24th May 2018 - Historical Accuracy in Video Games

Today's Topic - 24th May 2018

Submitted by @The Communist Wookie

Should historical accuracy in a video game (let's say a WWII game per say) come at the cost of someone feeling included?

Chard - Last Thursday at 11:16 PM
When it comes down to choosing between inclusion and historical accuracy, I guess the answer is: What kind of game are you trying to make? A game focused on being an inclusive affair should focus on inclusion rather than accuracy, and vice versa.
This question does however open up new interesting problems: What is an “accurate” game, and how much “inclusion” is required?
Historical accuracy in games comes down to picking your battles. You can have a realistic depiction of a time, place or item, but the way you interact with any of these are unrealistic by the token that you’re interacting with them in the second degree (you control an avatar that interacts). Furthermore, the more historically accurate a game becomes, the more complex the game tends to become. Complicating the issue even more is the fact that history is a discipline isn’t 100% accurate to begin with.
As for “inclusion”, what kind of inclusion are we talking about, and to whom? The amount of “options” required to make a player feel included is heavily dependant on the player perspective of self, identity and the world around them. One person might need a fairly accurate amount of options to let them feel included, while others see the entire exercise as pointless.
So, returning to my original statement: What a developer should strive for regarding this question is down to what kind of game the developer intends to make. When that choice is made, it is down to the developer to make a game that fits their idea as best as they can make.

Finally, can a game be both historically accurate and inclusive? Well, if you look to the fact that history is a complex web of truths, half-truths and lies and the fact that what makes a person is infinitely complex, it’d be a very complex task to create such a game. But it is my opinion that nothing is beyond the realm of possibility.

May 25, 2018
Broreale - Yesterday at 12:10 AM
If we're talking about a certain mid-20th Century conflict whose political ramifications can still be felt today--oh, like the Algerian War for Independence, for example--this isn't a binary question by any means. If the purpose of a game is historical accuracy, and they want to be generally inclusive to race or gender, chances are it's more than possible if you do some digging.

To take this question at face value, you just have to take into consideration the social and material history in question and have that apply to what you put out. Where were women prevalent? Was their experience different from men and in what way? How would this apply to the game, its mechanics, its story? Are you playing a Soviet bomber pilot? An Anarcho-Feminist militiawoman? A conscripted Senegalese colonial soldier? Just a rando civilian surviving? These are specific stories that should be told, but they're lesser-known stories and as such, often don't play into even the most inclusive, socially-conscious imaginings of specific historical events. There will always be people who say that it's "not accurate" or "political" because they think their ignorance is a historical source, and you simply can't appeal to them. They're wrong because they have a stake in being wrong. But if you want to choose historical accuracy, you do have to be specific, and do your homework--not to the point where it's no longer fun, but enough that the end product actually addresses what these specific people went through.

Now, any game can also simply put on a historical costume and use it as a thin excuse for its gameplay. Certain recently-revealed shooter sequels aren't the first to do this, and they won't be the last. The point is an inclusive product because the game is a product, and one meant to push as many sold copies as humanly possible. Accuracy doesn't enter the equation here, and one can see it go out the window long before the first Cockney girl speaks.

Vayl - Yesterday at 12:38 AM
Perhaps it's because I've yet to see an autistic character in a game, but I've literally never cared about inclusion in games.

I'm not looking to play myself in a game, I'm looking to escape from reality and enjoy the fictional universe I'm in.

When it comes to historical games, OBVIOUSLY realism can't ALWAYS be king (even if I do have 200 hours in arma 3), real life isn't 'fun', games are designed to be fun.

However, I personally get a LOT of fun out of realistic games because realism makes games believable, and believable games are relatable. so when you pull of these amazing moments in games, you truly feel like a hero, rather than someone who's set up via the game's code to always win no matter what.

For the topic this obviously came about, the one armed scottish girl with face paint and a katana in the BF5 trailer.. Yeah I just think that's flat up stupid.

Call it an unpopular opinion but if we're going to have women in historical games, at least realistically put them where they were in the period, as nurses and such. A LOT can be said for a subtle social commentary on how gender roles have changed thanks to very specifically ww2 (woman working in munitions factories gave rise to the original women's suffrage groups, and workers uninions, etc), rather than the ham fisted approach of 'HEY LOOK, DISABLED/BLACK/GINGER/FEMALE people are also capable of fighting!!!'(edited)
If you want to make a game specifically about how x demographic strived in ww2/insert historical period here, that's obviously totally cool, but that's evidently not what Dice are going for.

