There's an going on over at 'The Selling Game' blog discussing the Six Days game that was cancelled recently and the larger issue of whether games should tackle serious topics like war and politics.
Yet there is something in this story that does not make sense at first glance. After all, this was not the first attempt to portray the Iraqi war. There are already many movies made about almost any war in recent and far history - most of them featuring Americans fighting in somebody else's country. Why such a strong reaction to a game when seemingly anyone can make a movie about anything related to war?
Add to this puzzle the fact that there are games such as Modern Warfare, Battlefield series, and many more, taking place within the context of imaginary conflicts that are blatantly obvious anagrams of real world conflicts, and yet faring merrily in sales figures with nary a protest, nor an objection. So what's going on here?
The answer is simple. When it comes to handling sensitive subjects of the real world with due care, video games just have zero - none, null, nada, squat - vote of confidence from their audience. The situation is exactly that of the previously described rebellious teenager who, upon asking if he/she could take the keys to the family car to go to a late night party, is given the answer: "Yeah, right. Like that's gonna happen in a million years."
This is something that I have been trying to work through myself as I flesh out the storyline and background for C:SO. There are a couple of scenarios that I've been playing with:
1) Historical Timeline, replay the role that Special Operations forces have played in the Vietnam + more recent years. This obviously has the benefit of giving me a TON of source material, but juggling the fact that many of these missions were simply the United States exercising their 'Nation Building' muscle around the world, an extremely controversial topic at best and one that is difficult to portray in a balanced manner.
2) 'Alternate Reality' timeline that takes some of the events and builds it's own storyline on it. World in Conflict did this extremely well, and the same kind of idea could be applied to C:SO.
3) Random 'Near Future' timeline with Fictional Scenarios / Locations etc - this is the route that BF2 / CoD4 / GRAW and other similar games have done.
Now #3 is the route that I'm (currently) planning to go with C:SO, but it brings up the question - why is the very thin 'veil' that games like BF2 / CoD4 drop over the player's eyes sufficient to remove the controversy of their subject matter / plot, where a game that 'dares' to use the actual name of a major battle gets mocked and derided to the point that it actually puts the company out of business?
Is it because (as Ernest Adams points out):
Yes, the industry needs to grow up. I've been complaining, sometimes bitterly, about that for nearly 20 years. But what does that mean in specific terms?
To me, one thing it means is that when the developers of a game DO choose to tackle difficult and controversial subjects, they must do so with the utmost seriousness. They must not yield to the temptation to include gratuitous shock content, inside humor, or anything else that would justify a criticism that the game is trivializing the subject. (It will receive that criticism anyway, just for being a game; the question is whether the game includes content that, in candor, really DOES trivialize the subject.)
Yes games should tackle difficult & controversial topics. Not reducing subjects as serious as War into random 'ooh look at the shiny gibs' interviews at game press events / conferences would help alot - something that developers can't seem to get enough of. The Cliffy B's of the world definitely do nothing to help our public image as blood thirsty maniacs. That's not to say that fantasy-oriented games don't have a place, but as far as furthering 'gaming' as a serious entertainment medium, the current attention that console-style shooters get definitely doesn't help.
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