comment: >
  
  So, playing all those RTS games based off Three Kingdoms is messed up and disturbing, now?
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  If we refrained from any media or entertainment that someone could find insensitive or offensive, we wouldn't have any media or entertainment. >
  
  But we all have limits to the media we collectively accept. I am not criticising people playing the games but the companies who make them. Would you have a problem if they started making rape simulators? >
  
  
  Would you have a problem if they started making rape simulators?
  
  Did you miss when Rapelay blew up the internet? They've been making them for years. >
  
  Yeah but that was widely banned and condemned. While I don’t support banning war games I think at the very least we should be having more discussions about the morality of it. >
  
  What is immoral about video games that isn’t about movies? >
  
  This is what I want to know! Why are video games about real life wars immoral/evil when books, movies, plays, art, and all other forms of media depict real life wars for entertainment as well >
  
  Well I would say this is different because the majority of the time they have scenes where they mention the struggles of these young men. Also if you knew your history you’d know that these games are just scratching the surface. I’ve never seen a video game about WW2 that covers the siege of Leningrad, where people were eating small children to live, or how Soviet officers would kill every 10th man in line to “boost” morale and or the killing and raping of women and children all across Europe when the Soviet were marching to Berlin. I’d be willing to bet you didn’t even know any of this and this is just the 2nd world war. Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5 “war stories” tell amazing stories of soldiers and things they experienced example “the last tiger” which the way they wrote it it makes you feel bad for the Germans.
  Also there are games that are pretty historically accurate like “war of rights” where before each battle they tell you the story of those strings of battles. Wars in videos games keep History alive and breathing. It’s a form of oral tradition. 
  To stop games like this is basically denying history.
  People especially children learn through all types of media and video games are a great source to allow them to learn and if they like it to explore it further if they choose too. 
  Not to mention there are games about serial killers.
  That include rape, murder, torture etc etc etc
  Basically War is Hell and it should be talked about, it should be shown in all types of media and People shouldn’t be afraid of it or scared of it. It’s how we learn not to do it again.
  But, war. 
  War never changes. >
  
  Effective form of oral tradition too, for example with younger people there is vastly more of them that know about ww2 as opposed to ww1 in part because there was so many games made in ww2 setting, if you compare that to some war such as franco-prussian war almost nobody knows about it since there is so little of media they consume centered around it >
  
  Exactly! I’m a social studies teacher, I can safely say about 33% of my male students have picked up information from playing games that are entrenched in history and or they liked it so much they did an even deeper dive. I can’t even tell you how many kids have played games like this and have gone on to pick up history podcasts and so much more. Oral tradition makes my job easier and more fun to do. >
  
  One reason companies make games based off real war is because a lot of the 'work' was already done.  To clarify:  making a game is a lot of work.  This includes things like making the artwork, scenario design, concept sketches, map layout, and lots of other stuff.  When you use a real war in real places, then you directly copy/adapt things like the uniform designs, weapons, the combat scenario, what the different factions are, the maps and unit positions, and many other details.
  Otherwise you'd have to make those all up entirely, and be careful about consistency.  Making up entire worlds, cultures, and geographies is hard.
  It's still messed up and disturbing of course; but one can see how as a cost-cutting measure a company would do it. >
  
  !delta Yeah that makes sense from a creative standpoint. >
  
  Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/zlefin_actual (33∆).
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  I play the Battlefield 1. It’s a first person shooter based on World War One. There are other battlefields in the franchise but I don’t play those. 
  I would say it’s net positive because it’s caused me to do endless research on the various sides of the war, the weapons, tanks and planes and locations of the battles. 
  I think games like this, or historical fiction can cause people to become far more curious than they otherwise would be and in turn, have more knowledge about what happened.
  ETA: I didn’t meant to say that like you didn’t mention battlefield, I just wanted to provide context. >
  
  Why is that different than a WWII movie? Tom Hanks didn’t really storm the beaches of normandy is Saving Private Ryan stolen Valor?
  
  We don't have Ted Bundy games where you play Ted and rape and murder girls for fun but how is it different?
  
  Are the GTA games that different? >
  
  The difference with a war movie is that they are designed for you to reflect on the horrors of war. I feel like war games are just their for the pure fun of shooting at people. >
  
  Is it possible to have a truly anti war film? 
  Take American sniper. Is it a thought provoking film about a man descending into madness trying to protect his family (at home, in the field), realizing he can't, and succumbs to the horrors of war... OR...... Is it glorifying killing faceless terrorists meant to give us a lil patriot boner? >
  
  
  Is it possible to have a truly anti war film?
  
