Fodder for Someone Else's Cannon
One of the most prevalent kinds of controversy starts when a game cuts across a political or social issue that someone has a predetermined position on. Such was the case with Shadow Complex, the Chair Entertainment-developed, Epic Games-financed Xbox Live Arcade game that inadvertently sparked a debate about Orson Scott Card's condemnations of homosexuality.
The controversy had little to do with the game or the people who made it. Shadow Complex was part of an original IP created by Chair Entertainment, with a game script written by comic book writer Peter David. Card licensed the larger IP from Chair and wrote a two-book series (Empire and Hidden Empire) based on it. Shadow Complex served as a bridge between Card's two books, but the IP and core creative ideas originated at Chair and had little if any reference to homosexuality.
In the midst of launching Shadow Complex to unprecedented sales (it was the fastest-selling XBLA game of all time at release) and enthusiastic reviews (it has a Metacritic score of 88 and is one of the best-reviewed XBLA games of all-time), a debate broke out over the morality of buying an entertainment from a company with a direct business link to an anti-gay activist.
As editorials were published and boycotts were conceived, Chair, Epic, and Microsoft declined to comment.
While the debate about sexuality had little to do with the game content, many used the association of a well-known and Mormon-aligned grudge as a catalyst to have a free-roaming conversation about the nature of boycotts, free speech, and the impact of political views on creative works.
This can be one of the most difficult forms of controversy to counter, because it has little to do with the actual game.
"You just have to assess what you're dealing with; you can't apply a formula to any one crisis," an industry PR veteran, who asked to remain anonymous, said. "You have to look at each one for what it is, and not downplay people's sensitivities. What you may not be sensitive to, someone else may be, and you can't just dismiss that."
The hardest part of finding yourself pulled into a controversy over an issue you might not have been aware of during development is discerning what you can and can't affect. It's not pleasant to wake up in the morning and find an expanding web of blogs, forum threads, emails, and article commenter's condemning you and your work. It's also impossible to rationally stop a web of criticism that is simultaneously expanding in a thousand different directions.
"The only one practice you can apply to every situation is that whatever you do just address it immediately," the PR veteran told me. "Whether that's to make a comment or not to make a comment, issue an apology, or to fix something -- whatever you do, you want to act quickly. Not always publicly, but always be on it, be aware that this is breaking and start working on it."
Resident Evil 5 generated a notable controversy, starting with an allegation of racism after a teaser trailer was shown at E3 in 2007. The Village Voice's Bonnie Ruberg was the first to see the phenomenon of "othering" in the trailer's ominous portrait of a lone white American in a village of zombified Africans.
Shortly after, Tracey John interviewed N'Gai Croal for MTV's Multiplayer blog, and Croal followed the thread by suggesting some black Americans might feel insulted by the setting and the potential evocation of Sambo-racist cartoons from the Ninteenth and early Twentieth centuries.
"Since the RE5 controversy, we have become much more aware of how important it is that we are part of the asset creation process early on so that we are able to have a say in the end product," Melody Pfeiffer, senior PR manager for Capcom, said.
"We are also designing a lot of our own assets from this side of the pond so that we are able to make strategic pieces of content that make sense for our market. We are working really closely with our producers in Japan to construct these materials for the West and they are open more then ever to hearing our thoughts and ideas for assets."
Resident Evil 5
While the zombies behaved more or less consistently in every other game in the series, the change in setting and ethnicity brought with it an extraordinarily sensitive history for many Americans. The resulting controversy became a kind of public focus testing for the perceived racial statements of the trailer.
"We're kind of on the frontier. No one really knows what's offensive until you test the trailer and someone says, 'Oh, that's offensive,'" the movie studio executive told me.
"Then we'll know that's something to be aware of moving forward, and then at the end of the process hopefully you'll know where to go to campaign and not turn off anybody."
The allegations of racism might have seemed confusing to the development team at the time. The game was designed to be played in co-op with an African partner, and the main villains were white American scientists. The development team took extra care to ensure subsequent footage of the game had a less homogenous mix of zombies. Central Asian merchants and white post-colonialists were mixed in a bit more noticeably among the black Africans to temper American assumptions that Resident Evil 5 was a race parable.
"No, we certainly didn't anticipate the reaction," Jun Takeuchi, Capcom's producer on the game, told MTV in 2008. "We think it was a bit of a misunderstanding when we published the first images of the game back in the day. And we think that as we move along and allow people to see more of the game and more of what's going on and more of the story, people will get a better idea of the game. I think you can see that that reaction has started to die down a little bit."
