Why Not Apply the Geneva Conventions to Video Games?
11:30:00 AM
This post is in reaction the wonderful questions raised by Zachary Sniderman's article on Mashable.com "Should the Geneva Conventions Be Applied to Video Games?" posted Dec. 02, 2011. Original header and attribution included below.
Should the Geneva Conventions Be Applied to Video Games?by
Once one gets beyond the heart of the matter - that games are precisely
that because they exist outside of the “real world” and in a consecrated space1,
and once one realizes the faulty logic behind suggesting that war games such as
Call
of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 abide by the Geneva Conventions, then the suggestion,
nonetheless, brings to mind some untapped possibilities for the design and purpose
of war games as a genre.
Nowadays, gaming has become a recognized venue for instruction or
concrete work in the sphere of social good or in humanitarian issues. Sniderman
notes in his article that, “After beating a game, no player wants to then sit through
a mock war trial for the civilian they accidentally shot in the first mission.”
But is that really true? Certainly in the current context of how
these games are designed, it would certainly fall out of the ken of what these
games attempt to simulate - the part of warfare that deals with tactics and
teamwork which is, essentially, the thrust of most first-person shooter games. But,
what if these games had to abide by
the Geneva Conventions?
At first glance a whole bevy of character classes or sub-games could
be created for just that very purpose. Consider a sub-game modeled after a Farmville/Sims-style game that allows players to administrate the prisoner camps or that new ranks of player-characters populate the game world such as "Judge" "Ambassador" or "Prime Minister"
and which are only granted to players who have advanced significantly in game missions
and whose overall kill stats more closely reflects the rules of engagement stipulated
by The Geneva Conventions.
That is, for the privilege of and for the game network clout of presiding
over the “mock” war crimes trials conducted on fellow players by other players,
one could imagine yet another instance of “motivational design.” Not only do
these roles grant a player a certain amount of authority and prestige within the
gaming network - a core reason people play games in the first place and which underwrites
things such as leader boards - but also the so-called courtroom becomes the crowd-sourced
forum for fair-play, best practices and community self-regulation wherein senior
members of the gaming network act as the standard for the rest of the gamers as
they debate how to adjudicated the “war crime.”
There could also be a “peacekeeper” or “Military Police” character
class that not only must be unlocked through specific actions by the player, but also this
creates opportunities for additional, high-value missions such as a Saving Private Ryan-style mission for
bringing a suspected combatant back to the so-called halls of justice.
First-person shooters are generally testosterone-filled, jockish exercises
in muscle, fraternal brotherhood and technical skill. What about a first person
shooter that also includes the brainy training in a social good or achieves a richer
simulation of other aspects of warfare such as diplomacy and rules of engagement?
Granted, this what if scenario
probably involves game design and coding beyond the capacity of the game
systems that run them at this time. It would be no small feat to be able to
realize such an idea.
However, the addition of game systems that process the ethical standards
of the Geneva Conventions not with built-in
coding, prohibitive algorithms and game design, but instead by the creation of sub-games, earned
character classes and in-game sysop privileges and that these systems that process
ethical issues are administrated and enacted by the gamers themselves, then
suddenly games like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 achieves some of the didactic
and community building functions2 that satisfy more completely why human
beings are wont to play games in the first place.
1 Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo Ludens: A Study of
the Play Element in Culture (p. 3).Boston:
The Beacon Press.
2Bowman, S. L.
(2010). The Function of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create
Community, Solve Problems and Explore Identity. Jefferson, NC: McFarland
& Company, Inc., Publishers.
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