Human rights groups have condemned various war games for violating humanitarian laws and the Geneva Conventions.
The study, carried out by two Swiss human rights organisations; Trial and Pro Juventute, criticises games such as Modern Warfare 2 for allowing players to kill civilians, torture captives and destroy homes and buildings.
The twenty games scrutinised in the study also include Army of Two, Battlefield Bad Company, Far Cry 2, GRAW, Metal Gear Solid, Rainbow Six Vegas, Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Soldier of Fortune (we bet that last one scored well on the humanitarian stakes).
Human rights testers looked to see if the conflicts the games portrayed and what players can do were subject to the same limits as in the real world, reports the Beeb.
In particular, the testers looked for "how combatants who surrendered were treated, what happened to citizens caught up in war zones and whether damage to buildings was proportionate".
The results weren't good: "The practically complete absence of rules or sanctions is... astonishing," the study said.
Some games did punish the killing of civilians, it concludes, however many others allowed "protected objects" such as churches and mosques to be attacked.
The groups said games were sending an "erroneous" message that conflicts are waged without limits and that anything is acceptable in counter-terrorism operations.
"This is especially problematic in view of today's reality," the study said, adding that those who violate international law end up as war criminals, "not as winners".
The groups don't wish to make games less violent, they said, instead they "call upon game producers to consequently and creatively incorporate rules of international humanitarian law and human rights into their games."
I am going to get nasty here and say for them to get f**king life and f**k off. It isnt real so why the f**k should it be limited. Christ there are some real idiots in this world.
In a more formal manner I am going to raise issues about them trying to stop my human rights to do what ever I want...
No they didn't! Its a game its not real, not actual people are hurt! The only thing that happened was people pressed buttons on a controller and a machine generated pixels on a screen.
They arent based on real life and most of the mentioned Games have Mature ratings, meaning they are intended to be played by adults. Who I would hope know the difference between what is real and what is make believe.
I was just thinking about this some more. These kind of rules could replace traditional scoring in a MW-type game. You play a campaign/career and get medals or court marshalls as you progress, which would decide whether you get promotion, how much command you have and what weapons you get. When you complete the game you're either a hero or you're denounced as a war criminal. How about that for a game where your actions determine the path the story takes?
Hold up everybody, it was just a study. They weren't even complaining about the violence, for once, so maturity of players isn't even an issue.
I reckon a game that took all this into account could be really good, if done right.
Yep that game would be fantastic. You would have to battle an enemy that is allowed to do anything that they want, including using civilians as shields and camping out in churches and mosques, while you as the player are not allowed to do anything to attack them (as you may kill the civilian or damage the church). Also we could have part of the game as a home base patrol. A terrorist enters the base blows up all your team and before you shoot them you have to shout "Stop or I will shoot", or if they are running away from you you are not allowed to shoot them at all.
Yep that game would be fantastic. You would have to battle an enemy that is allowed to do anything that they want, including using civilians as shields and camping out in churches and mosques, while you as the player are not allowed to do anything to attack them (as you may kill the civilian or damage the church). Also we could have part of the game as a home base patrol. A terrorist enters the base blows up all your team and before you shoot them you have to shout "Stop or I will shoot", or if they are running away from you you are not allowed to shoot them at all.
Sounds a great game.......
Yes, Call of Duty: Community Police Warfare. It would be awesome
Uh, no they are not, video games and movies are an entertainment medium and therefore escapism, they base there themes on real life events and scenarios to give a sense of familiarity, they are not documentaries. I want to be able to shoot people in the face without fear of repocusions because I cannot do it in real life, the moment a game stops giving me this freedom it ceases being a game and becomes a turd.
Why dont they study Geneva violations in the real world instead, where they can have REAL impact. Guantanamo and Israel come to mind off the bat, but just about every war since the Geneva Convention has broken it. Really depends on level of press coverage.
I'm no fan of MW2, but this article screams 17 separate types of b******s. Yet more shoddy journalism only designed to p**s people off. They've succeeded.
Why stop with Call of Duty or other fps? Let’s look at racing games, NFS for example. If we go by people in the original post then games like this should be banned as they encourage dangerous and reckless driving. What about Spore where you can take over and exterminate entire species. Or even Fifa where you can actually foul AND purposely injure people.
I say bring back fogger, oh wait you could be so evil as to wanting the little helpless frog to get squashed. CALL THE RSPCA.
This study is absolutely irrelevent and has no point, what a waste of money. They are suggesting the introduction of real world war policies in to works of fiction? Seriously?
Sure their observations are correct, but so what? It's fiction. Ultimately, it's a game with its own objective, and does not need to reflect reality. Just like films, art, books...
This is just offensive and patronizing to most adults who have a little thing called freedom and choice, and most importantly, a brain.
Is this the real Geneva Convention, or the fictional one that presumably exists within the fictional world presented in the game Modern Warfare 2?
Give me a friggin break... unless this means that Bobby kotick is off to the Hague, in which case, I'm in.
