Whitechapel - Video Games Politics

Whitechapel - Video Games Politics Tue, 18 Jun 2013 16:18:27 -0700 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/ Lussumo Vanilla 1.1.4 & Feed Publisher Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3080#Comment_3080 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3080#Comment_3080 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:05:57 -0800 screaming meat maybe about it) but recently I've noticed a disturbing trend in the politics that are represented in computer games...

I was looking at a particular Halo 3 website and noticed it was sponsored by the US AIR-FORCE.

Hmmm.

It made me think about the actual story and what each element represented, such as: UNSC is an unnaturally similar acroynm to USMC; the Covenant are a conglomerate of alien races bound by religious nutters who want to blow everyone up and thus embark on a GREAT JOURNEY (does that sound like how american public opinion views radical, if not all, islam?). What about the fact that the earth-people of the future have a military aesthetic based on the american navy and who lack any arabs, Indians, chinese, koreans, pakistanis etc among their ranks? What happened to the Eastern half of the world (the most populated part of the world) or even South America?

I realise this isn't a news-flash. Usually, I'm so doped-up by the game that it passes me by. Which is the point I suppose...

Anyway, the actual point: anyone else notice dodgy goings on in the lucifer dream-box of games titles? Sinister messages and ideas that are shaping young minds? Is this another consumer drug?

UPDATE: Check out www.americasarmy.com THE OFFICIAL AMERICAN ARMY COMPUTER GAME!!! ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3096#Comment_3096 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3096#Comment_3096 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 06:46:05 -0800 warrenellis trend, I think maybe you have to come up with more than one example, right? ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3109#Comment_3109 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3109#Comment_3109 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:45:21 -0800 screaming meat Aliens seemed to introduce and that appears to be championed by microsoft) and the reliance on slightly futuristic real-world conflicts too - which is all about trying to marry reality to the 'space-marine' thang (make it seem more plausible). In the last year or two we have seen released/to be released: call of duty 4, ghost recon, rainbow six, battlefield 2, battlefield: bad company, americas army (OFFICIAL US MILITARY GAME), army of two, bionic commando, blacksite, jericho, command & conquer 3, crackdown, crysis blah blah blah.

Call of duty 4 is a probably the most balanced politically - which doesn't say alot. You play SAS or marine and you see a hint of the nastiness involved in conflicts: The first two people you shoot in the game are asleep. They torture a man and shoot him in the head. You also get an Achievement (digital heroine but more pointless) for stabbing injured soldiers who crawl along the floor bleeding from your freshly placed bullets as they desperately drag themselves to some hiding place so they may die quietly and alone or foster the hope of some rescue team finding him.

Harsh, yet a throughly addictive game. It's good that infinity ward dared put that kind of stuff in a game since it is still considered a child's toy. But I think that younger, more innocent, more impressionable minds might not 'get it' (But thats my superiority complex slipping through).

Crackdown is about genetically engineered super humans going around and causing mass destruction in the name of the law. Criminals are second-class citizens and are despensed at will. Judge Dredd-ish but without the sense of irony (which makes it slightly frightening).

look at:

http://money.cnn.com/2002/05/31/commentary/game_over/column_gaming

It's worrying, games are geared towards very simple xenophobic attitudes: most of the non-westerners in games are bad guys; sychophants who will betray you at the first sign of bulletary (uh...) or honour-bound bad guys who 'see the light' or gain grudging respect for their mortal enemies. This is a a change from games using america's 'internal enemies' (dissidents) prior to 2001 (see splinter cell chaos theory/double agent). It's like during the eighties all games (well, films too) were geared towards anti-communism (operation wolf, cabal etc) but with games being more sophisticated and engrossing will it have a further, more potent effect? Just looking for thoughts really...

jesus - this is far too long. Can't tell I'm unemployed, right? ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3110#Comment_3110 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3110#Comment_3110 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:46:15 -0800 Fauxhammer
I mean, who would have thought there would be an Ayn Rand-based FPS? And that it would be a major hit? ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3115#Comment_3115 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3115#Comment_3115 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:56:25 -0800 hyim
edit : virtual keyboard on ipod touch is smart, but not as smart as one would like. ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3116#Comment_3116 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3116#Comment_3116 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 07:57:00 -0800 screaming meat Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3123#Comment_3123 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3123#Comment_3123 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:06:06 -0800 Kunundrum Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3133#Comment_3133 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3133#Comment_3133 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:13:13 -0800 screaming meat Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3196#Comment_3196 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3196#Comment_3196 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:38:50 -0800 ARES and kill them." ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3214#Comment_3214 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3214#Comment_3214 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 09:57:53 -0800 Admiral Neck Crackdown is about genetically engineered super humans going around and causing mass destruction in the name of the law. Criminals are second-class citizens and are despensed at will. Judge Dredd-ish but without the sense of irony (which makes it slightly frightening).
At the risk of sounding like the living embodiment of Rockstar Games' usual defense of their GTA games, if you go around killing civilians you will be hunted down and killed by your colleagues. Of course, you're so much more powerful than them that it makes no difference, but still, it is addressed.