RE5, like Shadow Complex, might have experienced a less tumultuous public reception with more careful vetting in advance. Card's belief that homosexuality is socially destructive has been a story for over twenty years. Likewise, it shouldn't have been a total surprise to Capcom that America, a country which had massive race riots in the Nineties, might be especially sensitive to the portrayal of black people -- even fictional African ones.
"When we do a trailer we'll test it quantitatively so we'll get a sense of whether or not the materials are offensive before America sees them," the movie studio executive told me.
"In terms of publicity everyone identifies their talking points for a potential issue and there is a lot of outreach in advance that happens."
|
Printer-Friendly Version
I also fully agree with the quadrant concept of the market. For some reason video games are everyone's whipping boy, the same sort of controversy doesn't surround the WWF though I would consider it much more offensive.
Dahr Jamail's piece in Games TM really outlined how offensive the project is. From a forum post by Matthew at Games TM discussing the piece and Six Days: "It simply repeats the 'official' and false version of events, despite the fact that it's the only version of events available to the wider public. Not only this, but it falsely reinforces the official version as truth by saying it's all based on first-hand reports." ( http://www.gamestm.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13831 )
Yes, most of the public reaction was simply based on the fact that a video game was engaging such serious subject matter and reflected a ridiculous attitude that games should never attempt examining such things. However wrong the public's reasoning in finding Six Days offensive was, though, it's still exactly the right response to have towards this game.
Further, while the Call of Duty series is guilty of many crimes, the No Russian level isn't one of them and is nothing like Six Days. No Russian thrusts players into a scene where active atrocities are being committed (maybe even by you) and, while the experience is revolting, it's not misrepresenting anything or, in that regard, propagandistic. Six Days claims to be No Russian, yet in its version of events Makarov is heroically and selflessly fighting for and alongside his comrades against the hordes of enemy soldiers swarming all around the Moscow airport.
Not all game controversies are created equal, and when presenting Fallujah, not editorializing is editorializing. As developers, if we make disgusting, offensive shit, we better expect to be called out on it. That's the way it works in a serious, mature medium and form.
Games aren't just games.
War is a complex and multifaceted event, probably one of the most complex on both a factual and emotional level that humans engage in. To make the claim that only properly "on message" speech is fit to join the public discussion is to reject consideration of all those complexities and facets that might challenge your understanding of events. And that's without even touching upon your apparent confidence that you can stand as arbiter of truth and falsehood from third-hand, while glibly dismissing any first-hand accounts that don't fit your preconceived narrative.
In short, attitudes like yours, Nick, are antithetical to the "serious, mature medium" you seem to have so much regard for. They are the attitudes of someone who is either not willing or not able to engage on an issue unless it has first been simplified and pre-packaged in a comfortably familiar way.
Thanks for the reply. Matthew at Games TM and Kar, in the forum thread I linked to, already had this discussion and I fully agree with what Matthew said. Here's their discussion:
"Re: Discuss - Reality Check article
Post by Matthew on Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:13 am
In my opinion, the difference is the lack of understanding. Vietnam and WWII are different because they are widely documented, with the crimes and heroism of both forces well understood by a large amount of people. The only side of Fallujah that was reported was the lie, and a lie from the same government that lied to get the war going in the first place. As Dahr Jamail points out, Fallujah was a war crime on both a micro and a macro level - it should never have happened in the first place, and the conduct of the US troops and the use of weapons violated a whole host of international laws. The problem is that virtually nobody know this and, as Jamail again highlights, the mass media failed to report on that side of it too.
The problem with Six Days In Fallujah – the reason why it is unprecedented and can't be easily compared to games about historical conflicts – is because it simply repeats the 'official' and false version of events, despite the fact that it's the only version of events available to the wider public. Not only this, but it falsely reinforces the official version as truth by saying it's all based on first-hand reports. From what Jamail said to me, there can't have been a single troop that didn't witness the kind of brutality he saw, and few would willingly admit they had anyway. Atomic's claims that it talked to insurgents is bullshit, too.
Yes, we see games based on historical wars, but we don't see games based on My Lai pretending that Marines didn't murder civilians. This isn't about war games in general, but the nature of the second battle of Fallujah - as far as I can make out, this is an entirely unique situation in the history of videogames.
