To me its martial arts. A specific way of looking at mastering a skill.
Yes it is, and in that sense games, like cartoons and literature allow us to explore darker sides of existence. To revel in the destruction of opponents.
But this argument will not help us deal with burning Aleppo. In fact, it makes it harder to accept. Tom bashing Jerry is a fair bit abstracted from real life violence. A highly realistic stick of snake eyes landing in a meticulously modelled middle eastern village…
However, that realism also gives it tension. Emotional tension. The village looks real, and that enhances my joy in succesfully defending it from the evil trucks coming to occupy it with bad music videos.
It’s all fantasy vs reality. Does doing something in a fantasy make one more likely to do it or accept it in reality? Does doing it relieve tensions and provide perspective so that one is less likely?
I know there are numerous studies on the subject which have said both, I do not know if there is an accepted answer or if whether a given person is affected one way or the other boils down to “depends on the person.” If a hundred thousand people can play Doom and just think of it as a game, but 5 others think they need to crusade against demonic hordes, is the problem Doom or their psyches? Do we have to sanitize all forms of entertainment and even discussion so that the mentally unstable .1% don’t get the idea to do something awful?
Everyone is affected by stimuli in different ways, there can never be a one-size-fits-all answer to anything.
This is it exactly. When the world is too much and I need to blow off steam and it’s too late to hit my heavy bag or weights, destroying things in the very fictional worlds of Pandora (Borderlands) or San Andreas/ Liberty City, or blasting cartoonish nazis in Wolfenstein, because they’re so detached from reality.
Now looking at something like “that level” in Modern Warfare a while back, would I have played through that? No- way too close to reality.
Best stress reliever I ever had. Back when I had stress I was/am no fighter but, man, something about expending all that energy did the trick. ‘Sprint’ swiming now - my joints ain’t what they used to be.
For me, it’s dropping a fishing line in the lake right as the sun is setting. Or a day at the range getting some target shooting in. That’s my therapy. There’s something about the focus on the process that turns off all the other crap in the world.
My dad (a school psychologist with a Doctorate degree) always tried to convince me that GTA was going to corrupt me; that I would go out stealing cars and killing hookers.
Still haven’t stolen any cars to this day!
I think there is a such thing as distasteful representation of conflict, especially of on-going wars, but what’s “wrong” is always dependent on who you ask. What’s the quote, “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.” It is interesting how an enemy Admiral or fighter pilot can be respected by the opposition but someone who killed through a different manner is judged to be worse.
I remember the “No Russian” mission in MW2 got a lot of bad press at the time of release. At the end of the day, it’s a game; not real. Bombing the map in DCS will never be the same as watching actual ordnance fall in combat, knowing that there are real people impacted by what’s happening. Much the same could be said about any COD type FPS. Being a game, if you’re not OK with it, that’s fine! That’s the beauty of it - you have the ability to not download/buy/play it.
Also, rules of war are great right up until the point someone is backed into a corner and fighting for their very existence.
Anyways, just a few ramblings I’ve had.
This thread is one of the many reasons MS is great. Civil conversations with level-heads, regardless of whether everyone is of the same opinion.
To be honest its because these kind of games say “Bad Behaviour is not only acceptable but its KOOL” . I would never agree with my child playing GTA. NO WAY. Kids are impressionable. I dont want my kid to grow up thinking GTA is the way to be. However, if you play this as an adult and tell me that you had to do X to get Y i will laugh and think you are funny. I might not play it but to each his own. But there are lines. One of them is children.
Well yes of course…what I meant to say is that I listen to the audiobook in the original Accadian…so much easier than reading those clay tablets.
That said, I had never heard that Alfred Thayer Mahan had said anything about not splitting up your fleet. It is a ground warfare axiom that you do not split your force in the presence of the enemy…that last part being a critical point…and still an axiom which Robert E. Lee ignored at Chancellorsville and won a resounding victory…which I mention purely to illustrate a point with historical fact, not to praise or promote General Lee’s other opinions or ideals.