⛄TepidNameChange❆ - Yesterday at 12:47 AM
To go off of what Vayl was sayin, Autistic people do have generally poor representations in media and gaming. I agree that a lot of superificial characteristics like race, gender, etc. are too emphasized. People should be able to identify with characters that exist outside of said traits that they themselves have, and it's unfortunate that many people apparently feel they can't

That being said, I still feel it's important to have an overarching range of diversity when it comes to the entire industry, and if there's institutional-wide seclusion of specific traits then that in itself is a problem.

When it comes to games like the BF4 (or w.e game it is) trailer, that was really tame. It's a single character with unique traits to distinguish them/make them seem interesting, who cares about some mild anochronims it's not like these games are the pinnacle of historical realism. It's hard to argue that the inclusion of the character substantially diminishes anything, claims of historical realism seem silly based on the entire scope of the game. It's just an FPS where people play primary multiplayer and shoot eachother. Ultimately, I'm not convinced there's really any problem with the game being anachronistic, and I'm sure many fps games have had comparable anachronisms not related to identity that almost no one cared about.

I don't necessarily advocate for inclusion to the point of obstructing good stories/settings, but I have a hard time seeing that in what battlefield is doing. I think a lot of claims complaining about anachronisms are more politically motivated than anything else, and the problem is that the particular mild anachronism conflicts with a given individual's political ideology.(edited)
Arguably if perceptions of gender/identity weren't so culturally established, not only would their diverse inclusion be seen as less important, but if they were included (anachronistically for example as in BF), we wouldn't see the same sort of backlash, because we wouldn't be defining history along those lines of identity. (reposting because editing made my last post too long)
Old Senile Mushrooms - Yesterday at 3:50 AM
If this is in relation to the woman on the poster of the WW2 marketing campaign: women served in WW2, so it IS historically accurate and cursory googling will tell you as much. People are raising a huge stink over literally nothing.

On most topics though? Historical accuracy is one of two things:
-a subject of academia
-a personal topic for the creator

The latter is whatever, it's an artistic choice that several creators I follow make because they're interested in the subject matter or they think it makes their story more interesting as a template
The former is something I question the relevance of in media. Spreading harmful misinformation about an era can be a problem especially if you're doing it on purpose, with the intent of selling a more comfortable portrayal of a particular time period to a market that might be more resistant or less accepting of an honest representation. Media has power, and most people do reaffirm their world views through it whether we like it or not.

But changing history for the sake of making positive changes, such as "this is how it SHOULD HAVE been" is more of a gray area. Unlike the cynical marketability of the above, this actually has a respectable reason behind it. That doesn't entirely excuse it, but it is more sympathetic, relatively speaking.

It really just boils down to what you're trying to do with your art though, but my take is that history itself is something you scrutinize because history only favors the victors in any conflict and I'm not sure I entirely trust its account of the world any more than some schmuck making shit up.
Broreale - Yesterday at 5:26 AM
I guess I'll stop being coy about the topic.

I have to question if anyone is truly, seriously saying "this is how it should have been" in regards to more visible representation of women and minorities in a World War 2 game.  Maybe the marketers up at EA are convinced a market like that exists, or maybe that's their only childish concept of representation, but there is no visible, coherent agenda saying Saving Private Ryan is a terrible movie because there aren't women in uniform.

There are many factors complicating any take on the Battlefield V reveal. The first is that the trailer was obviously a multiplayer reveal, and nothing in the multiplayer has ever been especially realistic. It's a funhouse. You can tell the difference because in the reveal show (which I didn't really like, but watched through anyways) they took a much different tone when revealing their female resistance character for the singleplayer campaign.

Another factor is that the actual historicity of women in combat roles is much, much more complex than people are letting on. If DICE were to take an interpretive style on women in the mid 20th Century, somehow making a pastiche, it wouldn't matter as you could take certain details and blow them up to be more universal and less of a fluke. But because this is World War 2, a certain standard is being applied to the presence of women that isn't being applied to Churchill tanks doing donuts and Americans flipping around Rotterdam in May 1940. And in many cases the historical evidence supposedly contradicting the presence of women is plain wrong or even fabricated.

And thirdly, what does Battlefield V owe the field of history? Nothing. This isn't edutainment. If someone learns (genuine) information about World War 2 from it, cool, but otherwise it's a form of expression at best and another yearly shooty "games as service" product at worst.