Re: Discuss - Reality Check article
Post by Kar on Mon Jun 08, 2009 5:26 am
'it simply repeats the 'official' and false version of events, despite the fact that it's the only version of events available to the wider public. Not only this, but it falsely reinforces the official version as truth by saying it's all based on first-hand reports. From what Jamail said to me, there can't have been a single troop that didn't witness the kind of brutality he saw, and few would willingly admit they had anyway.'
I think this is where the article really failed, and where you do need to be careful. While I have no doubt the 'official' version of events are highly, shall we say, de-humanised, I think it is wrong too to try and suggest that what went on was some epic atrocity committed by western troops.
What happened there, in my opinion, is pure urban warfare, the type of warfare which sadly means there is little differentiating non-combatants, from combatants. This is particularly true against an asynchronous enemy.
Jamil came across as highly partisan, and because there was the lack of a countering voice in the article we didn't get an account of what was being experienced by the solders themselves. That story didn't come through and I don't think this story has come through at all whether from Falluhja or elsewhere.
There needs to be 'truth' on both sides, the debate is too polarised for there to be much honesty. We need to understand the views of the civilians caught between the massive western war machine, and a heartless, callous insurgency who seem just as happy to see the civilians suffer as western troops.
While Treyarch's World at War let itself down with its nazi zombies, it did come close to showing the brutality of total war. Total war where there are no 'innocent' casualties, because everyone is a target whether deliberately or incidentally. It is existential war. Treyarch had the freedom to do that because sensitivities are such that we now accept that was how WW 2 was on the eastern front.
At the moment in terms of Iraq and Afghanistan we have two acceptable mainstream versions of the conflict 1. that it is a noble, honourable war fought bravely and honestly by the west for the good of the affected peoples or 2. that is an evil oppressive conflict where the west indiscriminately and cowardly fights where it should not be and is wholly responsible for any innocent lives lost. The whole anything we (the west do) is wrong because it was a war started because of a lie.
The 'truth' which I think, is something quite different from what Jamil tells us (and indeed from what the military tells us). It is somewhere in the middle, in the shades of grey and crimson. That's how it is always in war. The Falluhja game misses that point, this month's article misses that point.
And I think the debate is weaker for it.
The Iraq conflict started for the wrong reasons and in the wrong way. That much I think most people can agree. But it is moot really to the situation US soldiers found themselves in, fighting people who didn't care who they killed. It was an existential conflict with enraged passions and that is a story we really should hear about.
Maybe time will dull the polarised nature of the debate. I hope so, because many innocent civilians have died, and indeed many young western men and women. The loss of their lives deserves better than the view of the conflict this game, and indeed this article, gives it.
Image
Re: Discuss - Reality Check article
Post by Matthew on Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:17 am
The truth certainly does rest in the middle - an area that Atomic Games was deliberately avoiding. The Fallujah article was a follow-up to the previous month's 'Just A Game' piece, which included comment from Atomic Games about its motivations. The whole idea was to highlight how extreme some events of the battle were, and how misguided any attempt to represent the battle in a 'truthful' way - and this is precisely what Atomic Games were claiming – that didn't factor in civilian deaths, illegal use of weapons, and so on would be. If atomic was only regurgitating the official line, their side of the argument is the only one that actually is represented.
The comparison with COD is misleading, as are your comments about the issue being the entire Iraq conflict – this is about about a specific and drastically mis-reported battle, and a game that is tantamount to propaganda. Any media product going on record about Fallujah in the name of demystification needs to back that up in its content. Atomic's vision of the battle was 'Yeah, there might have been civilian casualties, but the soldiers we talked to didn't see any, so there won't be any in the game'.
I know where you're coming from, but if read a little more about the battle from the abundance of independent sources on the web you'll see how much of what Jamail said is backed up by the facts - even reporters for a paper like The Guardian had to submit there material to US government censors. Jamail is partisan because of what he saw, not some hidden agenda. Fallujah wasn't a city full of insurgents, but civilians, and the casualties corroborate this. The soldiers bravely followed their orders, but there's no reason why the nature of those orders and their repurcussions shouldn't feature in the game. I would welcome a game that really displayed how confused and wretched the soldier's position was, but the only demo of Six Days revealed something virtually indistinguishable from Call Of Duty.
