Culture Clash Apr09

(April 2009)

Winning Hearts and Minds

The perception problem

I was at the dentist the other day, just minding my business trying to keep my tongue out of the way of that spinning Grit Deployment Device, when the hygienist suddenly shut it off and peered down at me, eyes narrowed.

"You're the one who works in video games, right?" She asked.

She still had the instrument pressed against my rear molar, so it wasn't immediately clear whether the question was rhetorical or not. But it didn't seem like the right situation to pull a Gordon Freeman.

"Yeplff," I replied.

"They're so violent," she said, reapplying her attention to my teeth. "How do you feel about the violence and kids? Now there's one that simulates Iraq."

Normally I make a point not to antagonize people who hold sharp objects near my face, but it seemed like my professional duty to educate this woman. So I tried, even though it was a difficult conversation since she never stopped cleaning my teeth throughout it. Net result: no cavities, I will be seeing a different dentist in six months, and her views on games have been marginally warmed, though she still described them as "horrific."

Ahh, "horrific."

Without "horrific," where would we be? There'd be no way for people to express appalled disapproval! In games industry reporting we use it all the time, (the horrific shooting of a teenager, the horrific massacre at a school, etc.) as in, "yes, that was really tragic, I've acknowledged it, let's move on." You won't get away with saying it was a sad school shooting if you plan to insist games weren't the culprit, it has to be "horrific" or you risk sounding dismissive. Since anything filed under "horrific" is automatically indismissable, once applying that term you're in the clear to make whatever points you want.

My hygienist was horrific-ified by "the game that simulates Iraq." There are plenty of games set in Iraq, but I'd guess she was referring to the most recent sensation, Konami/Atomic's Six Days in Fallujah, which has already caused plenty of bad press and is likely to cause a little more before its cycle ends. To my great irritation, I hadn't read Mike Antonucci's musings on the subject before my dentist appointment, so I wasn't able to bring his wisdom to bear against her, and ask if a movie or novel on the same subject would be equally "horrific."

Admittedly, there is a timer on these things, one that's part of the collective consciousness. We've had some September 11 movies now, but it took three or four years before everyone agreed it was okay to do them. Even then, the clock only ran out on serious, sensitive portrayals of the heroism and the tragedy of the day. And that's movies. We've yet to see a commercial studio September 11 video game (but don't forget important indies like Gonzalo Frasca's September 12, a game that maybe American leaders should have paid more attention to). So some people might argue that the Appropriateness Timer is different for different media: that is, it'd be okay to make a Fallujah movie but not a Fallujah game - not yet.

Wargames are obviously nothing new, and in fact this game isn't even the first to simulate a very recent conflict "for fun." Kuma|War did it a couple years ago, even going so far as to grossly fictionalize events to make them more "exciting." It's certainly conceivable that Atomic - especially given its pedigree of trying to make accurate war simulations - has every intention of crafting a game that faithfully models the events surrounding Operation Phantom Fury. The question of how faithful a first person shooter can ever be to the realities of war is certainly a consideration, but it's not Konami's or Atomic's motives I dislike so much as their approach.

The thing that strikes me about Six Days in Fallujah is that Konami and Atomic are both either trying to get attention by making mildly inflammatory remarks, or that they've both really blundered in handling the press. Revelations like the one that insurgents contributed to the game are like hosing a fire with rocket fuel. Would it not have been wiser to reiterate the goal of sensitively and accurately portraying the events, and further underscoring to the mainstream press that videogames have as much right to tell such stories as films or other media?

The reality, based on Atomic's history, is that Six Days in Fallujah is probably going to try hard to present the events in a respectful but entertaining way; more than can be said of Kuma|War. Whether or not it turns out to be any good is a question for later. But the fact remains that in announcing and presenting the game the way they did, Konami and Atomic damaged themselves and the property when they could have struck a real blow for the legitimacy of games as a forum for commentary. The only difference between Six Days in Fallujah and Call of Duty 4 is that one of them is based on real events, and as such has come under more fire than the work of fiction.

If someone tried to make a sitcom about the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, it would probably not be well received - yet. Don't forget that M*A*S*H did it so successfully it spanned three venues. But M*A*S*H was also very deft in separating the comedy from the serious side of war, from injuries to simple psychic exhaustion. Comedy and games are similar in this respect: typically they are meant to entertain through fun first, and comment second. The opposite tends to be true with dramatic historical fiction. More simply, the emotions evoked by comedy and games are different from those evoked by drama. Is it appropriate to make a game like Six Days in Fallujah? Sure, if it's done right. But the perception of the game has already been marred, and that's the cause of the uproar.