshima.

It would be wrong the accept at face value the Imperial Japanese rhetoric of them as liberators against European colonialism - but it would be wise to also consider why that rhetoric wasn't completely ineffective.

"Before one gets too sentimental about the role of the allies in the Pacific front, you should probably get a better sense of just what situation Japan was operating in."

How much of a better sense than "Imperial Global Domination" do we need to have here? Contextualize it all you want. All I need to know is that the planes bombing Pearl Harbor had the Rising Sun on them. The Japanese veterans are unapologetic about what happened back in the Pacific war (and this is as it should be). Why should we (in the U.S.)?

Unless EA has somehow depicted a false view of the war through the American perspective, I don't see what's wrong with what they've done here. Sure, selling it to Japan was a blunder. However, keep in mind that the Japanese have actually developed their own games (albeit dated) where you play U.S. planes bombing Japanese ships and shooting down Japanese fighters during WWII:

1942 and
1943: The Battle of Midway

I personally think this is much ado about nothing.

The point is that "Imperial Global Domination" was the status quo that the allies were defending in the Pacific.

The other point is that due to the realities of American cultural power, the ability to globally represent the conflict as one of a noble struggle against evil is one that is reserved by the US. It's simple hegemony, the power to frame and bracket events like this one in the most favorable way.

Funny how there aren't any simulations of, say, the US-Mexican conflicts, and how most Western sims don't deal too much with aboriginal genocide.

Heh heh, I'm glad that someone picked up on those articles...interesting juxtaposition, no?

I don't know what the right answer is. From the business angle, I think that Bowler has the right idea: please the home market first, because that's where the largest revenue stream is.

From the cultural sensitivity angle, I'm flummoxed. I don't think there's any reason for EA not to make the game, or even for them to tone it down so as not to offend Japanese sensibilities. Japanese consumers will vote with their wallets, and that's fair enough. But I do think that EA should have been a little more aware that this might have been an issue for some users here, and made some attempt to address that, maybe through interviews with Japanese game media or something.

Rising Sun had the same booth/demo at TGS as at E3, showing the attack on Pearl Harbor from the PoV of a U.S. sailor. At the time, I didn't notice any reaction from the show attendees.

The funny thing is that a few booths away, some Japanese company was showing a flight sim where you play a Zero pilot attacking Pearl Harbor. (Unfortunately I didn't get the firm/game name.)

So I guess it comes down to free speech, right? People should be able to make/market the games they want, within the limits imposed on other forms of speech. I just think that sometimes corporations should be a little more sensitive about how they go about exercising that right.

Thanks for yanking this thread back on topic, Dan.

Like you, I don't really feel like there's an obvious answer here. Although I must admit, the E3 demo booth positionings you mentioned strikes me as poetic.

I mean, one way to approach the problem is to say that all games about conflicts between two non-fictional groups must allow both sides as playable/right. That works well for your average First Person Shooter, which usually has very little in the way of story, relying mostly on strong themeing to pull backstory from your cultural background. Less well for the majority of modern CRPGs or adventure games (although these have, so far, been largely regulated to fantastic realms only). And, of course, there's the issue that maybe I don't want to tell both sides of the story, which is hardly criminal.

Maybe the rule is more along the lines of, "Just ship your damn game." But don't expect to make a killing in every market. Although I don't have an inside ear at EA marketing, I doubt they're expecting the game to clean up in the Japanese marketplace.

The thing with WW2 that some of our posters have missed, is that it was like dropping a bomb on Japanese culture. The Japanese of today are a completely different people than those who started their conquests in the late 30's. Add to that a strong sense of shame for either A) losing the war or B) having started it in the first place, and we are taken into an interesting area. Does one appreciate the evils of your past replayed as a form of entertainment?

"Funny how there aren't any simulations of, say, the US-Mexican conflicts, and how most Western sims don't deal too much with aboriginal genocide."

As a game maker, I'd say this has everything to do with the fact that it's not an interesting enough topic or war (from both gameplay and technological standpoints) to be able to sell even a single copy, and almost nothing to do with "the ability to globally represent the conflict as one of a noble struggle against evil."