Please don't take this the wrong way. When my requests for comment from Atomic were turned down, I went ahead with the piece because I felt that the other side was already extremely well represented ( I wanted to immediately follow Jamail's interview with someone from Atomic Games. The debate also seemed to be lumping the issue in with the whole 'are war games appropriate at all' debate, which ignores the unique complications presented by this game.
There is a boxout I wrote that was left out at the last minute. It was an idea of what a balanced Battle Of Fallujah game might be like. Here it is, and please respond if you feel I'm being dismissive. That isn't my intention, and as I say, I'm still trying to get Atomic Games to pipe up and express their side of it:
You begin the battle in control of the lowest rank in a set unit of soldiers. If you’re shot in the arm or superficially wounded, you must immediately retreat and seek medical attention, at which time you switch to the next soldier in the chain of command. If you’re shot in a critical place or killed, you also immediately switch to the next rank up. No health bars, recharging or otherwise. One bullet is all it takes to put a man down in the real world – combat armour notwithstanding – and so it should be in Six Days In Fallujah. Once the commanding officer dies the game ends, with no continues and no reinforcements to pick up where you left off. Your only recourse is to start from the very beginning. There will be no checkpoints; there will be no saved games. You last only as long as you can keep your soldiers alive. The battlefield itself should be no more forgiving. If you fire a rocket into a building without checking it first, the results will be randomly generated. It could be a cadre of armed insurgents, or it could be innocent civilians caught in the crossfire. The heightened pressure created by your own fallibility will also make snap decisions unavoidable. If you want to guarantee your survival, there won’t necessarily be time to assess whether the person that just jumped from an alleyway is an insurgent or a 16 year-old civilian, whether your orders are hasty or carefully considered, but it will be impossible to escape the reality once your magazine is empty. Oh, and to reach the end you have to play for six entire days.
Re: Discuss - Reality Check article
Post by Kar on Mon Jun 08, 2009 6:38 am
You're not being dismissive at all, I think _this_ is the kind of level of discourse the game should be able to reach.
From what I've read of it, and indeed from what you say of your own experience trying to get comment from the developer, it fails this.
The boxout would have been good I think, but given how heavy the article was already, I think it would have perhaps made the piece simply too hard for most people to really get through. After all people are complaining the magazine isn't light enough already :-)
Anyway, I think this is an interesting, and as you put it, unprecedented story. Perhaps the boxout can be re-purposed for a further follow up article in the future?
Again, there's no need for apologise about stating what you think. A little more frankness is required from everyone I think if anything like this sort of game is to be anything other than crass.
Cheers.
http://www.gamestm.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=13831
There was also no "use of illegal weapons" or "illegal use of weapons". This comes back to a basic ignorance of what the treaties and the laws of land warfare say about the use of white phosphorus for both illum/screening and as an offensive weapon. One of the fundamental problems with people who consider themselves the watchdogs of military propriety in war zones is that they are appallingly ignorant of military history, military science, and military reality. They know that war is bad, civilian deaths are bad, and violence is bad, and that is the sum total of what they have to bring to the public discussion.
Finally, Fallujah WAS full of insurgents, and any "independent reporter" who claims that it wasn't is frankly lying through their teeth. A good place to start to get a picture of that would be the CS Monitor's reports out of Fallujah before, during, and after the battle (the CS Monitor, BTW, has had some of the best journalistic coverage of Iraq period). The high estimate of civilian casualties is around 800, from a city of 425,000. Given the intensity of the fighting, that number is incredibly low, and the people who are shocked and amazed by how high it is need to do a quick study of modern military engagements in urban areas, starting with WWII, to see what those numbers would look like if the military had actually been reckless with regard to civilian lives, let alone deliberately targeted them.
Of course, that assumes that that number isn't high, something which I doubt. Hell, read Dahr Jamail's reports, and he himself claims that the only people in the city at that point were "mujahideen" and that he personally witnessed "children as young as 11 fighting as mujahideen" (who I pretty much guarantee were counted as "civilian deaths"). Of course, that reporting hasn't stopped him from turning around and saying that there was no insurgent presence in the city, etc, which pretty much tells you everything you need to know.
The Second Battle of Fallujah was a massacre and a monumental crime against humanity, plain and simple.
After explained that the facts and history back Jamail up 100%, the poster didn't continue to challenge the assertions in the Games TM thread.
No one ever claimed there were no insurgents in the city during the siege.
