And greed. They made money out of owning people instead of hiring them. I suspect this was an important incentive. Dressing up and pretending to be one of those who went to war to protect this seems rather odd to some.
We, as in those of us who feel good about playing pretend war on our computers, can easily justify ourselves and claim good intentions, but are often a bit rash in our judgment of others without actually knowing them. I feel an asymmetry in that.
We are just playing, but they must be serious..?
Our little niche hobby can appear rather bizarre to those who donât know us, or our hobby. But once you get to know us youâll find that weâre peaceful and friendly, towards each other at least
For me martial arts and the study of war matter a lot because Iâm a fervent pacifist. Si vis pacem, para bellum. Loosely translated âYou can only choose not to fight if you can fightâ.
Can I pose a serious question here. No judgement or wrong answers.
What, is the difference between playing DCS and doom
What is the difference between commander keen and Ace combat.
What is the difference between flight simulator and combat simulator?
Now, those questions may sound accusatory, that isnât my intention. But my question remains
In quake 2, humanity is attacked by an alien race called the strogg. They capture, flay and reprogram humans to become part of their army, an intergalactic army. Obvious science fiction. But no less or more horrendous than @schurem using an A10 as a study aid to kill a T-80 section on DCS.
My point is why is it ok to imagine the abject horror of an alien invasion but learning an approximate attack profile of a Mig 29 is red line to us as simulators.
Iâve played a REDICULOUS amount of gunner heat pc. Iâve killed and been killed, quite literally thousands of times. But it doesnât make it any more real than Duke Nukem 3d was in 1997 on my p133.
The only one who has the right to comment is @Harry_Bumcrack. Are we gaming mate? Or is the constant striving for perfection affecting the way we sit in front of the monitor? Because i canât see it as it is.
To me DCS is different from Duke Nukem. A bit like judo is different from hopscotch. While all four are games, two are different to me.
All games are practice and learning of skills. A game is fun if you get to get good at it. Judo is a game built to allow practice of fighting skills in a safe and repeatable fashion. It is a martial art. Being good at judo means you have little to fear from any close combat scenario.
To me, DCS is a martial art. Yes a game, but one definitely intended to practice the martial skill of putting warheads on foreheads.
Far from it. There are others here that I know have also âseen the elephantâ. Experienced the sights, sounds and particularly smells that accompany broken lives, dreams and a loss of humanity.
My $0.02. Gaming, definitely. But, it is how you play the game that matters.
Most of us can âplayâ and understand the difference between reality and fantasy. Yet look at the members here who if they are flying a âRussianâ module, invariably are not using Russian livery.
And I donât mean that as a criticism, just to highlight that some âbleed inâ from the real world into realistic sims is inevitable.
Some however should not be allowed to play any sort of combat sim IMHO. A small minority, of people see it as a proxy for their dark desires and gain gratification by imagining that what they are doing in a game is somehow ârealâ. But these people should be receiving intensive therapy or institutionalised anyway.
It doesnât only apply to flight sims but other genres as well, however I think the ability to disassociate from the violence is easier with a flight sim. As it is in real life. Compare with the outrage in some sectors because in Counter-Strike you took turns playing as âterroristsâ. Or that level in one of the COD games that saw you gunning down civilians at an airport. To some it was just a game, to others it was glorifying âwar crimesâ, to others it gave them a thrill.
For me. My lack of interest in either the Afghanistan or Iraq maps is because I have been there and having that disconnect is so much harder and potentially triggering. Other than that, I have zero problem with putting (virtual) warheads on foreheads.
Live role playing isnât immune either. When I left the Army, I had a go at LARP. It was partly because I had an interest in the MMA (thatâs Medieval Martial Arts ) but also as suggested therapy⊠At first there was something quite cathartic about going hard at someone with a bloody great foam battleaxe or broadsword. But I knew I had to give it away when I lost my cool with a player one day and shouted, along the lines of âyou think this is funny, you think this is fun, wait until you have to do it for realâ.
Poor kid (young 20 something, but a kid, if you know what I mean). He didnât deserve that, me projecting my anxieties and demons onto them. But at least I was getting into enough of a headspace by then to realise that I was the problem and this particular therapy wasnât working. For him it was a game, for me it was becoming real.