To pretend that we don't make games based on those struggles for the sole reason of not being able to stack the moral cards in our favor is borderline absurd.

As far as the rest of your comments: Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, and killed what, five thousand servicemen? Up until that point the U.S. was not an active participant in any WWII theater. Try and keep that frame of reference when you say our participation in the Pacific and the way history was written is "simple hegemony."

The other point is that due to the realities of American cultural power, the ability to globally represent the conflict as one of a noble struggle against evil is one that is reserved by the US. It's simple hegemony, the power to frame and bracket events like this one in the most favorable way.

Everybody does this; the Germans want to forget the whole thing, the Japanese put a "spin" on it to make themselves look less blameworthy.

(If you get a chance, check out a Japanese schoolbook on 'The Great Pacific War' or whatever they're calling it. It's eye-opening.)

Funny how there aren't any simulations of, say, the US-Mexican conflicts, and how most Western sims don't deal too much with aboriginal genocide.

Well, a number of paper & pencil wargames have dealt with those. But they don't approach the scope or drama of WW2.

For that matter, neither do many other wars. When was the last time you saw a computer game about the Seven Years' War? The Ottoman Siege of Vienna in 1683?

Anyone up for an FPS set in the Spanish Civil War? You can play as either a Nationalist or Republican! Winning the game on the "I Am Franco Incarnate" skill level unlocks another mission where you can be a Condor Legion pilot and blow the crap out of some town.

One mod could be "NKVD," where you're a Soviet "internationalist volunteer" and run around shooting Republican players while pretending to fight the Nationalists.

As for Western sims, there have been old-school wargames which covered the Indian Wars. The problem with that is we're talking about an on-and-off clash of cultures that spans 300 years (roughly, from the original colonial settlements to the final conquest of the West in the late 1800s).

A good comparison would be Rome vs Gauls, or the Russian expansion eastward into Asia and Siberia. You could focus on certain key battles, but the larger conflict would be harder to make into a game without abstracting it into pointlessness.

What is really interesting here, as Christoph and Tony pointed out, is why anti-Nazi games are okay but anti-Imperialist Japan games are not okay. Part of the explanation certainly lies in causes of WWII and the misconceptions held by both sides at the time. But surely part of it also lies in the conceptions or misconceptions that each side still holds today.

History informs us but it can also blind us.

The reason that anti-nazi games are ok, is simply a feature currently in vogue in the world. A nazi is evil no matter what, he doesn't have to prove it, we just know it. In the movies, the realization that someone is a nazi is the sign post telling us they are evil. An rxample, in "End of Days" the first thing that the devil does is prove that he is evil by blowing up a building, but in the Indiana Jones series, the nazis have to prove nothing, we just know they are evil and therefore up to no good.

Lets stand back a second. The devil, the incarnation of all evil as we, in the western world, know it has to spend a few moments of our time proving that he is in fact evil. But members of a 1930's and 40's political party, that secretly, commisioned the killing of millions of its own citizens are marked as evil in a single swath that spares none.

Nazis don't need to prove they are evil, they just are. Ergo it is alright to kill them in a video game.

But what about your average Japanese soldier. Many people do not know this, but the Japanese army is infamous in the east for the swath of destruction it cut through the pacific. It is infamous because they commited atrocities as easily as they ate. Rape and bayoneting of young women became standard in korea and south east asia. As the americans pulled into the phillapines at the end of the war, The japanese army commited horrendous crimes, that are not forgotten by the phillipinies to this day. Like Raping young girls then throwing them out of 15 story buildings.

The Nazi party did commit genocide, but the average soldier had no idea that was going on and was generally a normal and good man.

Funny how we have cast these two in our modern world.

If any side is devastated where as others are less devastated, obviously the less devastated sides are better off.

I meant that neither side was bettered by the war. I suppose you could argue that America gained some strategic military locations, but my point was that neither America nor Japan really benefited from the war. Obviously America was in better shape than Japan when the war ended, but I don't think that "being better than the loser" means you are "the winner."

All I wanted to point out is that games usually rely on very simplistic views of good and evil. For example, all the robot monsters in Viewtiful Joe look similar and each one of them is classifiably "evil." Sure they are being controlled by some other more-evil force, but you can safely assume that each robot really is out for Joe's blood because it is fundamentally made to be evil.

