I am not usually offended by the prospect of a fun video game depicting a historic event such as war. That changed on July 15th, when Nintendo held their annual E3 press conference in Los Angeles. Showing a montage of “hot” third party titles (a relative term in the Nintendo camp), Call of Duty World at War was showcased following Rayman Raving Rabbids. In typical Nintendo fashion, an overexcited family makes wild gestures at their screen while flashing enormous smiles and exchanging high-fives.
In this particular case, I felt that all of this was highly uncalled for. Do yourself a favor, and watch Nintendo parade World at War; the moment I’m speaking of occurs exactly 32:26 into their press conference. What you’ll see is a couple of buddies smiling and living it up while they grill their Japanese opponents with a flamethrower. Hyping a horrific historical happening as a family activity was distasteful at best.
This begs the question: do war games capture the emotion of war in a meaningful way? I believe that games are a very powerful medium when used correctly. I’ve never met anyone that would argue Saving Private Ryan was disrespectful to those who fought –it’s more widely regarded as a cinematic masterpiece. But what if Spielberg had made a war game?—would it be as effective? (Toppling Hitler’s statue with Boom-Blox mechanics, anyone?) The thing that would hold the game back in this situation is that games are made to be fun, and nobody would want to buy and play a game that wasn’t fun (Turning Point Fall of Liberty succeeds in this regard). The 1up Yours podcast crew once speculated that a “game would be more powerful if it weren’t limited to the confines of what is fun,” citing the movie Schindler’s List as not ‘fun’ to watch, but certainly evocative of emotional response. Would a game have to leave the fun zone to accurately capture the horrors of war?—after all, war is not fun.
My grandfather experienced WWII, and has seen Saving Private Ryan; yet, I wouldn’t pop a WWII game into my disc drive in his presence – I feel that’s indicative of how war is portrayed in games. This is a common sentiment among gamers. In a GameSpot forum post titled “Any Cases of Veterans Playing War Games,” people reported cases where they took offence to the representation of WWII and Vietnam in games. User WltlsWisdom says, “I am an Iraqi veteran, Marine Corps recon, tasked to Special Forces and IIF. I went door to door house to house in four cities including Baghdad and Fallujah. I have no problem with first person shooters set in Vietnam or games such as Timesplitters or Halo, but I can’t play any games with anything about Iraq or the Middle East.” User OmegaEps is a ‘Nam vet who has played several WWII games but feels wrong playing Vietnam games, while user Lanezy reports that his “Grandpa saw him playing Medal of Honor: Frontline and excused himself from the room,” adding that he would “imagine it being very difficult to see a younger generation being ‘entertained’ by all the horrors and violence of war.”
That last quote segues nicely into another issue: what about the games based on wars these younger generations are fighting? Shooters sell by the boatloads; they’re action packed and competitive – two traits that we like as gamers. Joan Ryan asked, “Is it appropriate to depict war as a game at a time when real men, women and children are being killed in Iraq?” on September 23, 2004, in the San Francisco Chronicle. Personally, I’ve never played a game that emulates the US Army in Iraq, merely plenty of first-person shooters set in generic Mideast locales that have the player completing over-the-top objectives, like disarming a nuclear bomb in less than five minutes. These games, and multiplayer shooters like Battlefield, don’t seem to offend anyone – which is a good thing, as a round of Battlefield is a quality time spent online. Events in these games are fictional and not reflective of the today’s army operations like storming the beaches of Normandy is a direct “remake” of the conflict in 1942.
I’m not saying neither war nor history has a place in gaming, but returning to my original issue with Nintendo’s Call of Duty World at War video, I found it enormously inappropriate to depict a historical war where families were torn apart by casualties, as ironically… a family event. I genuinely felt uncomfortable watching World at War and Raving Rabbids being played with identical facial expression. It was distasteful to watch the two buddies smiling while waggling their Wii Zappers in needlessly exaggerated gestures as they burned the live flesh off Japanese soldiers with a flamethrower onscreen – keeping in mind, this happened for real. Why does Nintendo showcase this title in the same vein as Wii Sports?—a fun, pick-up-and-play, family friendly, disc full of laughs. There are two possible answers to this question: perhaps serious games don’t have a home on Nintendo’s console, or maybe the marketing department of this (ironically) Japanese company needs to sit down with a veteran to discuss how family-friendly war really is. After all, if it is our desire for war games to be acknowledged at par with war films, we need to take them as seriously – and last time I checked, nobody laughed during Saving Private Ryan.
July 22nd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
God you are such a whiner…Nintendo didn’t make this system for your grandma and stupid little Johnny only, they also made it for me….and I want to light some Japanese soldiers on fire for killing my girlfriend at Pearl Harbor.
Quit cryin, because A. No one cares except other soccer moms and dads crying because they can’t control their own kids or learn to use parental controls so easily implemented on the console B. People play games to have fun and experience things that they can’t do and real life
Including going back in time and lighting people on fire…this is war, people die…it’s a video game.
