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[Graanvlokkie]

Interesting and funny, so I thought I would share.

http://www.newsarama.com/games/geneva-convention-video-games-111216.html

It made (soft) news recently when the The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that they were looking into whether or not the international treaties signed to protect the those caught up in war, soldiers and civilians alike, known as the Geneva (and Hague) Conventions were being weakened by the perception that they were not being applied properly in video games ...

[Akrasjel Lanate]

Yea, heard about that few days ago.

[Lyn Farel]

That is interesting. I would also love to see more realistic and "self conscious" scenarios in video games that take that kind of well... realities into account.

[Myyona]

I guess a lot of FPS games need to rewrite their endings and have their main character getting send to the War Crime Tribunial in Hague.  In fact, it would be great if they did.

[Graanvlokkie]

That is interesting. I would also love to see more realistic and "self conscious" scenarios in video games that take that kind of well... realities into account.

The article gives some examples of other scenarios and organisations that should petition the video games industry, such as:

Genre: Creature Battling Games
Organization: The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA)

Out of context it sounds monstrous.  Capturing a creature in the wild, training it to fight and pitting it against similarly trained captured creatures of others for sport.  It’s not only appalling, it’s illegal (just ask Mike Vick), but it’s not just shocking that this practice in common in gaming, but orders of magnitude worse given that some of these games, Pokemon in particular, have gone out of their way to anthropomorphize their combatants.  Most reasonable people don’t send their human friends into fights, shouting orders all the way.

The ASPCA could advise the addition of real-time scarring of a player’s creatures, or at least force the players to fight a round or two against a giant bird with steel talons, laser eyes and wings of flame for themselves occasionally.

[Senn Typhos]

I approve of the Geneva one, and none of the others.

[orange]

Interesting and funny, so I thought I would share.

http://www.newsarama.com/games/geneva-convention-video-games-111216.html

It made (soft) news recently when the The International Committee of the Red Cross announced that they were looking into whether or not the international treaties signed to protect the those caught up in war, soldiers and civilians alike, known as the Geneva (and Hague) Conventions were being weakened by the perception that they were not being applied properly in video games ...

Perhaps the Red Cross should care more about it being applied properly in real life.

If a game is depicting World War II and explorers the conflict outside of the Anglo-American vs German front, then to accurately portray the conflict it will not follow the Geneva Conventions (pre-1949).  The Soviet vs German & the American vs Japanese front did not follow them and the Sino-Japanese front may as well used it as a guide of how to be horrible to your fellow man.

It is hard to point to conflicts in history were the conventions are followed by both sides in their entirety. We, humans, do horrible things to each other in war no matter what a group of old-men sitting around a table in Switzerland come up with.

[Z.Sinraali]

What part of 'we're investigating whether disregarding the conventions in games leads to disregarding them IRL' says to you that they don't care about it being properly applied in real life?

[Esna Pitoojee]

Doesn't look like they're trying to apply them to videogames. Does look like it's more "Hurrdurr, Video Games solely responsible for teaching people to do bad" shenanigans.

[orange]

What part of 'we're investigating whether disregarding the conventions in games leads to disregarding them IRL' says to you that they don't care about it being properly applied in real life?

I misread (or rather responded to the comment and not the article).

I am more concerned with violations occurring not because a game does not enforce/demo the conventions, but because of a loss of control and highly emotional charged reaction to the actions of the enemy.

The game industry might be able to incorporate demonstrating the convention through story-telling/roleplay mechanism, but it has to make sense.  For example, have a scene following an intense fire-fight were the squad's sergeant goes around administering "last rites" to wounded enemy soldiers (a violation of the convention).  Have a mission go-by and then have the character and another member of the squad called into a Colonel's tent, followed by a scene in which the sergeant is arrested for war crimes.

I however do not see a game where after each fire-fight, you have to wander around the map checking the pulses of all the guys you shot and then administering first aid to the living being very entertaining.