Hacker News Reader

> For example, much is made of the fact that real-life Special Forces soldiers aid in the development of these games for the sake of authenticity. That's great, but that authenticity is then baked into products that paint a wholly misleading picture about the realities of war. The Medal of Honor franchise is also guilty of this.

Obviously, any claim at "authenticity" of a game in which you play a bullet-sponge with health regen is laughable at best. People actually caring about authenticity would play ARMA, in which the reward for "heroism" is being shot by a bunch of pixels hiding in a bush 500 m away. But even ARMA (or least it was the case in the original Operation Flashpoint) is heavily sanitized. It's empty of civilians. No sniper shoots at children. Wounded are not trying to put their guts back in place. It's the Star Wars version of war, where the Stormtroopers either stand or fall, and innocents never get hurt.

I was referring more to atmospheric and thematic authenticity. Obviously, no one is going to believe health regeneration is real. In retrospect, I should have made it clear that I was speaking mostly in context of single-player campaigns.

My point was that, what may be dismissed as unremarkable by most people, might be compelling narrative to some teenage kid coming up on military age. Keep in mind that the games aren't fiction in a vacuum, but fiction with real life military unit names, equipment, and in some cases setting. Then, marketing touts the fact that actual members of said real life military units helped make the game. That lends credibility to any perceived authenticity, no matter how misguided.

There is of course the argument that nobody that young should be playing the games in the first place, but it is what it is. On the other hand, if we're talking about Medal of Honor, that might even be compelling to some young adults.

Either way, entertainment which utilizes ongoing conflicts has the potential to leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It comes off as trashy if poorly executed.

---

Regarding ArmA, although it has vastly more realistic mechanics, it's not really a valid comparison due to a lack of virtually any story or narrative at all. It's more of a simulation sandbox at heart, albeit a sterile one.

That really depends on what Clan/Group you play with, how good their map creators and modders are. Many a game has been much more realistic in that way than you seem to think - mostly because most of the players in those groups are active-duty soldiers, there are commanders, and the map/mission creators are mil/ex-mil as well.

> I was referring more to atmospheric and thematic authenticity.

I understand what you mean, but the mechanics do detract from any perceived authenticity. It's like having "authentic" weapons and "authentic" unit names in a Rambo movie. At the end of the day, it's more fetishism than anything else.

> Either way, entertainment which utilizes ongoing conflicts has the potential to leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. It comes off as trashy if poorly executed.

CoD is not known for its nuanced approached in this regard.

> Regarding ArmA, although it has vastly more realistic mechanics, it's not really a valid comparison due to a lack of virtually any story or narrative at all. It's more of a simulation sandbox at heart, albeit a sterile one.

I don't know about ArmA, but Operation Flashpoint: Resistance had a decent story. I heard good things about the "episodic" Arma III campaign as well.

> It's like having "authentic" weapons and "authentic" unit names in a Rambo movie. At the end of the day, it's more fetishism than anything else.

Precisely.

This is just the nature of the portrayal of war in media. Your complaint is just as accurate when leveled against film, music, or literature. John Wayne movies, The Three Musketeers, Shakespeare's Henry V, The Aeneid, Homer's Illiad, all these things glamorize warfare to some degree.

The problem with CoD and friends are that they glorify war consistently and with no regrets, not even shying away from portraying torture or humiliation of victims as something good.

Worse yet, CoD wasn't always this way. The original WW2 based games went to great lengths for authenticity, and consulted many veterans in their development.

The difference is that WW2 veterans nearly universally view the war with horror, not the hop-rah of many modern veterans. This tone was reflected in the early CoD games.

Case in point: the anti-war quotations that flash on screen each time you die. This has been kept in recent installments also, except now it looks disturbingly out of place. One second the game is gleefully cheering your slaughter of nameless foreigners, the next minute they're quoting Oppenheimer.

The CoD games have always had a heavy dose of American machismo, but the latest games are comical caricatures. MW1 had at least a solid Tom Clancy-esque tale of international intrigue, the latter games not even that.

The WWII-era CoD definitely didn't feel jingoistic in the same way. Heavily scripted, sure, but it was much more a "war is hell" and "you're just a cog in a bigger machine" message than "let's save the free world from the terrorists". Also, it didn't involve your character torturing anybody.

Then Modern Warfare had an OK story, and some strong moments (eg, the last mission with the US Marine), but it had already started to shift into dubious territory. And then I stopped playing CoD.