Why don’t you go waste your effort on a real War like the crap one going on right now in Iraq instead of blowing smoke on an issue I can assure you matters not.
July 22nd, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Comment number 2:
I just read the last couple paragraphs, and I can assure you that you and the veterans you know do not know anything about video games.
You should be imbracing War Games, because one day we could fight all wars like this…with controlled robots and non-human casualties.
Then, we would never have to sacrifice another life for the stupid faults of man, including yourself for thinking you are high and mighty on your stance on video games.
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Tony: Everyone has an opinion, feel free to make yours heard as well, ut do it without all the name calling and faux patriotism; That has nothing to do with the issue.
While I don’t agree with Ross’ feeling that Nintendo was exploiting a horrible war with high fives and the like, I wouldn’t try to get my point across with childish name calling.
War is war and a game is a game, but play nicely here Tony as I hold the ban hammer
And don’t think you got off lightly Ross. I’ll be posting my thoughts on the matter in hopes to spur some discussion when I can find some time. We chatted briefly in IM, so you know I don’t agree.
July 22nd, 2008 at 4:59 pm
ahhmmm ??? this isn´t the first “worldwar2″ game I play…
you know there were countless (that´s not exaggerated)
ww2 firstpirson shooters and and even more shooters in general…
don´t you think you´re a little late to the party?
nothing more or less..
as poster 2 said care for real war or gang because this is just a game .. all little boys(let´s say 3 to 9 years old) imagines old woodstick as guns …
this is just a fun game for older little boys
nut agree imaginative alien or horror shooter are better than ww2..
July 22nd, 2008 at 6:01 pm
1. The Wii isn’t just for babies.
2. The Wii isn’t the only one with shooters with war games… you do realize that right? in fact, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are getting World at War as well with better graphics.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
If you read the article you would see that he wasn’t complaining about the fact that there was a war game on the Wii, but the way it was portrayed on stage…
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:40 pm
The Wii isn’t for babies, and CoD is indeed a hardcore game that the system so desperately needs.
That said, the portrayal of the people so vividly expressing how much fun they’re having when they are roasting soldiers is, as Ross points out, kind of unprofessional.
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:45 pm
I would give more credence to this article if the writer was a veteran of war himself. I think it’s a beneficial thing to discuss war games and their impact, but calling out Nintendo for showing some dudes having fun is illogical. Why? Because war games are fun. Roasting pixel people with flamethrowers and scoring headshots is very enjoyable. What they showed was reality.
I would liken this to chiding Parker Brothers for showing people having fun with Monopoly. “Don’t they know? Monopolies are a horrible thing. People’s lives get ruined. This man lost his business because of a monopoly.”
You have a right to your opinion, but Nintendo is appealing to gamers, and gamers prefer to do their killing in virtual reality where killing is fun and they can laugh and smile all the while. Now I’ll be getting back to stabbing a virtual person in an alley and hoping they drop $10 so I can buy hotdog to regain my health. So much fun.
July 22nd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
Wow! Where to begin!
Thanks to the Dragonchasers blog for the positive feedback.
@Tony: You tore me to shreds without finishing the article (as seen in your next comment where you said “I just finished the article”). You told me to “waste my effort in a real war” — first of all, I’m Canadian and my country isn’t in Iraq, second of all, writing is not wasted effort… it’s something I do for love. You made me sound like a politician with my “high stance on gaming,” I’m a gamer too! I love games, I love shooting games, I love Grand Theft Auto; I just take mature subject matter a little more seriously and don’t think that it’s cool to reenact what was agonizing for many as a family event. I also pulled those quotes from forums, I didn’t make them up, so I’m not the only gamer out there who thinks war should be taken maturely in games (only gamers post in gaming forums!). I can, as you say, “imbrace” (I think you meant embrace) war games that don’t take the subject matter lightly (hence the equating to the film Saving Private Ryan).
What you said: Quit cryin, because A. No one cares except other soccer moms and dads crying because they can’t control their own kids or learn to use parental controls so easily implemented on the console B. People play games to have fun and experience things that they can’t do and real life
My response: I can cry all I want, because I write for a blog. A. I cared enough to write the article, and I;m not a soccer mom. B.Agreed! I love experiencing new things in games — I just don’t think World War II and burning people alive (as it happened for real) should be shown as a WiiSports-esque party game.
@MiniDragon: I never said the Wii was for babies, I said it was a little over-the-top the way Nintendo showed it like it was Wii Sports, when this did in fact happen. I used anecdotes of war vets who suffered and wouldn’t appreciate seeing their agony played out on stage as a family activity.
July 23rd, 2008 at 12:05 am
That scene with the two guys playing Call of Duty felt awkard, I’ll give you that. However Nintendo didn’t want to showcse the game as a family friendly game, in fact in the promo it is just a group of friends, too bad Nintendo completely sucks at making cool trailers, they just HAVE to put some teenage (even though the average age of a gamer is 30-something) guys smiling like demented zombies in there. Always.