You state that the number of 800 civilians killed is pretty low considering that it's out of a city of 425,000 (numbers on this vary too), however, at the time of the siege, all, but 30-50,000 residents had fled the city. There's really no way to know the true civilian death count, but, analyzing it in a way most favorable to your statements (800/50,000), leaves us with 1.6% of the civilian population of the city killed--800/30,000 gives us 2.6%. There's no mathematical equation to determine something a massacre or not, but, when you're able to calculate the numbers of civilians killed in a city by a real percentage, I think reasonable, decent people can agree that constitutes a massacre. (Not to mention the countless, countless others injured, life-altering or otherwise.)
Jamail's Fallujah reports that you're referring to are of the First Battle of Fallujah, not the second, which is what we're discussing and what Six Days portrays, but please show where Jamail says that the only people in the city were mujahideen and "there was no insurgent presence in the city."
Whether or not a country is a signatory to a certain treaty or not is completely irrelevant to questions of basic human decency and crimes against humanity. Using weapons like phosphorus indiscriminately is outrageous.
Anytime a full scale invasion is directed against a civilian population center, you are, inescapably, deliberately targeting civilians. The bombs drop on the people below and that's a fact. Besides that, there are numerous first-hand reports of soldiers cold-bloodedly murdering civilians.
Recognizing and describing war as hell doesn't negate or excuse any responsibilities to make judgments upon specific instances of it. Any war of aggression is inherently illegal, wrong and evil, especially one based upon a lie.
And, the crimes of Fallujah are still unfolding in the births, deaths, lives and deformities of children born to mothers there. It is a legacy of evil, shame and atrocity that continues to claim victims to this day.
All Six Days in Fallujah does is deny the reality of these crimes and atrocities. This dangerous ignorance only helps ensure the likelihood of another Fallujah occurring again sometime sooner rather than later.
It's unacceptable.
Six Days in Fallujah could be a truly great game and one that really could push the medium and form forward, but, to do so would require acknowledging and examining the reality of the criminal horror that occurred there, not deny, propagandize and help cover it up. I would welcome that game.
Everything I've stated is backed up by the facts and documented. My sources are below.
Peace.
Civilian cost of battle for Falluja emerges
"Although many of Falluja's 200,000 to 300,000 residents fled the city before the assault, between 30,000 and 50,000 are believed to have remained during the fighting.
The horrific conditions for those who remained in the city have begun to emerge in the last 24 hours as it became clear that US military claims of 'precision' targeting of insurgent positions were false.
According to one Iraqi journalist who left Falluja on Friday, some of the civilian injuries were caused by the massive firepower directed on to city neighbourhoods during the battle.
'If the fighters fire a mortar, US forces respond with huge force,' said the journalist, who asked not to be named.
The city had been without power or water for days. Frozen food had spoiled and people could not charge their cellphones. 'Some people hadn't prepared well. They didn't stock up on tinned food. They didn't think it would be this bad,' he said."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/nov/14/iraq.iraq3
A city lies in ruins, along with the lives of the wretched survivors
"After six days of intense combat against the Fallujah insurgents, US warplanes, tanks and mortars have left a shattered landscape of gutted buildings, crushed cars and charred bodies.
A drive through the city revealed a picture of utter destruction, with concrete houses flattened, mosques in ruins, telegraph poles down, power and phone lines hanging slack and rubble and human remains littering the empty streets. The north-west Jolan district, once an insurgent stronghold, looked like a ghost town, the only sound the rumbling of tank tracks.
US Marines pointed their assault rifles down abandoned streets, past Fallujah's simple amusement park, now deserted. Four bloated and burnt bodies lay on the main street, not far from US tanks and soldiers. The stench of the remains hung heavy in the air, mixing with the dust.
Another body lay stretched out on the next block, its head blown off, perhaps in one of the countless explosions which rent the city day and night for nearly a week. Some bodies were so mutilated it was impossible to tell if they were civilians or militants, male or female."