When you start talking about real people and real events, you can't simply say "xxx country is evil." Even if the country is responsible for atrocities during a war, you can't simply say that each and every individual residing in that region has a dark heart.

So my point was that EA (and anybody who makes a game that presents one side as better than the other in a historic conflict) is treading on perilous ground. Games like to label one group as the bad guys and the player's group as the good guys, but such a blunt distinction is bound to offend people who've been labeled "evil."

waka

Bishop, I think it's also interesting to remember that prior to the US entering WWII public opinion was more clearly anti-Japanese and pro-Chinese than it was anti-German. While President Roosevelt was of the opinion that Nazi Germany was the greater threat, the general public's antipathy was focused on Imperialsit Japan even prior to Pearl Harbor.

The Nazi party did commit genocide, but the average soldier had no idea that was going on and was generally a normal and good man.

Well, I'd like to think great uncle Kurt was. He joined the army of the Reich in 1935 or thereabouts. But there were some military units formed specifically by the Nazi party, such as the Einsatztruppen and parts of the Waffen-SS, who were as evil as the guards at Auschwitz.

I meant that neither side was bettered by the war. I suppose you could argue that America gained some strategic military locations, but my point was that neither America nor Japan really benefited from the war. Obviously America was in better shape than Japan when the war ended, but I don't think that "being better than the loser" means you are "the winner."

Waka, I don't see it. When the guns fell silent in 1945, Japan had lost its entire overseas empire, millions of its citizens and soldiers, most of its planes and ships, half of its major cities and lay helpless before its foes. It would be occupied by the army of a foreign power who would rewrite its laws and constitution from the ground up and effect a change in Japanese society almost as great as that of the Meiji Restoration.

America, on the other hand, rang in the new year 1946 as one of two superpowers that spanned the globe, with the kind of political and military dominance not seen since ancient Rome. Have no doubt; WW2 was the end of Europe and the "Old World" and the beginning of the American Age (for better or worse). American was wealthy, inventive, restless, populous and had come through the war with almost no damage to its home territories or industries.

I cannot think of two starker examples of "loser" and "winner" than Japan and the USA after WW2.

Brian, your points are valid. I think we are arguing the definition of "winner" rather the nature of the war.

When I say that there are no "winners" in a war, I mean that nobody is pure and good. Sure, the Nazis did terrible things during the war, but does that mean the Americans are automatically perfect and humanitarian in every way. I don't think shooting high school kids out of the air (as in the battle of Midway) was particularly heroic, and I don't believe that our use of the bomb was justified (even though Japan turned out pretty good in the end).

I think it is very easy to say the guys who lost were bad and the guys who won were good, but reality isn't that simple. Which is why I think EA is taking a risk by presenting the Americans as the only playable characters. They are implicitly declaring that the Americans are heroes and the Japanese are thus the bad guys, which I think will rub plenty of people the wrong way.

waka

As a game maker, I'd say this has everything to do with the fact that it's not an interesting enough topic or war (from both gameplay and technological standpoints) to be able to sell even a single copy, and almost nothing to do with "the ability to globally represent the conflict as one of a noble struggle against evil."

Do you mean to tell me that, as a game maker, you could unproblematically produce and distribute a videogame that simulated the Vietnam War from the VC/NVA perspective? A resource sim depicting the management of US activities in Latin America from the 60's through the 80's? Do you really think that the market just sees things in terms of "Team A" versus "Team B" and that the actual sides and histories involved are just window dressing?

They are implicitly declaring that the Americans are heroes and the Japanese are thus the bad guys, which I think will rub plenty of people the wrong way.

Don't mean to beat a dead horse, but who are these "plenty of people" - those who longed for a Japanese victory in WW2?

I agree that both sides should be playable, but simply because that makes for a better game.

(And yes, William, I'd accept a Viet Nam game where you could play the VC for the same reason.)

Aristotle spends much of his Poetics arguing that the quality of drama is determined not by the subject matter, but by the presentation (plot, character, diction, song, spectacle). Janet Murray extends Aristotle's system to interactive systems (exploration, transformation, agency). So, I would say, yes it is possible (though not necessarily easy) to make a good game about things that make us uncomfortable.