That is ... not quite true. The Three Musketeers is mostly about friendship (there is little violence in the book except in one chapter and the bodycount for the whole book is low) and the Illiad is about the tragedy and inevitability of being a hero - and he does not glorify - he shows the war.

> For example, much is made of the fact that real-life Special Forces soldiers aid in the development of these games for the sake of authenticity.

I'm really amused at the idea that there are veterans who have been through hell sat in a room debriefing for a bunch of artists and programmers.

Also in complete disbelief.

Gotta pay the bills somehow. I hear most military pensions don't quite cut it.

""Right now we are pretty stacked with consultants," the video-game man responded. "Thirty active and recently retired guys" for one game: Medal of Honor Warfighter. In fact, seven active-duty Team 6 SEALs would later be punished for advising EA while still in the Navy and supposedly revealing classified information. (One retired SEAL, a participant in the bin Laden raid, was also involved.)"

http://www.esquire.com/features/man-who-shot-osama-bin-laden...

That article has largely been denounced by the DEVGRU community see:

http://sofrep.com/18453/esquire-is-screwed-duped-by-seal-ubl...

The CoD servers I play on are dominated by active service personnel.

You wouldn't be excited if someone wanted to make a video game about your job? That's like the 21st century's movie deal.

"How many bone chips were there? Did any blood spray in your face?"

Yes, I'm sure it goes exactly like that. Because lord knows CoD software developers aren't actually people, but a bunch of gore-thirsty carrion vultures.

Heh. My job as a philosopher, or my job as a programmer?

In most cases I would be horrified that my job is being portrayed in a movie, as in almost all cases it will be highly unrealistic.

The rate of veteran unemployment is very high. You'd be amazed what you'll do for money, especially when you have a wife and kids, which a lot of veterans do.

No one here is criticizing veterans who do consulting gigs. I think it's great the opportunity exists in the first place.

Part of what I was trying to convey, and what I believe the post you're replying to was trying to convey, was the inherent surrealism involved in the whole process.

You have SF veterans coming home from an ongoing conflict, getting paid to consult for companies making entertainment products that purport to portray the very same conflict they just came from, and may even return to. It's just weird on many levels.

In an ideal world, these guys would be paid better and get slotted into executive-level jobs upon return, negating any need to do consulting gigs. On the other hand, as another poster pointed out: working with a game studio in that capacity is something akin to a movie deal; it's very, very cool.

Not sure why the ideal world is one where veterans become executives. Military service is pretty explicitly an escape hatch path from lower-class to middle-class. From a market perspective, making the rewards too high might actually destroy this essentially necessary social purpose via competition.

I was referring to the Special Forces veterans who consult for games:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6904336

Special Forces is a high bar already, and the "Tier 1"/Special Mission Unit subset of that is pretty much knocking on the door of peak of peak human capability.

Also, for very large corporations, a low-to-mid level executive position isn't all that lofty.

The mediocrity is why they sell as good as they do. The simple story-line, roller-coaster style "on a track" interaction are what makes it appeal to the lowest common denominator.

The main audience of these games are being misinterpreted in this article and in these comments. CoD is not a sophisticated game - it's a game that 12 year old boys get really excited about beg their parents to get for Christmas, or college aged guys that are sick of halo. If you think the CoD producers are designing a game for people expecting a complicated storyline full of puzzles and riddles, you're mistaken.

I don't understand the purpose behind this article. It's basically like being upset that a fisher price toy is too simple minded and easy.

I believe people buy CoD to compete online.

When I played it, that's what it did for me. It was replacing other competitive outlets (pool, poker).

If that's not what it's about, I'm not sure what it is about. Most people I knew didn't even play through the story. Just endless leveling in multiplayer, only to reset it when you finished.

>In a much larger sense, it just feels like there's a giant entertainment industry cash grab that's been taking place off of ongoing US conflicts, and it's being masked in soldier worship and flag-waving. In my opinion, this phenomenon only serves to obscure the real sacrifices made by service personnel.

Unfortunately this is nothing new. It's been happening for centuries. Back with the Roman Empire, Holy Roman Empire, every other country/power/empire ever. It's part of the human nature to glorify strife and war and depict soldiers as war heroes instead of just poor souls sent to die for a cause they most likely don't even understand.

This is just another instrument of that great assembly chain that raises young children into young adults that eventually decide to go to war and die for their country with a (supposed) smile on their face.