Plus you really have to be mad at Nintendo of all? I mean they really are the most “kids&fun” oriented company out there! Always trying to keep a good image and never inclined to violence in their games. Their last 2 consoles before the Wii actually suffered in sales also because of this kind of childish image Nintendo gave! If you have to be mad at someone, be it at Sony and Microsoft, their consoles live on the revenue of violent FPS games, even historical ones.
As for the bigger picture opinions you gave, I may actually agree with you, you talk of many interesting aspects. But taking it on Nintendo which kept for decades an image of family friendly developer/producer/company is just inappropriate.
July 23rd, 2008 at 1:45 am
I agree with you Ross, it was a tad bit on the distasteful side to show people high fiving each other and the like with such a serious subject matter as war and death, but at the same time i am personally guilty of the same thing.
For instance, i jump for joy whenever a locust explodes at the end of my shotgun or when a Combine member feels the wrath of my gravity gun. The thing about those two experiences is that they are just fiction, and aren’t re-enactments of a real historical event.
I have to say that i much preferred CoD 4 than CoD 2. Now all be it there different games, they do both provide a war experience and there both by the same developer. So one of the main differences is that one is based on a fictional story, while the other is more historically accurate. The fact that CoD 2 is based on real people, with real families means that the game should be taken with much less of a lighthearted attitude than a “fictional” shooter. Its still fun, but not in a jump off your couch, drink a beer sorta way.
So in conclusion, i think Nintendo should have just showed a guy on a couch using the Zapper playing the game, with no smile, no one else in the room and with a serious expression on his face or if they wanted to show off co-op, have two people with the same serious expression.
One final note, developers should stop making war games based on real life wars. If they do, we wouldn’t need to have this discussion and come on, how many times do i need to storm the beaches of Normandy in a video game!
July 23rd, 2008 at 11:54 am
@Josh:
I too jump for joy when a Combine feels the wrath of my gravity gun, but the combine are not real people, Gordon is not a real person, the whole story is fiction. I was just saying that when something is real (like war), and in this case, Japanese soldiers were burned alive with flamethrowers, it shouldn’t be treated as another Wii Sports,
To your last point, devs should stop making games based on real life wars. This is one way to approach it, the other is, we can progress the medium to handle these serious conflicts (imagine if nobody made films based on real wars).
I believe Nintendo misrepresented the seriousness of WWII.
Thanks for reading.
Ross
July 23rd, 2008 at 5:45 pm
People are interpreting this as “CoD sucks!” more so than anything, it seems. Unfortunate.
July 24th, 2008 at 12:39 am
@Mitch: yep, quite a bit of feedback. Unfortunate indeed, as I never said it sucked; I merely took issue with the nature it was demoed on stage, given the event’s historical significance.
July 24th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
Great, thoughtful post. It’s a shame to see the degraded quality of thought from some of the responses. I guess some people can’t disagree anymore without a dose of pointless venom as their catalyst.
In any event, I do agree that the zeal with which the presentation was performed was disconcerting. I personally think that many of the activities performed with mouse and keyboard in shooters are brought home to me in a more real way once employed with the Nintendo control scheme. Odd that such a small difference as one’s input mechanism can modify the nature of their emotions towards a game.
Thanks again for your post.
July 25th, 2008 at 9:19 pm
i like shooting things, and i jump for joy when i kill people in CoD.
:/
January 12th, 2009 at 3:20 am
It is kinda ridiculous to say your offended at the way they showed them enjoying the game. Its a game. So there is a huge difference between Gears 2 and World at war because one is made up and the other is based on real events? Let me say that again, it is based on WWII. As far as I know the characters and events are made up and fit into that World War 2 storyline. Its not like like your following the true story of real soldiers. Your just playing some made up world war 2 scenarios. A flamethrower barvecues your enemy regardless of what game. So because this one is based on history it is not ok to enjoy it? Ridiculous. Oh and any comparisons saying real war is not fun are also ridiculous. If real war was fun people would be signing up for the army and not playing a videogame.
January 13th, 2009 at 7:45 am
I was really disappointed at the differences between this game for xbox and wii
theres no tanks in wii or even stages that have tanks so that leaves you with about 6 stages to play on wifi (i havent started campaign yet) but at the very least they could have left the stages playable without the tanks
if you have the option, definitely go witht eh xbox version
February 22nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Ross Arbour – Ross i understand what you mean but in reality this wasnt a family show this is e3 this is to show up coming games. as its already out so it really dosent matter now.
Just cause its on a nintendo console dosent nesccairly mean there going to show just e games for everyone.
if i were you give you wartning to madworld since that is top over volient not taking seriouly and made by fromer clover stuiods (platiume games) is the developer.
madworld is black,white,yellow, and a hole lot of red
February 24th, 2009 at 5:01 pm
This was written long before Mad World existed.
Mad World is fiction, not based on a real war. As such, I take the subject matter lighter than a virtual representation of something non-fiction that happened to real people in real life.
I stand by my assertion that grilling the live flesh off human beings with a flamethrower, as it happened to real human beings, isn’t co-op family fun.
April 10th, 2009 at 3:42 am
Ross is God!