And, of course, EA's Battlefield Vietnam (a game certainly not without its own share of moral baggage) allows you to play as a VC/VNA soldier in the Vietnam War.

Forget the weirdness of Japanese players playing Americans killing Japanese. Have you checked out the model for the US Army's online shooter? No matter what side you're on you are the Americans and they are the terrorists. Talk about your moral relativism.

There is an even larger issue than which side of the war you're on. It's the idea of making games about wars at all. People who read Penny Arcade might remember that a little while ago, Gabe went to meet his Grandfather and show him Medal of Honor and see what he thought of it. See his grandfather had been in the war. Tycho then commented on what it would be like to bring the Vietnam game to his own dad who had been in Vietnam and said something along the lines of "asking how he felt about somebody making a toy out of your buddy being killed in the jungle".

But we've always done this with our wars. So many books, so many movies, so many comics, radio serials etc. What can I say? War makes a good narrative backdrop.

Bowler: As a game maker, I'd say this has everything to do with the fact that it's not an interesting enough topic or war (from both gameplay and technological standpoints) to be able to sell even a single copy, and almost nothing to do with "the ability to globally represent the conflict as one of a noble struggle against evil."

William: Do you mean to tell me that, as a game maker, you could unproblematically produce and distribute a videogame that simulated the Vietnam War from the VC/NVA perspective? A resource sim depicting the management of US activities in Latin America from the 60's through the 80's? Do you really think that the market just sees things in terms of "Team A" versus "Team B" and that the actual sides and histories involved are just window dressing?

No, that's not even close to what I said. What I was getting at was that the market will only buy what it deems popular. Vietnam is not very popular. Especially from the VC perspective. The only reason EA can even make a game like Battlefield: Vietnam (and have it sell better than Vietcong, for example) is because there is no story mode and that you are in fact playing Team A vs. Team B in a well established and loved game engine. Don't for one second even pretend that there's going to be an ounce of moral context to this game. It's nothing more than Battlefield 1942 with new skins and new maps. It's playing off the success of Battlefield and giving people a new theater with new maps to play in. Nothing more. See also: The Desert Storm mods.

A resource sim in Latin America based on U.S. activities in the region? This is exactly the kind of boring war subject matter that I was getting at in my previous post. There's no way anyone in their right mind would even attempt to make a game like that compelling, because the subject matter itself lacks any interest by the population at large. Sure, as Clockwork says, you could make a game like that interesting with the right presentation, but by and large companies have learned that the same presentation could be told in a more interesting time period.

As far as only seeing things as Team A vs. Team B, yes, I do think that by and large, that's how the gameplay is designed if you're talking about a primarily multiplayer game. As I mentioned above, Battlefield: Vietnam is nothing more than Battlefield 1942 with a re-skinning job. Same core game engine, same user interface with a new facelift. The weapon damages and fire rates are tweaked to semi-accurately represent those in that era, but for the most part: same game, new face.

However, if there's storytelling to be had, then the treatment becomes increasingly different. If the intention is to sell the story-based game to Americans (which in this case it is), you can bet that the storyline had better read Americans = good guys and the Japanese = the bad guys. Anything else would be a catastrophic business disaster, and let's face it: EA is in it for the money. Also, it would be historically inaccurate. It seems like you're attempting to make some sort of moral relevance issue out of the whole thing here, and quite frankly, you're doing an incredible disservice to both sides by doing so.

I think everyone agrees that marketing this game in Japan as-is was a stupid idea. As far as marketing it for an American audience, it's spot on. I'm not even sure what it is you're arguing for anymore, or what kind of point you're trying to make.

What I'm really trying to say, Bowler, is that the US is in the catbird seat for creating the game-versions of the myths about history that make its people feel best about itself, and is also in the driver seat when it comes to exporting those myths. It's an extension of the power of Hollywood to do the same thing. And when we see those myths being exported unsuccessfully to Japan, we might remember that the only reason Japan has some "resistance" to those myths, is that it has a healthy, functioning game-industry of its own.