I will say, your points touch on a paranoia of mine; that the scene in Barry Levinson's appalling Toys, where evil military douche Michael Gambon uses video games to teach kids how to control tiny weapons of mass destruction, might actually be true, and FPSs are all created by the military to make us their fighting slaves. Please God, I would shrivel up and die if there was anything salvageable from that hellish movie! ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3231#Comment_3231 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3231#Comment_3231 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 10:12:15 -0800 screaming meat
I'm not against violence in games, by the way. I find it cathartic and helpful. If I don't double-tap some array of pixels in the brain daily I may stalk the cubicles of my workplace with a mean look in my eye and a replica samurai sword. If I had a job.

Everything that ever comes out of my mou-- fingers is paranoid. But I think culture is the prevailing ideas held by a society. To fuel it further:

I was just watching an Army Jobs advert on Channel 4, and it showed them piloting an unmanned aerial vehicle with an Xbox 360 controller... ...I wondered whether this was just for TV, but it seems that US marines have also been spotted controlling an SUGVs (small unmanned ground vehicle) with an XBox controller.

from http://www.pyrosoft.co.uk/blog/2007/11/04/army-fly-uav-spy-plane-with-xbox-360-controller (Check out the picture)

It's like that classic Simpson's episode where lisa and bart join the army, to paraphrase:

"...your job is to build and maintain those robots." ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3307#Comment_3307 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3307#Comment_3307 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:16:52 -0800 John Smith Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3339#Comment_3339 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3339#Comment_3339 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 12:53:01 -0800 screaming meat Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3367#Comment_3367 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3367#Comment_3367 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:22:27 -0800 zerodemocracy Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3395#Comment_3395 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3395#Comment_3395 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:58:37 -0800 TechnocratJT anywhere they expect 17-18 year olds to traffic.

Hah, the nearest one I know is next to a Pearl Vision, a Whole Foods and a Staples. So must be after health conscious office workers with vision issues.

Now I have seen a few commercials which move from two teens playing games and suddenly the game is asking them if they want the real thing, which is right in the direction of evidence. But I have not seen it recently or seen any evidence that it works.

As for the US as the only county that glorifies its Military in fiction? Japan, as pointed out the second largest market (and still the source of a sizable number of productions) focuses heavily on the JSDF or near future equivalents throughout manga, anime and games. Glorification of the military - especially the fighter pilot - is incredibly common. Not a major point, but seems unfair and highly inaccurate to characterize them as only the land of super deformed and shojo. ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3401#Comment_3401 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3401#Comment_3401 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:12:05 -0800 screaming meat As I turned the corner, I saw that the Army actually did have one lone gaming station set up to show off their America's army game, strategically placed directly across from the Bungie Store.

http://kotaku.com/gaming/notag/the-army-invades-pax-294241.php

You are right about the japanese obsssion with war. Metal gear 3, which discuss' the cod-philosphy of the soldier, is a perfect example. I suppose the japanese love of war is kind of like a eunich's obssession with sex. It's not just the military predominance over game ideology. Sims, arguably one of the biggest selling games ever, originally had no homosexuals, no diseases like cancer or aids, no war, no terrorists, no ghettos etc and yet it is called sims (a shortening of simulator/simulacra, I assume). Computer games are a very easy place to propigate lies like early movies (Birth of a nation, anyone?) ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3403#Comment_3403 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3403#Comment_3403 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:14:44 -0800 zerodemocracy
I have a buddy who did some time as a Lieutenant in Afghanistan and he told me a story about using some very basic flanking tactics to take out some Taliban who were holed up in a building and he said it was so much like Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon that it frightened him a little. ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3406#Comment_3406 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3406#Comment_3406 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:19:17 -0800 screaming meat
Hurrah! ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3428#Comment_3428 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3428#Comment_3428 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:38:33 -0800 TechnocratJT
Jumping from The Sims - an attack on commercial culture (buying more lead to being less happy over time was sort of the under the hood secret of the game) to Birth of a Nation is...awkward to say the least. Thats rushing from the idea that games may express the normative values of society to the idea they are intentional propaganda to promote exclusionary or corrupt values. As a side note, a quick google confirms gay sims perfectly playable - at least in Sims 2. Finally, topics such as terrorism and war were certainly out of scope, a simulacrum does not need to model everything and The Sims was about suburbia.