  Yes, but being anti-war is a political position about a nation joining the war being wrong. 
  Simply showing that war is hell, is still pro-war if the implication is that it is worth fighting for anyways. >
  
  
  Simply showing that war is hell, is still pro-war if the implication is that it is worth fighting for anyways.
  
  Completely agree. And that's where question comes from. Even if it was made with the intent of being anti war, if the viewer sees the action as justified (or even tacticool) then it becomes pro war. 
  I think a movie can only be anti war if the viewer is anti war >
  
  You can show the country's leaders starting the war for selfish reasons, show the facts on the ground not matching the propaganda that the protagonist received, you can show the protagonist's side contributing to unnecessary suffering of civilians, etc. >
  
  How do you feel about games like This War of Mine? While it's not any specific conflict, it's clearly intended to be related to real modern wars. But it's not doing it for "cheap entertainment". It is, in part, a way to use an artistic medium (video games) to get people to better empathize with civilians in war-torn areas. >
  
  This doens't seem like the cheap entertainment the OP mentioned. Showing the dark side of war without glorifying it is an absoluetly necessary part of our media. 
  I played quite a bit of Battlefield 3 a few years ago but never really played a singeplayer "war simulator". Recently I got to play a short part of the new CoD MW2 campaign and felt something between awe and disgust by the sophistication of the drone sequence. 
  The player is controlling a drone and has to help friendly NPCs through a very enemy-dense territory by spotting and shooting all hostiles. 
  While this was entertaining in a god-complex kind of way  I couldn't stop thinking that this is someones actual job. There's some young men sitting in a basement in Texas for example, piloting a drone thats starting from Ramstein Air Base, quickly flying whereever its needed and obliterating some poor peoples houses and husbands while the fat and lazy west sits on its comfortable couch, playing a simulation of actual mass murder thats happening, possibly at the exact same time. 
  While your point obviously stands I still think that, best case scenario: its only disrespectful but doesnt cause actual harm and worst case scenario: people (subconciously!) get used to the idea that war is kind of fun and thus dont see a problem with it. And if you dont agree that playing a glorified version of a war simulation tends to have that effect on people I would highly advise you to look up the correlation between habits and overall worldview. Not to mention the small rush of dopamine you get every time you kill a simulated enemy. >
  
  
  This doens't seem like the cheap entertainment the OP mentioned. 
  
  Well yes, that was kind of my point. OP didn't engage with the possibility of games based on real wars that weren't just cheap entertainment, so I was trying to bring it up. >
  
  That depends I suppose. Most war games are pretty explicit that war fucking sucks ass. Sure you're an elite, yes you win a lot of your objectives, but the games tend to feature loss and death and at least one prominent character dies. Very few war games have you play the 'bad guys'. The ones that do usually only do so just so you can see the kind of monsters you're hunting down i.e. why war is necessary in the first place. Can I ask for examples of war games where the story makes war seem like a positive fun experience that you should want? >
  
  You feel the same about movies? >
  
  Depends on the movie. Something like All quiet on the western front is good because it shows war as something brutal, tragic and doesn’t for one moment try to glamorise it. >
  
  so you are against movies like apocalypse now, full metal jacket? >
  
  I’m sorry I haven’t seen Apocalypse now or full metal jacket so i can’t comment on that >
  
  it is just the old video games will make the kids violent argument from the early 2000's... funny when i brought up movies back then everyone had amnesia and was clueless to to the simple comparison i am making. before video games kids ran around playing cowboys and indians... they read comic book based on captian america.... if you are going to have this narrow viewpoint about video games... at least broaden it to all sources of media and entertainment... you probably wont because it becomes apparent that you have a pretty weak view. >
  
  I'm an old.   Vidya games making kids do bad things is older than the 2000s.
  Euhhh, sometime in the 1980s busy bodies were still blaming the rock and roll mostly but you started to have new targets for the pearl clutching.  There's an (early 80s?) Made for TV tom hanks film about the dangers of Dungeons and Dragons.  And the last poster child for the evils of rock is obvs Marilyn Manson, although, imo, he leaned into it as a marketing angle.
  Video game stuff more or less came along with video games, specifically home games.  Early home systems like the NES came out in the late 80s and the orignal wolfenstein 3d was around the same time.  Obvs Nintendo doesn't go that dark but you'll see titles like Doom, Resident Evil, etc, that hit that sweet spot for violent content and quasi "satanist" imagery. >
  
  Do you feel the same about making films that focus on real-life wars? Video games are growing as a means of telling stories. And telling stories is how culture remembers history.
  I can see being critical of how a story is told, how true or not true to history it is, much like you may criticize a film.
  But if you accept that video games are just the most recent form of story telling, it doesn't make much sense to apply special rules or standards just to video games and not other media. >
  
  
  We don't have Ted Bundy games where you play Ted and rape and murder girls for fun but how is it different?
  