The fact that many other cultures do not will have ramifications on the relationship between those cultures and the export of American cultural artifacts.

I also view some of the games that people see as just "A versus B" as being somewhat more ideological than is recognized. Counter-Strike, at first glance, seems quite non-partisan - the terrorists could be read as extreme-right or left wing, as Scandinavian eco-terrorists as much as some sort of quasi-Islamicist luddites or such. But the real ideology is the fact that the missions indicate that state violence is moral sanctioned in a way that non-state violence is not; that violent power is legitimized when it is in the service of a nation state. That's not a neutral "A vs B" stance.

There are ways to make political claims that aren't simply narrative.

What I'm really trying to say, Bowler, is that the US is in the catbird seat for creating the game-versions of the myths about history that make its people feel best about itself, and is also in the driver seat when it comes to exporting those myths. It's an extension of the power of Hollywood to do the same thing.

William, are you seriously claiming that the reigning collective mindset of Hollywood is one of jingoist America-boosting? You're dreaming. Hollywood is one of the nerve-centers of political and cultural Leftism.

Counter-Strike, at first glance, seems quite non-partisan - the terrorists could be read as extreme-right or left wing, as Scandinavian eco-terrorists as much as some sort of quasi-Islamicist luddites or such. But the real ideology is the fact that the missions indicate that state violence is moral sanctioned in a way that non-state violence is not; that violent power is legitimized when it is in the service of a nation state. That's not a neutral "A vs B" stance.

And...? I don't think there SHOULD be moral neutrality between a hostage-taking bank robber and the SWAT sniper who is sent to blow his brains out before he can murder some helpless bank teller. Terrorists are the same thing, just insert (political goal here) for bags of money.

If we really want to spin this out, SPACE INVADERS has a political message: Earth for humans, and it's ok to kill those damned aliens before they land and take over...

"I think it is very easy to say the guys who lost were bad and the guys who won were good, but reality isn't that simple."

I totally agree. In fact, the thought didn't even cross my mind that someone might think that until you said it. The clear distinction between good and evil is done in literature and movies for non-historical events, but most good true-to-history books or movies tend to stray aware from that "good guy" vs "bad guy" idea. (Schindlers List, for example). I guess I just assume most people would not draw that instant distinction of good/evil just because it was a video game. I agree with you on the fact that game developers have to be aware they're working with a touchy subject and they should be very careful if they don't want to offend anyone. Your definition of "winner" is obviously unclear, but that's really trivial because I know what you mean. (As I said before, "while I agree with the 'There are no winners in war' attitude, it's logically wrong.")

Bottom line is game developers can make anything they want. I whole-heartedly support freedom of expression through speech and art. So even if someone came out with an intentionally offensive war game, I would still not want it banned. I would hope for it to be a financial failure. The intention, though, is obviously not to offend so game developers would definitely need to make sure those distinctions of "good guys" and "bad guys" are not made.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I love this site. It's nice to know we can talk about a 'sensitive subject' without going overboard and still openly convey our different view points. (Hopefully I'm not saying this too soon, hehe. No flame war yet, let's keep it that way.)

William: What I'm really trying to say, Bowler, is that the US is in the catbird seat for creating the game-versions of the myths about history that make its people feel best about itself, and is also in the driver seat when it comes to exporting those myths.

So if a U.S. WWII veteran (specifically in this example, Gabe's grandfather from Penny Arcade) states that the game's depiction of WWII is chillingly accurate, why are you still calling it "myth?" The people who make these games strive to make it as historically accurate as humanly possible. To present a factually correct one-sided story, regardless of whose side is being portrayed, is not myth. It's an attempt at interactive history. Did you play the Omaha Beach mission in the last Medal of Honor? I would hardly say that it "make[s] its people feel best about itself." It's a chilling portrayal of war. It's disgusting. For the first time (in conjunction with Saving Private Ryan, another "myth"), I caught a sliver of the horror of what every American who hit that beach must have felt, and gave me a better level of appreciation for our war veterans. Hell, for any war veterans.