I think your looking for signs games are tools of the establishment or normative values without the right evidence or research. Take MGS, I was thinking of quite a few games in my earlier comment, but not Metal Gear.

Metal Gear is a series of games which always return to the idea war is evil, those who make it are corrupt, and the most noble thing a soldier can do is rise above war and hold tight to humanity. They are - in the end - amazingly liberal games. MGS3 comes closest to glorification - but under the surface its showing why all these people (warmongers all) deserved to be betrayed - which is what Snake will eventually do as Big Boss. The games love soldiers sure, but hate war, and in the end all the heroes walk away from it for more noble causes. Meanwhile the villains keep being revealed as pawns, tools or the leaders of governments who sought to make people into things (Boss was used, Liquid is a maniac and arms dealer, Solidus was the President) ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3435#Comment_3435 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3435#Comment_3435 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 14:44:18 -0800 zerodemocracy Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3456#Comment_3456 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3456#Comment_3456 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:07:44 -0800 Kunundrum Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3479#Comment_3479 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3479#Comment_3479 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 15:31:32 -0800 TechnocratJT I have a buddy who did some time as a Lieutenant in Afghanistan and he told me a story about using some very basic flanking tactics to take out some Taliban who were holed up in a building and he said it was so much like Rainbow Six or Ghost Recon that it frightened him a little.

Some background on Red Storm might be good here.

The Tom Clancy games are modeled on real tactics and realistic combat models - yes.

They are not, however, trying to sell the military, but rather attract a game audience who wanted (nay demanded) super realism in their combat games. This is actually the reverse of what people are theorizing here, these games are built on using military legitimacy to sell software not software to sell the military.

They are aimed squarely at arm chair combat geeks who want to be rangers just like super realistic combat flight simulators are aimed at the same who want to be top gun. ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3527#Comment_3527 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3527#Comment_3527 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:17:21 -0800 Ian Mayor
I believe Red Storm produced training tools for the military based on a version of Raibow Six which they developed in tandem with Rogue Spear. Or at least, they claimed they did during an EDGE Studio profile 8, 9 years ago (I can't find reference to this online but this wired article indicates a former Red Strom producer left the company to head up the America's Army Game development.)

There is certainly a strange synergy between games development and the miltary, I've known games programmers who have worked in the Star Wars programme and at GCHQ and it's not uncommon for a dev team to consult with ex miltary types for purposes of 'realism' in games and to add a bit of colour to the environments and scenarios your creating (I've had the dubious honour of being teargassed by John Mac (at the base in Abergavenny they shot that clip) during one such consulatation, he was entertaining and terrifying in equal measure). ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3533#Comment_3533 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3533#Comment_3533 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:30:00 -0800 TechnocratJT
Rather there is a large market for "realism" that dovetails with the needs of the army for training people already enlisted.

Somewhere there is a old story of IGN(?)'s editors having a 5 on 5 bout agaisnt actual rangers in one of the Rainbow Six games- and how the fidelity real world to game world translation meant the game editors where toast in under 10 seconds.
every time. ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3536#Comment_3536 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3536#Comment_3536 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:41:35 -0800 DJ
As far as I'm aware it was written off as a failure, too. They spent a lot of money to "get it right" (and they did, it's quite solid) but virtually everyone who plays it either already is in the military or has no urge to join and just wants to play some online shooters with their buddies.

So, now they do things like find a game that they know a lot of young males will play (hi there, Halo!) and sponsor it in some way to get their name up there. Same as any other form of advertising. The story of Halo itself had been predetermined in rough form quite some time before the actual title was shipped; they actually altered the plot to focus more on the Flood and less on the Covenant well before the first game was released. On top of that, you've got half the alien army breaking off and joining the humans at the end of the second game, so, eh, I dunno how many real-world parallels you can really draw there. It's pretty much a pure sci-fi shootemup. It's got about as much politics in it as World of Warcraft. Really it just boils down to a bunch of angry teenagers calling each other as many combinations of homophobic and racial slurs as they can come up with while fighting over some digital turf, without a whole lot of real-world involvement behind it.

