BF2S Forums ethical or not--your call!

It's definitely a touchy subject when speaking to veterans about it. But I think if anything, most vets would want the younger generation to understand what it was like back then, what they were fighting for, what many people died for. They would want kids to experience it for themselves without putting them in any real danger. I think most World War II games have achieved that.

+1 for the thread

Touchy one indeed.  I don't know if ethic's are involved so much as maybe morals?

I thinks it's cool to play as long as you don't start talking like "I blew this guys head off" etc to a veteran.  The vets may have had to do something like that and it's never cool (at least from a couple that I know). 

I have never had to take another man's life and think that if I had to I could but it would be something that I could never shake.

This is just a game and as long as we remember it, fire away.

Personally I see video games as another form of entertainment, just like movies, television, or board games. It simply is not real, no matter how real it may look, and my brain can make that distinction.

Now, I'm not attacking your position or anything, but I have to ask if you find war movies (which are much more realistic and gut-wrenching than video games thanks to vfx) as ethically touchy as video games?

On the same topic, some people might be horribly offended by a board game that "simulates" war, such as Risk or Stratego, does that make those games immoral and wrong? What about Chess? Where does something like this end?

Eventually nothing is safe anymore because everyone is going to be offended by something.

It kind of depends on the war. There was a lot of negative vibes out there about making Vietnam games at first. Now there's a couple out there. I can't say I'd know how I'd feel about it unless I was in a war and then a game came out about it. Not a bad question to ask though.

By that standard, Call of Duty would have to be one of the best war games around...

I don't see a problem with it.  Remember, there have been board games, toys, comics, movies, TV shows about war for many many years now.  Someone coming up with a "Gas the Jews" level for BF1942 might be a bit over the top, but I don't see anything wrong with computer games about war, they're just another form of entertainment.

I recall reading Commando comics as a young child at my grandparents place, seeing some old war photos, having one grandparent's medals pinned on my chest so I'd go to sleep and running round their massive yard with my brother and cousins playing war games while my grandfather looked on.  Yer...I have grandparents and uncles on both sides of my family that fought in WW2 (Pacific on my fathers side and North Africa/Italy on my mothers), and none of them ever told us off, they may have even joined in on occasion.

I remember "The Mighty Eighth" (Flying Fortress 2)
The developers had a veteran who took part in missions in a B-17 over Europe during the war and they wanted to make sure that the experience is as tense as it can get in a computer game, they wanted to do the technical stuff right and didn't just want to make a game that would make it all look like "it wasn't that bad".
They did a good job and the veteran became a member of the biggest community for Flying Fortress 2.
And he played the game just like we did. He explained to us how to use the Norden Bombsight correctly, since the manual was ok, but a little bit vague on certain aspects.

I think, when the whole scenarios of war are treated with respect for the veterans and what they had to endure during the war it is the right step.

Making a game where the player can just waltz into Berlin and end the war all by himself is a slap into the faces of the veterans. Games where you start to care for the characters that you run around with, where the (often scripted) loss of a friend of the player's figure shows the tragedy and the harshness of the fighting, that really shows what the veterans achieved.

When I play a game like CoD or BiA on a hard setting, after I finish a mission I often wonder "How could they do it?" or "How could they get through all this?"
If it is just a statistic with a new highscore and the first thought is "Woot! I am so good!", then a game about WW II missed it's point.

That is why I think if a game about WW II (or any other war) that treats those who fought with respect and dignity no veteran would feel bad about it. Although some veterans probably still would say that it is wrong to use such a gruesome experience as a war for a "game" (and they have every right to think so, they were in the midst of it!)

As long as a game doesn't glorify war itself and shows that men rose above their abilities to do the almost impossible, then I wouldn't say that they are un-ethical.


See ya,
vonSteuben

ETA: Typo and to say: This is an interesting topic!

Last edited by vonSteuben (2006-05-02 03:04:20)