I also view some of the games that people see as just "A versus B" as being somewhat more ideological than is recognized. Counter-Strike, at first glance, seems quite non-partisan - the terrorists could be read as extreme-right or left wing, as Scandinavian eco-terrorists as much as some sort of quasi-Islamicist luddites or such. But the real ideology is the fact that the missions indicate that state violence is moral sanctioned in a way that non-state violence is not; that violent power is legitimized when it is in the service of a nation state. That's not a neutral "A vs B" stance.

I'm just going to skip over the whole moral equivalence thing on the sanctionable violence, because I think Brain sums up my opinions on this nicely, and cut to the A vs B bit.

Now you're just over-analyzing everything. Counter-Strike was a mod for a game. That means some guy sat in his basement, with the help of I think one other guy (the artist) and tried to come up with something that would be topical and compelling and more importantly fun. He wasn't trying to make some ideological diatribe about sanctionable vs. non-sanctioned violence. He was simply trying to portray some counter-terrorism action. The terrorists aren't even real terrorists. L337 kr3w? Hello? Arctic Avengers? Come on. If you can't see the A vs. B aspect of Counter-Strike, then I don't know where to go from here. Both sides have an equal chance of winning. There's no politics. The terrorists want to blow something up. The CTs want to stop them. There's no hint of conflict beyond this scenario; there's no political naval-gazing going on. It's just you vs. them. It doesn't get any more A vs. B than that. Unless you're playing Quake, but then, I could argue that when you're playing Counter-Strike, you are playing Quake.

Bowler, look past you a few meters and you might see my point. That CS was created by some guy in his basement means nothing - when we're talking about ideology in games or any other cultural artifact, we aren't talking about conscious, though-out propaganda. It's not as if I suspect EA of working with the US Government to officially promote the nationalist agenda. That sort of heavy-hand propagandizing is easy to spot and conspicuous. We're talking about the background presumptions and epistemology that go behind the process, the fact that things are depicted as a certain way without realizing that it's arbitrary or determined by someone's position. Simulation is about selective ontology, after all.

The whole "you're reading too much into it" plaint comes from a complete failure to understand that this is what ideology really is, which is not an explicit belief system.

And the reason I bring up CounterStrike is because it seems, on the face of it, A vs B. But it isn't. In simple words, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter." The state-sponsored troops are never depicted as killing civilians, despite the fact the government-backed forces historically have a considerably higher civilian body-count than non-state-back military forces.

Not that I expect the games to account for this: noting ideology isn't the same thing as a hysterical call for each and every game to adhere to a certain line. It's just that the games indicative of the cultural origin and political ontology of their makers.

How's the class size at the Frankfurt School these days, William? ;)

Seriously, as for this:

And the reason I bring up CounterStrike is because it seems, on the face of it, A vs B. But it isn't. In simple words, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

That depends on the men. I don't see much equivalence between the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party vs the Sturmabteilung, Michael Collins vs the IRA shooting Protestant clergymen or between Irgun striking military targets vs Hamas blowing up busloads of schoolchildren.

The state-sponsored troops are never depicted as killing civilians, despite the fact the government-backed forces historically have a considerably higher civilian body-count than non-state-back military forces.

Well, if by government-backed forces you mean entire ARMIES, they fight and kill on a large scale. Also, elite special ops like Delta Force, GSG9 and the SAS tend to strike very surgically.

The state-sponsored troops are never depicted as killing civilians, despite the fact the government-backed forces historically have a considerably higher civilian body-count than non-state-back military forces.

There are no civilians in Counter-Strike, save the hostages. Are you saying that the terrorists are civilians? Because any civilian with a weapon who fires on a military force is now considered an active combatant. If the terrorists want civilian status, don't carry an AK-47 and fire it at other people. That's not a civilian.

I completely understand ideology in videogames, and in culture in general, but you seem to have a much larger, grander bone to pick.

In simple words, "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter."

And I think I've found the bone.

So the guys who piloted the planes into the Twin Towers were freedom fighters, then? Who were they trying to free? Who were we as a country holding hostage? What Arab country were we occupying at that point in time? The answer, is obvious. They have no cause other than attempting to force the world to convert to their radical form of Islam. They're not freedom fighters. They're terrorists. The fact that you can't see the difference is outright alarming.

This is so off topic it has ceased to be amusing. Or constructive.