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/a-city-lies-in-ru ins-along-w
ith-the-lives-of-the-wretched-survivors-533246.html
2. Media Coverage Fails on Iraq: Fallujah and the Civilian Deathtoll
"Over the past two years, the United States has conducted two major sieges against Fallujah, a city in Iraq. The first attempted siege of Fallujah (a city of 300,000 people) resulted in a defeat for Coalition forces. As a result, the United States gave the citizens of Fallujah two choices prior to the second siege: leave the city or risk dying as enemy insurgents. Faced with this ultimatum, approximately 250,000 citizens, or 83 percent of the population of Fallujah, fled the city. The people had nowhere to flee and ended up as refugees. Many families were forced to survive in fields, vacant lots, and abandoned buildings without access to shelter, water, electricity, food or medical care. The 50,000 citizens who either chose to remain in the city or who were unable to leave were trapped by Coalition forces and were cut off from food, water and medical supplies. The United States military claimed that there were a few thousand enemy insurgents remaining among those who stayed in the city and conducted the invasion as if all the people remaining were enemy combatants.
Burhan Fasa’a, an Iraqi journalist, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis who could not speak English. “Americans did not have interpreters with them, so they entered houses and killed people because they didn’t speak English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and shot people because [the people] didn’t obey [the soldiers’] orders, even just because the people couldn’t understand a word of English.” Abu Hammad, a resident of Fallujah, told the Inter Press Service that he saw people attempt to swim across the Euphrates to escape the siege. “The Americans shot them with rifles from the shore. Even if some of them were holding a white flag or white clothes over their head to show they are not fighters, they were all shot.” Furthermore, “even the wound[ed] people were killed. The Americans made announcements for people to come to one mosque if they wanted to leave Fallujah, and even the people who went there carrying white flags were killed.” Former residents of Fallujah recall other tragic methods of killing the wounded. “I watched them [U.S. Forces] roll over wounded people in the street with tanks… …This happened so many times.”"
http://www.projectcensored.org/top-stories/articles/2-media-coverage- fails-on-ir
aq-fallujah-and-the-civilian-deathtoll/
Arms controversy in Iraq
Civilian fatalities in Fallujah raise concerns about US military's use of phosphorous munitions.
""If white phosphorous [is to be] used as an incendiary, the military has to do so in a manner consistent with our obligations to not unnecessarily harm civilians," says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association here. "The evidence available suggests that that may not have been done.""
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1118/p03s01-usmi.html
U.S. Forces Battle Into Heart of Fallujah
"The Jolan and Askali neighborhoods seemed particularly hard hit, with more than half of the houses destroyed. Dead bodies were scattered on the streets and narrow alleys of Jolan, one of Fallujah's oldest neighborhoods. Blood and flesh were splattered on the walls of some of the houses, witnesses said, and the streets were full of holes.
Some of the heaviest damage apparently was incurred Monday night from air and artillery attacks that coincided with the entry of ground troops into the city. U.S. warplanes dropped eight 2,000-pound bombs on the city overnight, and artillery boomed throughout the night and into the morning.
"Usually we keep the gloves on," said Army Capt. Erik Krivda, of Gaithersburg, the senior officer in charge of the 1st Infantry Division's Task Force 2-2 tactical operations command center. "For this operation, we took the gloves off."
Some artillery guns fired white phosphorous rounds that create a screen of fire that cannot be extinguished with water. Insurgents reported being attacked with a substance that melted their skin, a reaction consistent with white phosphorous burns."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35979-2004Nov9.html
Falluja doctors report rise in birth defects
"Doctors in the Iraqi city of Falluja are reporting a high level of birth defects, with some blaming weapons used by the US after the Iraq invasion."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8548707.stm
Fallujah children's 'genetic damage'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-10721562
"There's no mathematical equation to determine something a massacre or not, but, when you're able to calculate the numbers of civilians killed in a city by a real percentage, I think reasonable, decent people can agree that constitutes a massacre."
Since massacre is generally defined as "deliberate mass-killings of civilians with little or no resistance", I don't think that "reasonable, decent people can agree that constitutes a massacre". In fact, I'd argue that to try to use the label in that fashion is to be so broad and indiscriminate in your rhetoric as to cheapen and debase its meaning, something which is neither reasonable NOR decent.
Frankly, given the intensity of combat occuring there, even reducing the civilian population to 50,000 (which is doubtful. Journalists and first-hand accounts are extremely bad at distinguishing between civilian and insurgent population both for reasons of self-interest and simple lack of uniforms and such), the red cross casualty figures (which again, are likely to be high) of 800 are -low-. As I suggested earlier, before you try to hold forth on what constitutes a war crime, massacre, atrocity, etc, you should make an effort to educate yourself, both on the facts on the ground in Fallujah in 2004, and the history of modern military conflict in built up and urban areas.
