Comment on Long watch on war gaming, how it works, morality and its impacts on regular gaming.
fhqwgads@possumpat.io 2 months agoYeah, it feels like the entire time he’s really trying to link these games to actual deaths during war that seems pretty tenuous, largely due to his own “ick” factor that “his thing” is being used by the military.
The section in the middle where he essentially asks all his interviewees basically “have you killed anyone” is pretty awkward. Like, of course these people don’t really want to talk about that. Nobody wants to go around thinking they’re directly responsible for preventable deaths. It’s like he wants someone to just say “Am i the baddie?” like that Mitchel and Webb sketch.
It also completely glosses over the way that “play” is often just training for something more violent. Tag is a fun game until someone brings a knife. But there’s a world of difference between “you sunk my battleship” and the Bismarck. It’s like he’s somehow taken the stance that video games cause violence in the most roundabout way possible.
It’s a shame because the video is good but it could be so much more interesting diving into examples about how these games actually work and are used instead of hemming and hawing the whole time over his imagined Cluedo to murder piperine.