Gunnar - Yesterday at 6:13 AM
Personally I would say it depends on what you’re trying to do
For example if a game wants to be really serious and get a message across or just wants to tell a very dark story I would say stay true to history but if you’re making a game for example like battlefield or call of duty I feel like it doesn’t matter because most of the time they exist just for the multiplayer they are very arcade like games well call of duty more so cough battlefield is better I’m tired so I dunno if this makes sense what I’m trying to say is are you going for a good story that shows us what war or anything else is really like or do you wanna make a multiplayer experience focused on fun rather then story
Really depends on what type of game you’re making
And the feel you’re going for

TheSlyBrit [EU - PC] - Yesterday at 3:26 PM
I agree with what everyone has said before really. If you take the new WW2 themed battlefield, the online play has never really been authentic, for gameplays sake. So, there's no point in being realistic there (to a degree), but the singleplayer? Yeah, having women in roles that aren't stuff like spying or focusing on the like 2 women  squads that existed publically is weird.
Prosthetic Consciousness - Yesterday at 3:30 PM
The specific game in question, because it's painfully obvious, being Battlefield V with a WWII theme and black female soldiers being an option to play as, creates a problem.
That problem being BUILT IN SHITPOSTING
You can be a black, female, SS Stormtrooper for the pure sake of 'let's just be absurd' taking this attempt at inclusion and making it into, hilariously, one gigantic joke that the community can and will latch onto for the sake of a cheap giggle. We've already seen it with CODWWII

MentalSnowflake - Yesterday at 4:28 PM
Most games that say they are historically accurate usually aren't. we can't have [insert group here] because it's not realistic. You got fucking [insert unrealistic genre trope here], you can have the [previously mentioned group].  Things like colored people are often forgotten in medieval fantasy games, because the people who work on them are white. There were PoC in Poland in 1500, there were women, and PoC on the battlefields of WWI/II, modern day wars, why not include them, since the scenario created isn't historically accurate anyway. In this case it isn't a matter of inclusivity, but one of actually being historically accurate. And it's alright to make mistakes, but own up to them and just say you like your bikini girls with guns, or that you didn't think about it.
But make the inclusion fit the environment and the time, there are plenty of non-ablebodies white male stories to tell, that don't change the shooting Nazis in the face game.
Sometimes there are no resources to have more than the 1 white male character which has 7 different hairstyles, but as I said own up to it. The bigger AAA studios don't have that excuse however, in my opinion

JonTrottts - Last Friday at 8:50 PM
When it comes to Battlefield V, people aren't crying over historical accuracy they just don't want to be called out for being misogynistic and sexist, because women did serve in World War they played a large part and if they were crying for realism they would be upset the respawning was allowed because people couldn't respawn in World War II. Video game culture as a whole is notorious for being intensely toxic and intensely misogynistic this is just another example of that which frankly, it's sad because cutting half of the population off from an art form isn't beneficial for anyone(edited)

May 26, 2018
Sci - Yesterday at 10:18 AM
I'm not one for sweeping generalizations on one particular subset of people, much less so when it's based on as little as a hobby. The negative reaction to inclusivity in "historical" games (let's be real, the top military shooters on the market haven't been historically accurate for a long ass time) is more reactionary than anything. If it were to happen a few years prior, when there wasn't such a huge media attention on political correctness in gaming, I doubt many people would really pay attention to it. Even now, I don't the ones who care represent a majority of Battlefield's target demographic.(edited)
Maybe that's being naive but those are my two cents.

May 27, 2018
Physics Boi - Today at 1:07 AM
Imo it’s entirely up to the creative direction and artistic direction that the development studio want to go in. If they intend to make a video game historically accurate that’s an uphill battle right from the start, but specific sacrifices probably should be made in the name of historical accuracy. However if the development studio want to tailor the experience a certain way than that is also completely fine. Everyone who got upset over Battlefield 1 having so many black soldiers in it. If your argument came from historical accuracy then it would make sense, but DICE clearly never aimed to make the game a simulator of actual historical events, I meant it’s battlefield for gods sake, I think in the context of BF1 it did look a little bit weird to see so many African American soldiers in a setting like that, but there are much weirder things to point out like: is it any weirder that you can use a fully automatic weapon during this setting, I would argue yes. At that point if your going that far away from reality, you can no longer argue from historical realism/accuracy. At that point it’s purely creatively driven or artistically driven(edited)
Choice to develop and produce whatever a development studio wants to do is the most important aspect of game design, regardless of wether it hurts your feelings and regardless of wether it is accurate enough, if they want it to be accurate then it should be if they don’t want it accurate then it shouldn’t be. Battlefield is battlefield and it was designed to work that way for a reason. (Disclaimer I think the game is shit)
The above statements are so much better worded than mine could ever be, there’s so much more wrong than seeing an African American during WW1 because although yes a huge overwhelming majority of soldiers that fought were white, there was  actually a number of black regiments like the Harlem Hellfighters however there flatout was not an automatico mass produced rifle or Hellreigel that would be used during that time