Families of U.S. War Dead Join Outcry Against Konami's Six Days in Fallujah

I was gonna say, if anything games like Call of Duty give you a greater respect for those who have given/give their lives in such conflicts.

She probably would have said: "When our loved ones dies, they couldn't just flip back a few pages or hit rewind...(continue with rest of regular quote".

A lot of veterans complained then too. But nobody cared, because those verterans were old and old people are icky.

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Believe in something! Even if it's wrong, believe in it! -Glenn Beck

That's my question. Unless they are cracking jokes and filling it wilth pro war propaganda, then I don't see how it's any more offensive than making a movie about it or a book.

I think Dan Rosenthal actually addressed this pretty well in the previous 6DIF article on GP.  A game simply isn't going to recreate the experiences that the Atomic CEO claims it will, and to suggest that it can or will is insulting.

BUT! That's NOT what this article is about.  This is about a group of families/survivors claiming that a game about the war shouldn't be made at all.  And that is wrong.  Why is the fact that the war is ongoing matter?  Why is it somehow more objectionable than WWII- or Vietnam-era games?  What is the problem with making Yet Another Pseudo-Historical FPS Game that happens to be set in Iraq?

Dan's objection has been the only valid one to date.

"I must ask yet again. Why is it when someone wants to make a politically charged game, it automatically means they creator is trivializing or glorifying the event?"

Because in this case every single other game about war has trivialised or glorified war to an extent. So unless you have a problem with induction, its entierly rational to argue this game will do the same.

Then of course this particular war is still happening, and has involved thousands of innocent deaths, so its only reasonable that people would be upset about this.

"Also, why is it when someone makes a movie or writes an article/book about the same event noone really cares?"

Well for one people do complain when movies trivialise or glorify events.

But yeah games probably do get more attention, but thats because in all seriousness they simply don't approach these issues in the same way films do. Games have to be fun. Therefore when you go and make a fun game about an issue such as war, you are.... well gloryfying it to some extent.

you can argue that films also have to be entertaining, but its clearly in a different way to how a video game must be fun. A film like Apocalypse Now for example is enteraining because it delves into deep issues of war and shows it for what it is. Fucked up. The same thing simply does not happen when you play a video game because you have fun.

The difference is that FPS games are geared towards being fun and entertaining; this generally involves focus on the gameplay and keeping the game action packed, keep players in the heat of the battle. Movies and Books on the other hand only need to captivate an audidence and this can be done in many ways.

A movie can take the time to show how terrible war is, it can spend several minutes wactching a person die, or have a soldier spend like 10 minutes reflecting on everything he has seen. Movies can go deep into the politics of the war, into the deeper characteristics of the soldiers... Movies are able to use the element of subtlety, that can really help generate emotion... games do not tend to do this as much as such moments are considered to be too slow paced and are not as fun. All those things that would been seen in movies can only be done through cut scenes which many FPS games tend to keep to a minimal as to get the player back into the action; RPG game players tend not to mind cutscenes that are like 15 minutes long, but FPS players tend to want to get back to the action.

A difference could be seen in a portrayal of D-Day... you look at saving private Ryan and you will see and pay attention to allall the soldiers that die in that fight, noticing how they die and what not... in a video game, they could do the same thing but it's hardly worthwhile as the player is unliekly to pay attention to all those details going on around him... The player's primary focus is looking out for the enemies and killing them... because the player pays less attention to all the other soldiers suffering and dying, he does not feel the sense of "War is horrible"; not as good as a sense as someone watching a movie...

Essentially, the difference between games and movies/books in this case is that movies have their heaviest focus on character, story and development, where as the primary focus for FPS games is action; story and so forth tends to get a back seat to making the game fun and challenging... Only time movies and Books could be compared to games in this respect is when they are just action flicks where, like most FPS games, the focus is on the action and the story and what not is treated as an after thought.

As a survivor of a Marine killed in the battle for Fallujah, the horrible thing isn't so much the game itself as the insane things that the CEO of Atomic Games says about it. He trivializes the reality of violence by pretending that a game can reproduce it. All it reproduces is the appearance; no game can show what it is like to be in a chaotic, out-of-control situation where lives are on the line. Ask any combat veteran, cop, firefighter, paramedic, dispatcher, etc.

I am also a member of the group that put out the press release.

Nick Arnett

Movies, books are generally used to convey a story, oppinion, etc... While conventional thinking still takes video games as just that a game. I think Most people still see games as Pac Man. Mindless fun when a game takes on a complicated story such as this one. I think people don't see it as an attempt to convey the story of what happened. Atleast Konami's take on the events.

Still though. If I had a family member die there. I don't think I'd be preordering this game anytime soon.