It’s best not to think of the body count at the end of your average video game. Even someone as family-friendly as Mario should really find himself justifying his actions before the Mushroom Kingdom’s highest court. This is in view of the sheer volume of Goomba and Koopa-shaped bodybags he generates in your typical playthrough.
More seriously, first-person shooters have long held a special place in gaming critics’ eyes, because they trivialise the horrors of real-life conflict. And it’s perhaps with that in mind that the Red Cross unveiled a new initiative that proves just how hard it is for gamers to avoid committing virtual war crimes in their downtime.
The ‘Play by the Rules’ website popped up last week, encouraging gamers to follow the real-life Rules of War in their favourite first-person shooter “to show everyone that even wars have rules” to “protect humanity on battlefields IRL [in real life]”.
Suffice it to say that some of these rules are easier to follow than others. While not shooting an enemy when he or she is incapacitated (Rule #1) and avoiding civilians (i.e: non-violent characters — Rule #2) aren’t too tricky in some titles, games almost universally fail to make the next two rules straightforward.
Rule #3 says you mustn’t target civilian buildings, including houses, schools and hospitals. If you must fight in them — and that’s often the case — “you must do everything you can to avoid damage.” Good luck with that.
Rule #4 is even harder. “If you have an unused med kit that works on others, you must give it to those who need it — be they friendly or enemy.”
Heal an enemy you’ve just downed, and the thanks you get may well violate Rules #1 and #2, in the likely event that they’re not constrained by real-world morality.
That brings me to the first problem of the well-meaning initiative. It’s very likely that players deciding to adopt the Rules of War will lose. If you fail to execute fallen enemies in Call of Duty, or decide to try to use a precious med-pack on someone you’ve just shot, you’re not putting yourself in a good position to win the game.
That’s probably not the lesson that the Red Cross had in mind when it came up with the campaign — that it doesn’t pay to show your humanity.
The second issue is that, for most people, games are an escapist safe space where real-life morality and the rule of law can be safely ignored for a few hours of brainless fun. I’ve personally been a car-jacking, cop-killing, mass-murdering scumbag in Grand Theft Auto, but have felt days’ worth of guilt for accidentally stepping on a snail in the real world. Force ethics on to games and they lose their appeal, fast.
Finally, while knowledge is undoubtedly a good thing, it’s questionable how useful the Rules of War are to your average gamer who — without wanting to stereotype too much — is unlikely to find him or herself on the real-life battle front putting these lessons into action. Equally, Wagner mercenaries and members of the Sudanese militia probably aren’t going to modify their battlefield behaviour based on a few hours of Twitch streams, no matter how entertaining.
Applying the real world’s messy wartime morality to video games, with a ruleset designed to clearly differentiate winners from losers is always going to be tricky.
But certain games have had a stab at least making you think about the consequences of war. Spec Ops: The Line, for example, gives you choices that often leave you feeling like either a traitor or a war criminal. Meanwhile, This War of Mine examines the horrible, dehumanising choices civilians have to make to survive in times of conflict.
Compared with these, applying real-world morality to the colourful world of Fortnite or to a Warzone map full of sweary teenagers feels a touch facile. Oddly, given the huge arsenal of weaponry and the trappings of war on display, it feels like neither the time nor the place.