  The difference is society's view on war. Raping and murder are never seen as OK. However, killing is sometimes morally justified. There are often heroes in stories that kill the bad guys and we celebrate and look up to them. Whether this is morally good or not is debatable, but a lot of society sees it as okay.  If you play the hero in a war story you are celebrating their heroic deeds moreso than getting off on the tragedy of war. >
  
  "War games are different because actually war is awesome and killing foreigners is heroic" is a bold line of argument I gotta say >
  
  Not that war is awesome, but that it is *different* from Ted-Bundy style murder.  A serial killer is not doing anything good for society, and picking truly innocent victims.  Killing in war is more grey: if the other side isn't drafted you could say they are knowingly putting themselves in a situation where they likely will die.  You could also say you are protecting your people depending on the war being fought. >
  
  Surely, being forced to kill people to protect your people is horrific and tragic, not heroic, right? Like, we do make lots of realistic media about characters who are forced to use violence to defend themselves from attackers, but those tend to be horror stories where violence is portrayed as horrific, not heroic epics >
  
  Heroic in that you are protecting your people, and tragic that people are dying.  I'd agree when the people are forced into this situation it becomes horrific. >
  
  Games like Call of Duty and Battlefield are very story based. You play as a soldier who experiences different battles, loses his comrades and tries to survive. The stories are not meant to glorify war but to immerse the player in the chaos and senselessness of war. >
  
  Well a lot of these games are military propaganda. >
  
  Do you think that books based on real life wars are messed up and disturbing? It's same concept. Difference is that in game you can be part of the events and partly deeply understand how horrible it was and partly get historical informations. >
  
  It's no different than making shows and movies about wars.  
  They were made to entertain people and make money, same as the games >
  
  I find this a bit extreme. You might think of this as a form of low-brow entertainment. For others, it is no different than playing a horror game. Should we stop having horror games if they were created after real-world events? People die driving, no more racing games? People have died boating, no more fishing games? Animals die during hunting trips, no more hunting games? People find entertainment in documentaries about these wars, is that not ok? When someone starts down this road we end up on the extremes, with someone picking up the torch from one to another, all thinking they were doing something good. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. No, we need more creative freedom, and fewer Karen's trying to control the media space. If you don't like the channel grab the remote, you don't call for it to be canceled. I will leave you with one more platitude, the people who you are trying to show hommage. Are you honoring their passing by closing the door on it, or by sharing it so that people can see firsthand how brutal war is? I think the more you have people on a video game seeing war as it is. The less I believe you will have people wishing for it. Just one man's humble opinion, even if it is the correct opinion. Lol >
  
  This critique of violence applies to all media. Playing a fictional rebel group fighting against the evil empire for fun seems to face a similiar issue that you bring up: there are real people who are a part of a real rebel group whose goal is to combat a real totalitarian government. It seems a bit off-putting to treat the real experiences of others as a dress-up setting for video games. Further, what does it say about a person that they enjoy inflicting violence in a fictional world on others as a means of entertainment?Why do we find action movies where we watch people blow other people up fun and entertaining at all? >
  
  I know you're given a delta already this is just something to consider about the morality of it from the other side.The US army tried pay streamers to advertise them to their audaince.The creatives behind the most call of duty title has said there games have no politics despite using current wars, countries,imagery and actual event(they used the highway of death incident that America commited in the middle east and applied to the Russian with in the version of the narrative)and their stories often frame any chrachter who doesn't give in or is critical in to America or British occupation as someone who deserves and will mostly likely receive death.
  A similar practice goes in movie and TV the Department of defence will fund project and provide real equipment to project but the caveat is get final say on the script so any criticism of the military is hard to greenlit even movie as fantastical as the avengers movie have this restrictions.
  I guess my point is if it were that messed up or offensive the military would've censored it by now. >
  
  That's why Battlefield 2043 is superior than v and 1.
  It's in da future >
  
  Is there a prescription delay or do you also include the various Total war and age of empire centuries/millenias old wars ? 
  What would be best : depicting a real war who's last victim died so long ago that they're but lines in history books or a modern yet fictional war (let's say a 1990's war between France and England) that could remember real trauma of victims from another war ? >
  
  we already have books, films, tv shows and music about existing wars. what's the difference? >
  
  Why video games and not books, films or television? Seems a bit anti games and also are we talking about things like the napoleonic wars, viking invasions or just wars you individually deem disturbing like WW2? >
  
  This War of Mine 
  
  This War of Mine is a war survival video game developed and published by the Polish game development company 11 Bit Studios. The game differs from most war-themed video games by focusing on the civilian experience of war rather than front line combat. Characters have to make many difficult decisions in order to survive everyday dangers. There are various endings for each character, depending on the decisions made in the game.
  
