As a game developer, it saddens me that this[1] is our industry's interpretation of WWI.
I am sure that people do understand the difference between a game and reality.
The internet has killed imagination.
I'm not sure it's all that much of a bad thing that we retell an important part of our history in various different ways including forms of entertainment.
By reducing the suffering of those who partook in WWI to an adventure we insult all those who were destroyed by war.
I find this an interesting point of view. That said, there's also the point to be made that portraying wars as glorious adventures, we're definitely not helping to raise a generation of people who want peace.
Come to think of it, it may be that we're not showing enough violence when making media about war. I remember watching "Saving Private Ryan" as a kid. The opening scene of the Operation Overlord shook me very hard. Since then, when I think of war, in my mind I have a picture of young people dying horrible, painful and pointless deaths, crying out to their parents and God as they hold their own guts in their hands. I think this level of graphic presentation may be needed to really drive the point home.
Do you not enjoy any games/movies including non-fictional wars?
It would be disingenuous of me to say I've always felt this way. I was a Counterstrike junky in high school and I enjoyed a number of titles in the Battlefield series. So don't take my comment as a holier-than-thou indictment. But I have learned a different path and am trying to make a positive impact on this world.
If anything, I stand as a testament that that these games do not define us nor condemn us to being monsters. But I will discourage my own children from being entertained as they watch Hueys swing down over a Vietnamese village with Fortunate Son playing in the background as they bomb the shit out of a small village full of perfectly evil enemies. I did that, and I have learned that reducing the world to good and evil permeates every little interaction in our lives until it becomes exceeding difficult to live the Golden Rule of treating others as you'd like to be treated. Micro-aggressions against others dehumanizes us.
Lastly, you are correct, that imagined conflict is actually very valuable to teaching moral lessons, and there are plenty of ways to explore the idea of war with those who don't yet appreciate how destructive it is to reduce an actual conflict in our shared history to black-and-white terms.
And this is an advertisement for a game. Complaining about it not being serious enough is not really that different from complaining that alcohol commercials don't show enough drunk driving accidents.
In truth, though, this is a very weak argument as far as WW2 (and probably the upcoming WW1) games go, because they tend to have a storyline that largely follows the actual historical development - i.e. "Axis cannot win" - but with some considerable liberties. That, yes, can be kinda disrespectful in some cases.
It's a complaint that is biased in a particular direction. How would you feel if, in an alternate reality where Europe is the dominant power, you had a game about the US war of independence with US forces as DLC?
I'd say so. I mean, well, it's like having a game about the Eastern Front in WWII with the Soviets on one side and the Hungarians and Italians on the other end, with the Germans as DLC. It may make a killing in Hungary and Italy, but it's bound to give a completely deformed version of the truth to anyone who doesn't known much about the original events.
Look in the past week or two - the French have been commemorating Verdun, which was their WWI low point, but barely know about the Somme, which not only was the UK's low point, but also had half as many French casualties as at Verdun. Is it distasteful for the French to not commemorate the Somme? After all, the UK was France's major ally in that war, sending hundreds of thousands of it's youth to die for French soil.
Of course it isn't distasteful - the French national story is of Verdun, and they're not being distasteful by not ensuring all other major players get the same billing as they do in their own story.
Because in real life teenagers aren't going to think after playing "Oh man war is surely fun" because they are not that stupid, you just pretend they are for your argument's sake.