Were US and British forces using their weapons "indiscriminately", let alone "deliberately targeting civilians" (note that these two claims are mutually exclusive, by the way. To target deliberately is to discriminate. Once again, you contradict yourself), civilian casualties would've been FAR, far higher.
Also, the terms "war crime" and "crime against humanity" are LEGAL terms. They have specific legal definitions. So to say that something is a war crime and then in the next breath claim that the legal documents that invented and apply the term are "irrelevant" is incredibly sloppy.
Frankly, when combined with the overblown rhetoric above ("it can't have been precision targeting because civilians were injured and killed" reveals a profound ignorance of military capabilities), it sends the message that you're not really concerned with the facts on the ground, or with the truth of what happened in Fallujah in 2004. Instead, you are caught up with your own emotional response to a narrative that includes some limited elements of reality while ignoring all the others, to the extent that you're not particularly interested in things like what a real massacre would look like, what precision targeting means, etc.
What I find frustrating about this is that a little education in military affairs and military history might temper your views with a dose of reality, and lead to a more thoughtful approach, but you show little to no interest in things like military law, treaty, what precision targetting means, how WP was used and the difference between using it as a chemical weapon, as an incendiary, and as an illum or screening agent, and so forth and so on. In fact you even go so far as to dismiss that sort of thing as irrelevant. But without that information, no meaningful judgement can be rendered, say all you like about your supposedly outraged sense of "human decency".
And this is WHY we need games like Six Days In Fallujah, or some other game that at least attempts to take an approach to war that is A) at least somewhat realism-focused and B) not editorializing. Because there is an incredible amount of ignorance out there, and frankly most media that gets praised for its "brave, no-hold barred realistic portrayal of war" (e.g. The Hurt Locker, and yet never something like Restrepo for some strange reason) tend to -add- to that ignorance.
So I'd like to see more games that take a variety of approaches. It broadens the public dialogue in gaming as in elsewhere, and it at least has a shot of educating people and teaching them things that they didn't know before, making them question their assumptions. And if that means some games glorify/whitewash war, I can live with that because A) it still moves the medium forward and leaves room for response/rebuttal, and B) there's at least some truth to that, and ignoring those elements of truth is just as dishonest and limiting as any piece of white-washing propaganda you care to name.
There's an oft-repeated quote usually attributed to General Lee during the American Civil War. Whether he actually said it when and where he's supposed to have is somewhat in doubt, like many such quotations, but it's repeated so often for its truth: "It is well that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it". To my mind, any piece of fiction about war must capture both halves of that quote. And even if we set aside our disagreements over the specifics of Fallujah, you have flat out said that there should be no place in the medium of gaming (and you imply no place generally) for any fiction that doesn't focus exclusively on the terrible-ness of war. That's extremely problematic, to say the least.
I backed up all my assertions with sources, my use of the terms war crime and crime against humanity are completely consistent with Webster's dictionary, I never said that there's no place for any game that doesn't focus exclusively on the terribleness of war (I said there's no place for a game about the Second Battle of Fallujah that doesn't exclusively focus on the terribleness of it), you failed to show where Jamail said the things you claimed he did, rather than dispute my documented, sourced statements with your own, you appeal to an ideal military education authority, your opinion that the numbers we're discussing are likely exaggerated are completely unsourced and undocumented, weapons can be used both indiscriminately and deliberately over the course of a six day-battle (these actions are not mutually exclusive), the Washington Post article I linked clearly documents the use of white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon within the city of Fallujah (you really want to argue that what decides the acceptability of such action or not is a treaty or law?), and the Second Battle of Fallujah was most definitely a shameful, disgusting, rotten, evil massacre (when a military force makes the conscious decision to indiscriminately wage war within a city and when some units of that force deliberately target civilians, the resultant, mass killings of civilians that offered little to no resistance is deliberate and, by definition, a massacre; again, both this indiscriminate and deliberate use of force around and on civilians is documented and sourced above).
If Six Days in Fallujah were released as planned it would have ultimately served only to bolster those that argue games can never be a form for exploring serious subjects. Six Days would have taken a massacre and whitewashed and glorified it into simply another military shooter, a genre which is clearly doing less than nothing to demonstrate the ability of games to maturely analyze most serious subjects. A lie cloaked in a patina of truth is all the more vile and pernicious for it.