The politics of the Grand Theft Auto serious are interesting. It's basically like South Park. It makes fun of absolutely everything and as a result it's sort of hard to pin down which "side" the creators fall on. Usually your main characters are the most stable people in the entire game, and they've still enacted what amounts to one-man genocide against the population of the world by the time the credits roll. ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3539#Comment_3539 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3539#Comment_3539 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:46:08 -0800 Brad McLoughlin Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3709#Comment_3709 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3709#Comment_3709 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:14:43 -0800 screaming meat
I think many of the values that generations hold are given to them, at least in part, by the stories they are told as they grow up. These stories always have some kind moral value in them whichever way you cut it: either by accident or design. They also always stick in your mind (if they are good memes – that’s another thread).

I think that games are a very young medium. Too young to be viewed as art by Ebert et al and too young to be understood what, if any, effects that they may have. In this they share certain elements with the early stages of comic books - you know the moral-panic stories: Comics made my kids eat our cats ears or comics turned my kids Commie. However, they are a fast, profitable and effective way of telling a story, of wasting time or whatever else you can get out of them; they stick in the mind (check out the cult video games thread for evidence) and so have some lasting effect and therefore value in expressing ideas. Just as we would not appreciate neo-fascist ideas pumped into our eyes via film or TV so we shouldn’t receive it in other less highly regarded mediums (because computer games are for kids, apparently folks… they share that stigma with comic books).

I just find it all faintly sinister.

I see that kind of stuff in films all the damn time. For instance: I couldn’t watch the whole of Black Hawk Down without seething with rage at the bestial portrayal of the mobs; especially when they get mown down without a moment’s thought and every American receives slow-motion footage of them taking the bullets like men accompainied by trumpet fan-fares whenever they so much as break a nail (on top of that they then get dragged to the helicopter as the mob members... well, who knows?). Disguising this stuff with aliens or near future combat just doesn’t cut it with me.

@Jtraub

With regards to Sims as part of series I would say that it is simulating the management of a city or an ant-nest and or an entirely new species: the Sims title is clearly a pun meaning both of the terms you described. I always believed that simulations were meant to be as accurate as possible in their depiction of life. But it isn’t; it is instead a simulacrum of how American suburban life should be or even how people believe other people want it to be (uh). It instills routines (mundane routines) similar to a training toy like the kid's kitchenette, toy cars, toy soldiers or the crying/shitting baby doll (Roland Barthes Mythologies is well worth a read).

I don’t think that:

“the idea that games may express the normative values of society to the idea they are intentional propaganda to promote exclusionary or corrupt values”

are very far apart. It’s a matter of money changing hands or of hiring a nutty writer (what are the chances, eh?) or even just a shift in perspective.

MGS is definitely one of my all time favourite games and deals with complex issues lucidly. But, because soldiers and assassination is placed in Lucifer’s dream-box (Copyright - Bill Hicks) it seems to automatically glorify war (even if you are rewarded for not killing people, which is superb). The most stringent anti-war movie always falls at this point. Movies, games or story telling of any kind puts its subject matter (at least to some degree) on a pedestal to be analysed or looked over.

Putting a turd on a pedestal in a gallery shouldn't make it art but, more often than not, it does (Just a crude analogy to be taken on face value).

You are, of course, entirely right about the whole war in Sims-idea. I was mid rant and couldn’t help but think of designing my own recruitment office where the sergeant falls in the love with one of the admin girls but I always forget to take him to the toilet and hilarity ensues.

I’m not saying to censor games or blaming them for anything. I just wondered if anyone else had noticed these little ticks popping up in this new and still developing format. You can’t say that evil forces haven’t even given it a look see, surely?

Gentlemen: To evil!

(sorry about the length... uh...) ]]> Video Games Politics http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3728#Comment_3728 http://freakangels.com/whitechapel/comments.php?DiscussionID=112&Focus=3728#Comment_3728 Mon, 03 Dec 2007 20:57:41 -0800 screaming meat
@jtraub

The sims 2 gay thang? That was added after protest. Anyway, you are a lawyer and therefore far cleverer than me. It's been a pleasure to discuss computer games in this manner with all of you. This is the first message board I've ever joined and I think I'm hooked.

Crazy thought: imagine you could get one of your characters to play Sims in Sims (like you can play maniac mansion in maniac mansion 2) wouldn't that be like THE russian doll of consumerist drugs? ]]>