Your point is well taken. However, we do not teach Latin or Greek in schools anymore…not even the Catholic schools. So reading Livy or Thucydides untranslated is not an option. (Beside, Livy wrote on wax tablets that make your fingers all sticky.) We are forced to the translations. I think a course of study, like that at the NWC, with a bevy of skilled history professors (some who probably do read Latin and Greek) to lead you is the best way to learn as much f the original intent as possible.
I picked up the free copy of GTA V on Epic when they had it, but I still haven’t installed it. Never played one of them because the premise just never sounded that interesting to me.
However, in that same vein there are all these TV series and films like Scarface, Breaking Bad, Ozark, etc about crime that likewise hold zero interest for me. I’ve watched my share of cop/detective dramas (and comedies) over the years, but the machinations of the criminals themselves…meh. It doesn’t bother me…it bores me.
Yet I can play as a soldier from any country in a game without issue because there is a commonality there. A German soldier, a Japanese soldier, an Italian soldier, a British, French, or American soldier…uniforms, equipment, and places change, but the situation is the same and is one I do find interesting.
Back to the point of this discussion…by way of experiment, I just took out the Burj Khalifa in Dubai with a SCUD (technically I used the “EXPLOSION” Trigger Action to cause a 10000 volume explosion if a SCUD missile entered a specified area, centered on the Burj Khalifa…and then fired a SCUD at it)
I don’t feel good about it. Actually, I thought it wouldn’t work…but it did.
While the realist in me can think of scenarios where that might happen…and perhaps imagine a DCS mission where one is challenged to take to the SCUD launcher before it can fire on the Burj Khalifa, I think I would end such a mission before impact.
It makes perfect sense in a “ticking clock” scenario where you must stop the launch, or rely on a well-aimed SM-2 or Patriot intercepting it, with realistic consequences if you fail.
Make the specified area small enough so that if the SCUD was intercepted inside that radius it would already be so close as to be meaningless because 100% of the debris would still impact it, but outside it would be minor damage most likely.
By adding other SCUDs fired at other targets, like Desert Shield/Storm, you could recreate that in the UAE/Iran instead of SA/Iraq, with LGB-armed Hornets and Vipers patrolling for those mobile launchers.
To tell a story, you need strong messages to connect with the reader/viewer/player - to trigger an emotional response. It does seem that we do tend to tolerate these scenes more if we are the defender as well.
Even so, in such a scenario as the writer if you are finding it to strong - it’s fiction, and you have the authority to rewrite it. Which does not have to mean removing the scene, as an example you could say that the imminent threat was known and the building and surrounding area were evacuated leaving nothing but property to be damaged. Does it make it any better? Perhaps? However while you may have for example told a story of heroic Mi-8 pilots aiding in civilian evacuation, you still are telling the story of the perpetrator and their motive (even without saying it outright) as well which is unsettling I’ll admit.
That’s one reason for @Franze‘s idea of a “generic” red vs. blue rather than using specific nations and factions to avoid some of the awkwardness such stories can generate - although your example shows how that can fall apart if we mix in real world landmarks. Does that equally apply to entire cities, or countries? Are we better of with fictional terrains?
Perhaps. But there’s a strong argument to be made for telling stories of real life. For not shying away from that extra bit of engagement real places and real names bring.
While it makes no logical, or hardly perceptible difference wether I’m defending the suburbs of Moscow against the fascist invaders by hunting their fighters and bombers or wether I am over Redland defending it from the blue planes intent on scoring points on red buildings one to three, it makes a huge difference in what I’m experiencing.
Stories are symbols strung together in such a way that their combinations convey more meaning than the symbols alone. But symbols that figure strongly in well known stories start carrying them within their own meaning. Think of the bat sign. Or superman’s S. Or a spitfire.
What stories I choose to experience, I am sometimes irrationally picky with. You will not see me piloting a Bf-109 over the snowy wastes of Russia. It’s not a role I want to play. But I already made that argument, didn’t I?
I was/am no fighter but, man, something about expending all that energy did the trick. ‘Sprint’ swiming now - my joints ain’t what they used to be.
