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Red Cross debating video war games.....

Bikewer

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Bikewer
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According to Slasdot, the Red Cross folks are debating the morality of video war games....


http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/...lling-violates-international-humanitarian-law

Seemingly to wonder if virtually killing enemy soldiers might be immoral.


I'm likely guilty, shot dozens of Englishmen while fighting for the Wehrmacht in WWII online....

I wonder if slaughtering orcs, bandits, trolls and the like in RPGs counts?
 
Bikewer said:
According to Slasdot, the Red Cross folks are debating the morality of video war games....


http://games.slashdot.org/story/11/...lling-violates-international-humanitarian-law

Seemingly to wonder if virtually killing enemy soldiers might be immoral.


I'm likely guilty, shot dozens of Englishmen while fighting for the Wehrmacht in WWII online....

I wonder if slaughtering orcs, bandits, trolls and the like in RPGs counts?
Click to expand...

The red cross needs to unbunch its panties about video games. This is another in a string of idiocy by them starting with the demand that health powerups in violent games, not have the red cross on them.

Would it not have been just as easy to put out a statement that they do not support these games? Does anyone really play doom ( one of the games effected, and i may note a game in which you never kill another living person, only demons, zombies, and cyborgs.) and think " Wow , if the red cross supports running around mars killing demons, maybe i should go do it?"

It is a video game, it doesn't try to be a moral guideline, it doesn't try to say what one should or should not do, except in the context of the game ( well not entirely true, some snes health based games, such as Captain novolin, do, but those are not the kind of games that have much in the way of combat.) .
 
there is already another thread on this, with exactly the same misinformation and missing the point in it as this one.
 
So did anyone bother to follow Slashdot's source? The Daily Fail.

From the ICRC:

The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement recently discussed the implications of video games that simulate real-war situations and the opportunities the games may present for spreading knowledge of the laws of armed conflict. Some questions and answers on this subject are provided below.

(...)

The ICRC is interested in issues relating to video games of this type, i.e. games simulating warfare where players face choices just like on a real battlefield.

In real life, armed forces are subject to the laws of armed conflict. Video games simulating the experience of armed forces therefore have the potential to raise awareness of the rules that those forces must comply with whenever they engage in armed conflict – this is one of the things that interests the ICRC. As a matter of fact, certain video games already take into account how real-life military personnel are trained to behave in conflict situations.

http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/documents/faq/ihl-video-games-faq-2011-12-08.htm
Click to expand...

An interesting and useful thought exercise, i would have thought, and not quite as sensational as The Daily Fail would have you believe (I would never have guessed :rolleyes:)
 
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bit_pattern said:
So did anyone bother to follow Slashdot's source? The Daily Fail.

From the ICRC:

An interesting and useful thought exercise, i would have thought, and not quite as sensational as The Daily Fail would have you believe (I would never have guessed :rolleyes:)
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I followed it earlier, the Daily Mail is five days late just rehashing distortions of what video game sites already reported. The ICRC statement you quoted was just released and looks like damage control PR spin to me, it is not what they were saying originally. ICRC erased the original web age about the event (now 404):
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/d...conf-ihl-video-games-side-event-film-2011.htm

A Eurogamer article that referenced that page:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-02-should-video-games-respect-international-war-crimes-law

"While the Movement works vigorously to promote international humanitarian law worldwide, there is also an audience of approximately 600 million gamers who may be virtually violating IHL," read the event's description.
"Exactly how video games influence individuals is a hotly debated topic, but for the first time, Movement partners discussed our role and responsibility to take action against violations of IHL in video games. In a side event, participants were asked: 'What should we do, and what is the most effective method?'

Snip

"One possible course of action could be to encourage game designers/producers to incorporate IHL in the development and design of video games, while another could be to encourage governments to adopt laws and regulations to regulate this ever-growing industry."
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Since ICRC took down the source of the quotes I think it is fair to guess Eurogamer was accurate and ICRC is trying to distance itself from their original statements.
 
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I'd like to see those quotes in context. My CT meter is going into overdrive reading those gamer articles.
 
RC investigator: "So why did you think it was okay to kill that enemy when clearly wounded and unarmed?"

Gamer: "I was just following orders command lines!"

But yes, I would like to see some more original source material.
 
curi0us said:
I followed it earlier, the Daily Mail is five days late just rehashing distortions of what video game sites already reported. The ICRC statement you quoted was just released and looks like damage control PR spin to me, it is not what they were saying originally. ICRC erased the original web age about the event (now 404):
http://www.icrc.org/eng/resources/d...conf-ihl-video-games-side-event-film-2011.htm

A Eurogamer article that referenced that page:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-12-02-should-video-games-respect-international-war-crimes-law

[/hilite]
Since ICRC took down the source of the quotes I think it is fair to guess Eurogamer was accurate and ICRC is trying to distance itself from their original statements.
Click to expand...


If you read those quotes objectively, all they're doing is covering what they're going to discuss and some hypothetical ideas that might be explored. That's akin to a government workgroup getting together to discuss "if we have a responsibility to disarm Iran" with possible discussion points on how we'd go about that such as "international imagoes or even military action", and news sites representing that as "OMG they want to invade Iran!".
 
bit_pattern said:
I'd like to see those quotes in context. My CT meter is going into overdrive reading those gamer articles.
Click to expand...
If ICRC hadn't removed the page we could see the context fully, I see the removal as pretty good indication of guilt here. That said, the current ICRC press release seems reasonable. I think they just had a brainless side panel say some stuff that they published without really thinking it through.
 
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