  ^([ )^(F.A.Q)^( | )^(Opt Out)^( | )^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)^( | )^(GitHub)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5) >
  
  So to my knowledge there’s been zero war games that have impacted people the way war movies or books have. WW2 vets had PTSD flashbacks in theaters watching saving private Ryan, the only criticisms about that movie from those vets is this, the men were younger and it was far bloodier in reality. My father in a Vietnam war vet and refuses to watch We were Soldiers, and other good movies about that water because it makes him smell diesel and takes him back to that time. My dad has also watched me play the story mode of the original Cod Black Ops and had no reaction to it.
  So I guess my question for you is, how is a video game anymore disturbing than a movie? Also with how books, movies, and games about these wars a lot of great stories about brave and heroic men and women wouldn’t be told or at best wouldn’t be as well know, history was my favorite subject but reading just the facts can honestly be very boring. >
  
  Most videogames based on real wars do t really show the true horrors of those wars. They won’t show American soldiers killing entire villages because they might be Vietcong. They won’t show the 18 year old infantrymen having to make that split second decision to shoot a 12 year old running at him with a suicide vest. For the most part they just show the major battles. Is it in bad taste? Maybe. Is it immoral? No >
  
  
  I understand that people enjoy shooter games but I don't understand why companies make games based off real war that happened.
  
  You don't understand it? I mean, objecting to it would be one thing, but you don't understand it? They do it because ideas come from life. It's the same reason most fiction isn't high fantasy, but instead set in the real, albeit tweaked, world.
  
  It is disturbing to turn real life human tragedies into cheap entertainment.
  
  How is it turning anything into anything else? Entertainment it may be, but it hasn't altered events to turn something into entertainment, it's entertainment based on an event. Kerbal Space Program didn't "turn aerospace engineering into cheap entertainment". Aerospace engineering is still a remarkable, expensive feat. The cheapness of KSP hasn't subtracted from that in any way.
  
  These are based off real wars where millions of young men were forced into a brutal war where they suffered and died alone in horrific conditions. Adapting this into a video game for people to play through the war for fun is messed up.
  
  Why is that messed up? We've been making fiction for amusement out of war forever. Plenty of people who were in said wars have done it.
  
  We don't have Ted Bundy games where you play Ted and rape and murder girls for fun but how is it different?
  
  I can assure you that there are, they just don't sell very well. >
  
  Do you feel the same way about books, movies, TV shows etc.
  If not, consider why you only feel this applies to video games. Do you find video games to be inherently less suited to tackling serious issues? >
  
  I didn’t know much about WW1 until I played a shooter game about it as a kid. While I understand it was not probably all that realistic I had an appreciation for the people who went through that, that I didn’t have before. I became interested in it and started doing research and learning things I would not have if i hadn’t played that game. If you actually play those games you’ll see that they do not make fun of or mock anyone who was involved, quite the opposite actually. I cried playing it and I felt terrible for all the young men and women who were involved in the brutality. I never stopped to think about any of that until I played that game. A lot of these games spread awareness and respect to kids and adults who didn’t take it seriously before. >
  
  Would you say the same thing about books or movies about wars? 
  I’d argue that video games are just another medium. As with books and movies, there are jingoistic, propagandistic, and just plain bad ways to do it. But cinema and novels have also captured parts of the reality of war or history and made them available broadly. 
  Video games are the same. There can be bad or low effort attempts. And there can be games like Spec Ops: The Line which tell a story about trauma and the horrors of modern urban warfare. Video games are unique medium because the viewer is also the participant. So it provides a way to show in a very vivid way the experience. Games that take this into consideration can be very compelling. >
  
  I grew up playing video games and I can tell you I learned plenty about the horrors of war,  the stories in those games have alot more depth than people give them credit.
  I don't see it any different than a documentary it's just interactive. >
  
  Who is harmed by playing a video game about historical wars? >
  
  Syberia the World Before is like based on post ww2 but it uses different names for everything. It also has its own unique messages, is a very cinematic movie-likr game, has amazing music; created from someone that started with illustration and comics from that post ww2 era (being of that age, like hayao miyazaki), doing their own thing for the most part. Its just post world war art from those that actually felt it. Art is art.
  Perhaps you are right for those that didnt get affected by it, but then again people learn from history and can feel it. We learn it all through school.