Agreed. I'm familiar with the Rules of Engagement and I support in principle that certain restraints are observed when professional armed forces deal with civilians, each other and yes, even "enemy combatants" although they are still not fully categorized. That said, these rules are violated and a blind eye has been known to be turned towards them in the heat of battle. That doesn't make it okay though perhaps it may be understandable.
All that said, these are computer games and while this is one media that can influence minds, it is not the only one and if we maintain that an individual of a (more or less) sound mind can make choices for him/herself and accept responsibility as we purport in our Western laws, then we have to credit people with being able to discern between a computer game and reality. Those who fail to do so likely have pre-existing conditions and/or environments that are far more likely to cause problems. Indeed such factors likely are the problem.
P.S. But trot Bobby up to The Hague for being the corporate equivalent of Satan and I'm on the bus!
I'm sure i've played a war game before that followed them, pretty closely. Game over for killing civilians and the like.
Who ever says that these games are not based on reality is very naieve indeed. What are games and films but a stylised version of reality?
Its a perfectly valid point that games don't often show the reality of war or accurately reflect the protocols that actual soldiers have to follow.
True. Nor do they often show the "unsexy" stuff like lugging around 35 kg backpacks, going for days without sleep, little food, no showers, maybe one set of clean underwear, socks, shirt and t-shirt for a three day (or more) field exercise (combat would be even more extreme). Lying at 3 a.m. in the cold, dark unable to see your hand in front of your face while being on guard duty knowing that the rest of the platoon sleeps trusting that you will spot any threat and raise the alarm before they get their asses handed to them. Knowing that for every spot you think to look at someone could be hiding in a dozen more which you could walk right by without even noticing, manual labour (cleaning, digging lavatories, setting up make shift tents in the middle of the night with no lights and getting all the gear out of your pack from memory), etc. Ahhh! Good times.
What? That poor defenceless little dot, being thrown and battered between two hard, merciless planks of dense pixel rage! Only to be cast into oblivion off the side of the screen, to be replaced by another victim!!!
SOMEONE CALL CHILDLINE!!!!
Please think of the dots! WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE DOTS!!!!!
I hope they don't find out that I've been playing driving gams since the age of six and I've never had one driving lesson.
snooker cues, what a waste of time. Spending time bitching about illegal activities in a computer game (do the RSPCA complain about italian plumbers stamping on turtles) when they should be hunting and prosecuting war criminals.
So how many movies have been criticized for this? My god, it is a serious subject and everything but how about concentrating on real world breaches of the convention?
And in the latest news human rights activists have been ordered to get a life and get out more!! Seriously, can it really get any more f**ked up? Why don't they go and criticise all the Western World governments for supporting a dictatorship regime that regularly tortuous it's citizens and expresses mass censorship laws daily, I'm talking about China of course but seeing as the Chinese government are rubbing their naked body's with all the western politicians it'll never happen what a great world we live in!
they are actually right because in UK i remember some lad killin his mate wi a meat cleaver because he'd been on manhunt too much but i think that they shud do-1, geneva convention, they do have anythin else to say to stop kids doing anythin they want. reply soon
Human Rights campaigners need to wake up or take a hike. For gods sake, protest about something real, like proper human rights i.e food, water and shelter for poverty striken families in 3rd world countries, the treating of slaves, and protecting the VICTIMS of crime and not the f%^&ing criminals. Instead, they waste their time (and our money) testing fictional characters in videogames that don't exist?!!? It beggars belief.
The groups said games were sending an "erroneous" message that conflicts are waged without limits and that anything is acceptable in counter-terrorism operations.
Oh yes, of course games are responsible for terrorism, wars, world famine, poverty, global warming and the end of civilisation.
It just shows you how out of touch and ridiculous this organisation has become, and if anything is responsible for a great deal of the massive uprise in crime in the Uk as criminals know they have little to fear safe in the knowledge their 'human rights' will be protected from incurring any consequence.
I wonder, did they apply the same rigourous and informative tests to films and books? Thought not.
WOW thats what barely 10 games fairplay. How many TV shows and how many films do likewise millions???. What a bunch of f***ing apes, no wonder most coutries ignore the Geneva covention.
I definitely remember that post-9/11 al-Queda sent out their videos mentioning how pleased they were that they'd avoided striking churches or injuring civilians. And being a POW is just like living in a holiday camp.
Actaually this in an important point - are people really that ignorant or choose to ingore the cultural and ideological implications of the content of video games?
While video games are a reflection ideologically of the real world and not the other way round (some games such as MW2 also clearly try to reflect this in a more social realist way than say Halo) you cannot everytime you hear a criticism - just blurt out "it is only a game".
While I totally disagree with the liberal fantasy of this humnan rights organisation - in the sense that this will some how enourage better human rights in the real world (Modern War is after all imperialist, and the current imperialist justification for war is ironically human rights. Serbia, Afghanastan, Iraq were all fought by Western Imperialist powers under the guise of bringing human rights) - this does not mean we should all be so culturally impotent that we put our head in the sands when playing video games and ignore some of the telling ideologicals messages present.
It is not just a game, it a commodity created under a capitalist relation of production, reflecting to a certain degree ruling class values and assumptions. Of course you may accept these assumptions and values but you should at least be aware of the presence.
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