By now many of you have heard that Konami has decided against publishing the controversial Iraq War game Six Days in Fallujah, a title I previously discussed here. However, the creators of the game have yet to scrap its production, so it's possible that another publisher with more of a taste for controversy could publish the game.
While it's well within Konami's rights to decide not to publish the game, and the public pressure that caused the decision is a welcome democratic response, I think the game should be published, with a few caveats (I'm not going to discuss technical merits of the game, including graphics, controls, etc., because those concerns weren't the ones leading to Konami's decision to pull the game).
For starters, I think part of the problem is both a misunderstanding of the potential for video games and preconceptions people have about them. I doubt most people think of video games as an art form, and to be perfectly honest, the loads of shovelware and the games that are controversial for their own sake and no other only feed that misconception. So does taking a classic like Dante's Inferno and turning it into (essentially) a new version of God of War. Sensationalizing historical events through numerous WWII shooters does nothing to particularly enhance the medium as well. However, despite this unfortunate precedent, the potential for video games to exist as a powerful tool for both education and cultural dialogue on a massive scale remains largely untapped. From what I understand, Six Days in Fallujah was not going to be Grand Theft Auto: Iraq, but rather a realistic rendering of a pivotal battle in the ongoing Iraq War. If so, the game could provide all of us with insights into a war that is still controversial today. If this game were a movie, while I do believe that there would be some controversy, I doubt that the public outcry would be so intense that a distributor would decide not to release the film. There would be the usual standards of realism, taste, and sensationalism (or lack thereof), but the movie would be made and distributed. If Six Days in Fallujah succeeds on these levels and provides a valuable insight into the nature of a war that we are still waging, why should it not be published? Now, if in fact Six Days in Fallujah turns out to be a game that glorifies violence for the sake of violence and does not provide invaluable insight into the difficult decisions and situations of war, then by all means, boycott the game and injure Konami and Atomic Games where it would hurt the most: their wallets.
Next, some of the displeasure centers around the decision of the developer to consult with soldiers and insurgents in order to create a realistic game. Initially it was reported that both soldiers and insurgents were compensated, although now it appears that only the soldiers were compensated for their insights, and not the insurgents. Admittedly, if the developer had compensated insurgents, I would have serious reservations about their business practices, but this appears not to be true.
Finally, I think the most controversial matter is (obviously) the subject matter itself. The Iraq War is a confusing War; it's a war that was started under false pretenses. It's much easier to deal with a game about World War II. That was the "good war." Nobody feels good about Iraq, , and history has not yet had time to whitewash it either as a cautionary tale or moral victory. The game would, one way or another, force us to confront that hard truth, and perhaps we're not quite ready to handle it.
Cross-posted at http://filibusted.net