An interesting piece of research on war crimes in video games was released November 19th by Swiss think tanks TRIAL and Pro Juventute. Dubbed “Playing by the Rules: Applying International Humanitarian Law to Video and Computer Games,” the study analyzed 20 popular war-themed games with an aim to identify possible infractions of international law.
Some of the games examined in the report include Battlefield: Bad Company, Call of Duty: World at War, World in Conflict, Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and Metal Gear Solid. The researchers trained a group of gamers to look for and record breaches of seven international rules governing warfare (such as summary executions and the taking of hostages) and violations of three specific fundamental human rights, including the right to life, the prohibition of torture, and the prohibition of arbitrary arrest and detention. The researchers then played these recordings for a trio of lawyers who specialize in applying international law to war-time events in order to obtain expert opinion on whether any rules, laws, or rights were violated.
Now before all of you hardcore libertarian gamers get up in arms, I’ve read the report (which you can access here) and I have to say that I’m fairly satisfied by the researchers’ objectives and methodology.
They plainly state that “the goal is not to prohibit the games, to make them less violent or to turn them into [International Humanitarian Law] or [International Human Rights Law] training tools.” Rather, their aim is simply to “raise public awareness among developers and publishers of the games, as well as among authorities, educators and the media about virtually committed crimes in computer and videogames, and to engage in a dialogue with game producers and distributors on the idea of incorporating the essential rules of IHL and IHRL into their games which may, in turn, render them more varied, realistic and entertaining.”
I can get down with that. I’m all for morality, ethics, and realism in my combat simulators.
Plus, the examples of violations called out in the report—such as Jack Bauer’s torturous interrogations in 24: The Game, the helicopter gunning mission in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare that has players targeting enemies by their heat signatures alone (making it difficult to determine whether any civilians might be among them), and the carpet bombing of a village that could contain civilians in World in Conflict—are completely valid. These are all things that most of us would hope never to happen in a real war.
But the problem I kept turning over in my mind while reading was this: How are developers supposed to show players the legal limitations that constrict real soldiers’ actions while keeping a game fun?
If they restrict us from pulling the trigger whenever our weapons are, say, aimed at a church or a yielding enemy, they quash our ability to make moral (or immoral) choices. It destroys the illusion of reality the game’s makers are attempting to create, not to mention the chance for players to learn anything about themselves.
They could simply keep non-legitimate targets from appearing in the game, but in many cases that, too, would negatively impact realism. If part of the game takes place in an urban setting, you’d expect to see some civilians, homes, hospitals, and places of worship.
Perhaps games could take into account the legal ramifications of a player's actions in their epilogues. If he or she goes around torturing people and laying waste to civilian areas, the game’s ending might change from the soldier flying off into the sunset a hero to a court room scene in which a judge lists off his criminal indiscretions, lecturing how the ends don't justify the means before passing sentence.
But then how to deal with the grey areas? A judge who wasn’t in the warzone might think that there was no need to blow holes in the walls of so many buildings in Battlefield: Bad Company, but if the player doesn’t do it—consequently limiting his ability to flush out hidden enemies—then there’s a very good chance his grunt won’t even survive to attend his own court martial.
Then there’s the issue of the narratuve elements necessary to tell a dramatic, emotional, and intense story about war. Clearly, a crime is committed in the scene in Call of Duty: World at War in which Russians gun down German prisoners of war as an act of pointless, bloody vengeance. The player knows this, and is rightfully shocked when it happens. Do we need to see the legal repercussions? Or can game developers, much like movie directors, assume that players understand what has taken place is wrong, regardless of whether the perpetrators are prosecuted on screen?
More importantly, does a scene like this somehow make the game a better? Does it make the player think about the morality of events that take place in war? I’d argue that it does. It’s a horrific but memorable occurrence that gives players insight into what the soldiers in that particular conflict must have been feeling and thinking, akin to the scene in Saving Private Ryan in which a couple of American troopers gun down a group of Germans waving a white flag and then laugh about it.
Still, “Playing by the Rules” is an interesting and worthwhile read, if only because, like that terrible execution scene in Call of Duty: World at War, it makes us think about what we see in both war and games.
And who knows? Perhaps a studio will take up the report’s challenge to develop a shooter that takes the rules of war into strict account. It would be an interesting play, to be sure.
Follow me on Twitter: @chadsapieha
