Just own it
“It’s just a game.”
For people who care about the possibilities and promise of the interactive medium, those can be stinging words. They’re not entirely wrong or off the mark when it comes to most games. Many games are, indeed, just games. There are a few that have tried to reach beyond “just a game,” even if their grasp doesn’t always measure up. But often times, “just a game” is a phase used by people pulling a huge cop-out.
In a preview story in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Atomic Games president Peter Tamte talks up his company’s upcoming shooter, Six Days in Fallujah. The WSJ reporter says Tamte and Atomic view Six Days as more documentary than mere FPS, even going so far as working with soldiers who lived the events depicted in the game to ensure accuracy.
“For us, games are not just toys. If you look at how music, television and films have made sense of the complex issues of their times, it makes sense to do that with videogames,” Mr. Tamte says.
…
“Six Days,” which uses actual events as its backdrop, is billed as having far deeper roots in reality and will be the first major game released about the ongoing war in Iraq. “We replicate a specific and accurate timeline — we mean six days literally,” says Mr. Tamte. “We track several units through the process and you get to know what it was like from day to day.”
To develop the game, Atomic is working with more than three dozen soldiers who were in Fallujah, consulting thousands of photographs (some of which were mailed on memory cards from Camp Fallujah), and looking at classified satellite imagery to ensure that the game’s appearance is faithful to the actual location. In addition to creating the game, Atomic will also use some of the material to create a training simulation for the military.
But asked if his game would have a moral component of some kind, or a slant, a message or theme, Konami – which is publishing the game — strangely backed away, saying:
“We’re not trying to make social commentary. We’re not pro-war. We’re not trying to make people feel uncomfortable. We just want to bring a compelling entertainment experience,” says Anthony Crouts, vice-president of marketing for Konami, the game’s publisher. “At the end of the day, it’s just a game.”
Some people are upset about that statement. Patrick Klepek was the first to shake his head over this (nod – that’s how I heard about it), and I think there will be many more doing the same in the next couple of days. I’m disappointed, too, and not only that Konami seems to be copping out. It’s disappointing that we seem to want to have it both ways. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise, however, that maker and marketer would have two different visions for the product.
Whether the developers like it or not, there inevitably WILL be some kind of messages gleaned from Six Days in Fallujah. As the WSJ story pointed out, nothing exists in a vaccuum. Everyone brings their own viewpoints, backgrounds and biases to the table when they absorb any form of media. Depending on how a player feels about the current war in Iraq, he or she will likely see what they want to see in the game. Any steps Atomic takes toward narrative realism in this game is a step toward a message — it just may not be a message they intend to send. I’ll bet you a few space bucks there will be no shortage of debate about Six Days once it’s released.
And if the gaming community feeds off of that attention, and holds up this game as yet another yard stick for how far the medium has come, then we have to be prepared to own up to the consequences, too. Did you notice that Atomic is also working with the military to create training software based on the tech used for Six Days? Do you not think that little fact won’t end up being used against the industry by the “murder simulator” wing nuts? We can’t have it both ways. Konami is muddying the waters for all of us, and I hope they know that. When the wing nuts come calling, the “just a game” cop-out won’t hold water. So don’t cop-out, Atomic and Konami. Own it. Own it now, and save yourselves and all of us the headache and embarassment later on.
