{"id":2561,"date":"2009-11-24T08:36:59","date_gmt":"2009-11-24T13:36:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.net\/?p=2561"},"modified":"2009-11-24T08:36:59","modified_gmt":"2009-11-24T13:36:59","slug":"on-becoming-a-virtual-war-criminal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/?p=2561","title":{"rendered":"On Becoming a (Virtual) War Criminal"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a war criminal. I have played video games.<\/p>\n

Two human rights organizations have conducted a study of video games. Do video games that simulate war allow players to commit war crimes? Can players kill civilians? Torture enemy units? Destroy property?<\/p>\n

Their conclusion? War video games allow their players to commit war crimes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The study condemned the games for violating laws by letting players kill civilians, torture captives and wantonly destroy homes and buildings.<\/p>\n

In particular, the testers looked for how combatants who surrendered were treated, what happened to citizens caught up in war zones and whether damage to buildings was proportionate. <\/p>\n

Some games did punish the killing of civilians and reward strategies that tried to limit the damage the conflict, said the study. <\/p>\n

However, it said, many others allowed “protected objects” such as churches and mosques to be attacked; some depicted interrogations that involved torture or degradation and a few permitted summary executions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, the human rights groups played only first-person shooters. The strategy games — like Civilization<\/i>, like Age of Empires<\/i>, like Rise of Nations<\/i> — weren’t tested.<\/p>\n

However, I can say from long experience with these games that I’m a Pol Pot. A Stalin. A Mao. I commit war crimes on a semi-frequent basis, as any of my after-action reports for Age of Empires III<\/i> will attest<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I have wantonly killed civilians.<\/p>\n

I have destroyed churches and mosques with impunity; I once laid siege to a town center in Age of Empires II<\/i> so I could destroy the enemy’s church and take his relic, it was a battle like a medieval Stalingrad, and I had such<\/i> a sense of satisfaction when his church fell and my squad of monks rushed in to grab the relic amidst the carnage.<\/p>\n

I have refused my opponents’ surrenders, just so I can kill more of his units and destroy more of his infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Torture? I can’t say I’ve ever tortured anyone in an Age of Empires<\/i> game. No point, really.<\/p>\n

I have dropped nukes in Civ<\/i>, though. I have turned my enemies into radioactive glass. And I’ve liked<\/i> it.<\/p>\n

Killing civilians, razing towns to the ground, disproportionate warfare — these are all part-and-parcel of a strategy game. Of winning<\/i> a strategy game. It doesn’t matter what you’re playing. It can be WarCraft<\/i> or Command & Conquer<\/i>.<\/p>\n

Have I wished, at times, for other methods to win? Yes. I have.<\/p>\n

But I also have to fight the war at hand. I am a cruel general. War is hell. I am a war criminal.<\/p>\n

:tank:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Two Swiss human rights organizations conducted a study on war video games. Their conclusion? The games allow, even encourage, war crimes. Which makes me… a war criminal?!?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[361,4108,4141,4091],"class_list":["post-2561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-games","tag-age-of-empires-iii","tag-politics","tag-torture","tag-video-games","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.allyngibson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}