War Crimes in Video Games

[Bison]

As Matlock would say, "I rest my case, your honor."

[DicedT]

I think the Red Cross needs to investigate this board.

Michael

[Staggerwing]

There are some places even the Red Cross won't go.

[Arctic Blast]

See?  Ghost have emotions and Pacman doesn't care.  In fact, he gets crazy eyes as he's eating them while they are still whatever passes for alive as a ghost.

Those power pellets are probably bath salts.

[Sir Slash]

As I recall, Ms. Pacman was just as bad. I think that's why they never had children. Eating ghosts causes infertility. Of course the ghosts did look an awful lot like little colored condums. So..... ::)

[Dolan50]

Found this interesting.
It seems in certain circumstances nuclear weapons are still legal to use but would be frowned upon by the IHL.

"There is no comprehensive or universal ban in international law on the use of nuclear weapons. However, in July 1996 the International Court of Justice concluded that international humanitarian law did apply to the use of nuclear weapons and that their use 'would generally be contrary' to IHL's principles and rules."

"While the Court found that the use of nuclear weapons seemed "scarcely reconcilable" with respect for humanitarian law, it declared it could not reach "a definitive conclusion as to the legality or illegality of the use of nuclear weapons by a State in an extreme circumstance of self-defence, in which its very survival would be at stake."


http://www.icrc.org/eng/war-and-law/weapons/nuclear-weapons/overview-nuclear-weapons.htm

I wonder if we can justifiably nuke countries who we feel violate the other rules of the IHL.
If so,looks like Iran may have a few nukes with their name written on it in their future.

[GDS_Starfury]

somehow I just dont think US Strategic Command gives a shit.   8)

[Windigo]

seriously Gus???

If not then I suggest a Proton Pack Mark 1/1

[ComradeP]

Philippe: the only RTS game I know of where the media had a prominent place was Combat Zone, a mediocre but entertaining game.

As to war crimes: there are times, when playing wargames, when I have to stop for a moment because I'm treating the deaths of millions as a statistic (which it is, in the game). In a way, I still find it scary how the process works: if you're up close and personal with your units and see them die, you're more inclined to care for them than if they're little more than an abstracted bunch of numbers. When you play WitE, you can see how Stalin could make his famous quote about the issue: for the Stavka, casualty reports would just depict numbers and units would be drawings on a huge map.

I also can't play as the Axis for a while after reading about the Holocaust (even though you're not killing the Jews and other targeted groups/individuals yourself in a wargame), or as the Allies after reading about the bombing of Germany and Japan. In wargames, we'd bomb "Manpower" points, but what we're really doing is killing civilians. The game just packages that in a different way, just like the air force did (which officially insisted the targets were military targets most of the time). Games like Bombing the Reich have a limited appeal to me for that reason, because the game would mostly come down to killing civilians and it would encourage me to become more efficient at it.

Destroying enemy forces in the most efficient way is something I find enjoyable, it's like solving puzzle comparable to solving a chess problem in my opinion, but deliberately attacking civilian targets is something I'm not fond of.

[Apocalypse 31]

I know it's only a video game, but I also find little appeal as playing the Axis in games.

[Swatter]

Playing the TW games, on many occasions I would execute enemy soldiers of a power that was really annoying me. Ill show them!!

Playing Arma2 within many of the sandboxes I made, protecting civilians (at least avoid killing them) would be part of the mission while hunting down insurgents. I can't say I was careful enough flying around in my Mi-24, though :)

I would agree, if the setting requires you to protect civilians (or at least not kill them), there need to be consequences if you do.

GTA is probably the biggest offender of all time when it comes to the possibility of committing cold-blooded murder without realist repercussions.

[Nefaro]

I think we should have the opportunity to commit more war crimes in video games.

Put that in your pipe!

;)

[Dolan50]

 ;D 8)

[Apocalypse 31]

I think we should have the opportunity to commit more war crimes in video games.

Put that in your pipe!

;)

Maybe more blood, gore, and violence in games would have a reverse effect on people?

[MengJiao]

I think we should have the opportunity to commit more war crimes in video games.

Put that in your pipe!

;)

  Maybe if we had a more definite position in the chain of command, this would be part of the mess of decisions we would face.  For example, if our gaming role actually approximated a command role.  For another example, in the aftermath of Bir Hakiem, Rommel was supposedly advised to kill all the Jewish prisoners that had been captured there (which could not have been all that many since most of the garrison escaped).  He apparently ignored that advice.  But that might have been all the better since the Italians who were technically his superiors might have frowned on executing prisoners of war.  Anyway -- to have the opportunity, you have to have a more realistic command role.   

   Needless (perhaps) to say, it didn't occur to the 90th Light Division to shoot any of the prisoners they captured at Bir Hakeim, which is something worth considering.  And to move to larger areas of command roles -- the Wehrmacht took 3 million Russian prisoners in 1941 so they can't have been shooting many of them.  They left it to the German high command to let those 3 million starve to death.