I completely agree mate. You have the demons bourne from experience. That isnât the way most of us are. I just like tracks, explosions and the illusion
if youâre asking me, youâre asking the wrong person.
We (me included) who indulge in war games know ourselves and each other. We know thereâs no harm in this. We can justify the experience in many different ways. Same goes for FPS games where you kill aliens, nazis or zombies. And even if nobody has found any significant correlation between violence in games and violent behavior, the discussion is still ongoing in our society. There are people who will judge you differently because you play shooters, drop simulated bombs on your PC or play GTA. Just like some people judged me for playing D&D in the 80âs. I had to be worshipping satan, right? I guess it didnât help that in Sweden, D&D means âDrakar & Demonerâ (Dragons & Demons) as âfĂ€ngelsehĂ„lorâ doesnât sound quite as catchy as a direct translation of dungeons. In any case, those of us who played role games were seen as weird people. But I digress.
My point is that nobody likes to be judged by people who donât know you. And I try to be careful in my judgement of others.
A special thanks to @schurem for providing this perfect example.
Had someone put that in a news announcement, I bet a lot of people wouldâve winced, calling it insensitive. Just like if someone asked you what it is you do on your PC, playing these games and you answered that⊠What would they think of you, if they didnât already know you?
But knowing the guy who said it makes all the difference. Knowing who he is and that you and him are friends and know this hobby, takes all the harm out of that statement.
Which brings me back to the news announcement from UgraâŠ
I donât know them. Probably never will. Iâd like to know more about why they worded that announcement like they did, before I pass any judgment. Maybe they are horrible people, undeserving of our trade? Maybe it was one ignorant person, trying to be funny and failing completely? Do we know?
Very well worded all. The best philosophical conversations are the ones that make you doubt things of which you thought you were certain.
Beautifully said @Troll how if we donât judge ourselves and each other so harshly based on written words, we should do the same to others.
However, this comment here by Harry got me to think in the other direction. Not saying you are wrong and this is right, but letâs just explore this.
Ouch, right in the feels.
That explains my discomfort with Syria too. Yes, sometimes DCS comes too close for me.
Even though I
sometimes
for any number of reasons.
So how certain can I be that when I donât feel uncomfortable, it is âjust a gameâ to me? Because it evidently isnât when Iâm flying a Russian Hind in Syria. I experience political meaning and intent, not just tech and procedures.
I tend to think of myself as a kind, even soft, person. Yet apparently I do associate my actions in DCS with the real world. So what category does that put me in? Am I glorifying war? Do I take satisfaction from the idea of murdering a Russian general, or the IRGC?
I canât say for certain anymore that Iâm not using DCS as a proxy for my dark desires.
I should practice viewing DCS more like judo, as @schurem says. Pure martial art: movement, skill, zero politics.
I feel this too. These days I mostly fly the Spitfire and Viggen, in DCS. The Spit has always been a symbol of righteousness, defending England and the world from the Nazis. The Viggen never participated in a hot war and only have a maneuver kill to its credit, in real life. Russian or even US hardware and associated war zones doesnât appeal to me right now. So, yeah, I do connect my gaming with real life events and my consciousness on some level, yet I know that gaming isnât real life. But I donât blame or judge anybody who doesnât feel this way.
Knowing you, as we do. I would never believe that to be the case. I just canât see someone as inherently altruistic as you taking pleasure from that.
However, i could definitely see you taking pleasure from memorising the process which led up to the point of detonation and i donât believe that is the same thing at all in the context of playing DCS
What a terrific conversation! I am amused, though, at how weâve turned the tables on ourselves. Urga Media said some ugly stuff in an official marketing post. We turned criticism of that act into a review of our own acceptance of simulated violence. What does that say about us? Does it say that we all harbor some feelings of guilt? Or are we giving ED a pass because we are customers regardless? I have no answers. I canât even process my own feelings.
