Geneva Conventions, War crimes and similar in games, what do you think about it?

[cthulhu616 3]

today i found this in a known (top-quality) austrian newspaper "Der Standard".

It's about war crimes in shooter games. It shows, that in most casual shooter the player is not punished for wrong behaviour (Shooting innocent, civilians, unarmed...) but also gives the players the right for fantasy.

Since ArmA is some kind of simulation, this aspect of war should be discussed aswell. What do you think about this, punishments and so forth?

German

Umdenken

Doch nicht alle Entwickler denken so. Das tschechische Studio Bohemia Interactive ist für die vermutlich authentischste kommerziell verfügbare Militärsimulation "ARMA" bekannt und gerade dieser Drang zur Realität ließ die Schöpfer die Spielregeln ihres fiktiven Schlachtfeldes überdenken. In Zusammenarbeit mit dem Roten Kreuz wurden für die aktuelle Auflage "ARMA 3" die Gesetze des Krieges auf die Simulation übertragen. Bricht man die Regeln, hat man verloren. "Wir haben festgestellt, dass manche Spieler auf alles schossen, was sich bewegt. Für uns hat sich das einfach nicht richtig angefühlt", sagt Designer Marek Spanel. "Daher haben wir einen sehr simplen, aber intuitiven Mechanismus eingeführt. Wenn du das macht und es sind befreundete Truppen um dich herum, werden sie dich attackieren." Fehlverhalten wird demnach unmittelbar bestraft. Es wird sich zeigen, ob Spieler mit den Konsequenzen eines virtuellen Krieges leben können. Von neuen Anstößen und der Initialisierung eines Umdenkprozesses könnte die Branche in jedem Fall profitieren. (Zsolt Wilhelm, derStandard.at, 5.10.2013)

free translation

Not all developers think that way. The Czech Studio Bohemia Interactive is known for probably the most authentic commercial military simulation "ARMA". These

circumstances let them think about rules on the fictive battlefield. In cooperation with the Red Cross laws of war were conveyed to their latest title "ARMA 3". When rules were broken, game is lost. Marek Spanel sayd, they realized that some player were shooting at anything that's moving, for them [bI] this didn't feel right. So they've added a mechanism which let friendly units near a player attack him, if brakes the rules. Misconduct will be punished immediately. Future will show if this players can live with consequences of their behaviour.

The last sentence says that shooter could benefit from a rethinking of actual mechanisms.

soruce:

http://derstandard.at/1379292963525/Sollten-virtuelle-Kriegsverbrecher-zur-Rechenschaft-gezogen-werden

[dmarkwick 261]

I don't see why war crimes should be treated differently than "normal" civilian crimes, of the sort you see all the time in GTA for example. It's not up to games developers to enforce external moral or legal concerns, but only to encourage "appropriate" behavior suitable for the game.

[aoshi 1]

only the losing side should be held accountable for war crimes =D

[mistyronin 1181]

I feel like a deja vu, wasn't there a thread about that?

[rye1 22]

Petition to remodel all weapons into flowers and add an interactive hugging feature.