I've given documented, sourced evidence to back up all my statements and assertions. If you've got something demonstrating to the contrary, please share and I'll be happy to take a look. Either way, take it easy.
You got a few causalities that were unavoidable, you missed a few shots, you stuffed up. The guilt that these media reports would invoke on you through exaggeration and ignorance.
I understand that this stuff is most unpleasant and hard to believe, but there's no reason to think any of the above reports exaggerate or promote ignorance. If you have sources proving otherwise, then please share.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4j50ghDeKA
That's a graphic video of a Marine putting a bullet in the head of a wounded, disarmed Iraqi. Journalist Kevin Sites also explains to Wired how four other wounded, disarmed Iraqis were shot just prior to that.
This video also neither exaggerates nor induces ignorance and only lends credence to the worst parts of the Project Censored report.
(Kevin's full report on the events: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6556034/ )
Again, this is what the Second Battle of Fallujah was and denying the crimes, atrocities and massacre, which, based on all available information (e.g., video footage, interviews, screenshots), Six Days in Fallujah does, only serves to ensure it'll all happen again sooner rather than later.
It's hard to learn from history without seeking to understand it.
So, when Fox or CNN or whoever heard "video game based on Fallujah", they probably assumed the same level of dignity and depth as Doom. Any later statements were too late to change the opinion of the reporters enough to get a major retraction.
Keeping things like that from happening is not simple. Ideally, we would get everyone to recognize the artistic merit of games, but that's at least a decade out, if it ever happens. You could hope that the major news outlets find an actual gamer to do fact-checking, but that's also a bit unlikely. The only workable solution I can think of is to bring it directly to the media, so they repeat your story, not make up their own. Find a hospitable news outlet that will listen, and announce the game there. Even if it isn't a particularly popular one, as long as it has some respect and name recognition, you'll be able to direct the tone of the debate. NPR might be a good choice.
Of course, another option would be to just avoid making controversial games, but that's both impossible, and limiting for games as a medium.
I'd still love to see someone attempt a game that's more of a historical, objective look at war. Even if it's just a proof of concept Source or Unreal mod. Nothing commercial, just an honest take on it. Probably best to stay away from such a touchy battle as well, haha.
Several interviews with Marines where taken and to be used to comment on the difficulties or tragedies for a particular event or day. SDIF was also going to feature both sides of the story from the person on the ground. So you'd hear how Marines dealt with a situation and how the other side dealt with the situation.
One thing to remember is that insurgents didn't encapsulate every enemy. Some people who fought were defending their home, others were terrorists who came in from other countries for the profit and opportunity to fight.
SDIF isn't endorsed by anyone. It can't be if it intends to show what really happened. Until the public actually experiences the product first hand, no one can say what it's truly about.
What's more informative? Watching a History channel show that's been heavily edited for time, reading a book about the experience, or being involved in the actual minute-to-minute moments?
How is an interactive experience any different than a TV show or book? With proper rules in place it wouldn't be abused to sensationalize the conflict.
Of course, this is based on what the project was a year ago. The direction of it could have changed while they work on Breach.
"Though it sometimes makes people squirm, confrontation should be one of the most essential and cherished qualities of any creative medium. To honestly look at ourselves, in flattering and unflattering lights, is the most honorable task any creator can have. It's also the most combustible and, given the lingering stereotypes of insignificance against games, these works require the most unyielding defense."
It's sad to me that Capcom is going to have a bunch of PR peeps sifting through their stuff now.
One thing I think we should keep in mind as media creators is how different our medium is than that of books, movies, etc. Rather than saying "Watch this" we say "Go do" and that reality is the double edged sword that makes our medium so powerful, but also a larger lightning rod for criticism. And rightly so. The act of watching a rape happen in a film is different psychologically than actually pressing a button that makes "me" rape a virtual person. Honestly I can watch almost anything, but I don't think I could ever play that game because of this vital difference. The Agency of the player connects the actions of the game protagonist to the player in a way that liner media can never do.
So we would again convene commission headed by Al Gore, who in 80s considered the prohibition of heavy metal, let them burn all the books / movies / broken clay tables with Gilgamesh story / destroy pyramids pictures where someone was killed, beaten, raped or verbal abused?
On the other hand, I still agree that, alternatively, game studio should share more information to public and their fan base for better understanding advocating them to spread the rumour about the game and they will be the voice to protect the project instead of throwing tantrums based on the unknowing.