About re-enacters. Next week I am traveling to Iceland where a handful of flight sim friends are meeting to play DnD of all things. One of those friends resides in Iceland. A hobby of his is re-enacting Viking battles. Iâve never seen him but apparently heâs a large guy who fights with a mace. Is re-enacting Norse warfare a celebration of raping and pillaging? To me, no. UNLESS that re-enacted raping and pillaging had happened 20 years ago. Iâd have huge problems with that. So it must have something to do with the timeline. I personally appreciate (maybe even benefit from) re-enactments of the American Civil War. It reminds us that this is us, not just WAS us. Someone has to be grey. That person very well might long for the days of enslaved people making massive white wealth possible. If so, heâd be rare. If I were a participant, and forced to choose a side, I would choose grey. Thatâs the side my ancestors fought on. I am not proud of my history. And I am certainly glad that the right side won. How to explain it? Thereâs a small desire to understand by pretending that I understand.
Another thought is my near obsession with a book on the Vietnam helicopter war called âLow Level Hellâ. Those helicopters absolutely terrorized the poor citizens of South Vietnam. I donât celebrate that. Nor exactly does Hugh Mills, the author. Violence is a condition of being a mammal.
Well I see Iâve produced another word salad that questions my own complicity even though Iâve done nothing wrong,
I can dig all of your post Eric, except the last line. I love their work far too much to agree with that
Your point about time being a factor in how painful a reenactment is makes me think of abstraction and distance. Violence, wether righteous and necessary or wanton and evil, leaves a wound. As long as that wound is still open or sore for someone, seeing the violence reenacted will bring up the ghosts of the pain.
Time creates distance. Abstraction does too. The chess board hardly is a bloody battlefield, but the pawns play the same role as those poor Dagestani being pushed towards Pokrovsk. In foothold we fight red. They have no name or politics. They are purely the antagonist. The target.
Feeling uneasy when playing the perpetrator in a reenactment is perfectly natural as a moral being in my opinion, even if the wounds of the violence are in the past. It shows you respect and care for the feelings of those who were maimed in the violence wether physically, psychologically or morally. Abstraction or gamification helps with the unease, such as taking a Dutch navy skin on your Hind chopper.
Turned out to be a very interesting discussion too! I just have a problem with the arguments that itâs just a game applies to us but not devs. But then again, if someone released a dedicated Nazi simulator where you could impersonate Adolf himself, rising to power in the 30âs, I donât see myself buying that game. So there definitely are levels and layers here and I canât claim to be able to see the whole picture, as it were.
That sounds like a lot of fun! Eat some Icelandic licorice for me! My blood pressure wonât allow me that luxury anymoreâŠ
And yes, I agree that time heals wounds.
Precisely. You need to know that fellow, dressed in grey, to know his motivation.
Just being grey, russian, american or jew doesnât tell me that a person, or company, is good or bad.
Except SAAB. They are Swedish and always beyond reproachâŠ
Oh, alsoâŠ
Love it! I emailed back and forth with Mills, many years ago, discussing Miss Clawd IV. He was active on a model builder forum giving advice on how to build kits of his Loach.
The issue with enlightened centrism is sometimes itâs indistinguishable between those wanting to intellectually âboth sidesâ everything and those that actually just want to support the oppressor over the oppressed, but know they might get in trouble for it.
Problematic when the playing field is the slippery slope of the Internet/Social, etc - I only get at most half the story.
Itâs been bemusing to me, esp. over the last 20-ish years, at how quickly people put others into a âboxâ based on a string of text or what games they play; etc.
Never saw combat but during my brief stint as a first-responder (decided an early heart-attack wasnât for me - the leading cause of death they taught us) coming across the desceased in a smoldering car crash (or the âtwitchingâ - I wonât go into this here)âŠyeah, the smell stays with you.
Agreed. My opinion on FPSâs (or any game were the âtargetsâ are human) and such has drifted since the curfuffle over the original âmurder simulatorâ (Quake) came out. I pooh-poohed that notion then. BUT, I was an adult at the time, with a fully-formed brain (sucha as it was).
A quip I often throw out when a topic comes up realated to âmanagingâ youngsters is, âthereâs a reason they call them childrenâ.
) but also as suggested therapy⊠At first there was something quite cathartic about going hard at someone with a bloody great foam battleaxe or broadsword. But I knew I had to give it away when I lost my cool with a player one day and shouted, along the lines of âyou think this is funny, you think this is fun, wait until you have to do it for realâ.
