Ask HN: Why are Americans always the good guys in video games? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why are Americans always the good guys in video games?

This is a very interesting question.

I've always wondered what the backlash would be if a studio were to release a Call of Duty style game from the point of view of middle eastern factions resisting the illegal invasion of their land and massacre of their people.

Because it seems to me that these FPS war simulations are very close to reality (ie using real location names and sometimes actual 3D rendered versions of said locations) and are somehow being used as a propanganda tool to get most people on board with whatever the political agenda is at the time. I know this sounds very conspiratorial and I'm open to counter arguments but I can't shake off this feeling. Hope I'm wrong though because this is rather depressing.

> I know this sounds very conspiratorial

Not really. Some games got American military funding to promote the army.

> wondered what the backlash would be

For examples, look at backlash to farcry 5. See https://www.change.org/p/ubisoft-cancel-far-cry-5 where people just can't handle white American Christians being the bad guys.

> Us Gamers have had to endure a lot of crap over the last few years. The targeted harassment by the mainstream press through Gamergate, the terrible launch and outright lies of highly anticpated video games, the outright censorship of art through “localization” policies, the continued rejection of romantic partners when they find out our hobby, the appropriation of our culture by so-called “gamers” on twitter. NO MORE!

This has got to be satire. This reads almost like the gamers rise up memes.

I remember seeing a lot of this kind of ideas at the time farcry 5 was released. This site may be satire itself. But if it is, it's heavily inspired by reality.

That survey (2700 signers) reads like someone who did not play Far Cry 5.

Most of the journalism that I read about FC5 around that time of the release complained that the both the villain and the rural characters you befriend are too likeable and the game didn't deal with "real issues".

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/29/17176308/far-cry-5-review...

The game completely avoids discussing race. Some of the cult members are black, though the members are overwhelmingly white, as are all of its actual leaders. The game has nothing to say about white supremacy or American extremism of any stripe, except, possibly, that murder cults are bad. ... And that limp, almost nonexistent exploration of politics, race, and religion is at odds with the action, to the point where it detracts from the experience.

I guess it has something everyone can complain about.

You offend if you do, you offend if you don't.

Pick the one that represents the highest rate of return and run with it.

If you read accounts from actual war veterans that saw combat, they clearly state FPS games are nowhere near reality.

War games make game companies money, fighter jet games, battlefield, FPS, doesn't matter. The stories vary from things close to reality to ridiculous. They are very much like Hollywood pumping out the same old movies they have been for decades for the same reason: they make money. Why are there so many Marvel movies? They don't have to even write a story or concept art - that's been done for them - they just hire some actors, do some CGI and make money.

If you think there is some propaganda between government and video game makers, you are thinking about it too much. For games, the process for Call Of Duty is probably: write a twist on the same old story, throw in some new maps/locations, use the same game engine, reskin some gear and ship it in Fall to get maximum profit.

The parallel you've drawn with the movie industry is super relevant, I hadn't thought about it that way. It actually makes more sense for them to milk whatever is popular to maximise profit.

It's a shame that these companies are becoming risk averse with regards to creativity in fear of not meeting shareholder targets though ...

As for the conspiracy part, I think I got it from Kojima in one of his Metal Gear Solid games (was either 2 or 4). The way it was presented was very compelling, I should play it again :)

Under Siege from 2005 is such a game pitting Palestinians against Israeli military. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujqrOayOLP8 Needless to say, the game pissed off more people than the airport scene in Call of Duty.

On the reverse, a gaming company with the intent of catering to the zionist crowd could create a CoD-styled game focused on slaughtering Palestinian "terrorists", and it would be a huge hit amongst American jews and evangelicals. There would be no outrage, and republican politicians who spend all of their free time railing against video games would become vocal advocates for gaming.

Please don't post flamebait to Hacker News. It leads to flamewars, which destroy everything we want here.

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Because they are the good guys of course :-) Almost all triple A games are made in the US itself or allies (UK/Canada/Japan/EU) so it’s expected these games will have a positive view. Same reason it’s true in Hollywood. Most people just want to get on and have fun with a game, not overthink politics and ethics and I don’t see it as an issue. The more annoying thing is when you’re nudged to know random guy is evil due to generic Russian/Middle East accent.

Because the Americans make a lot of those types of video games, and if you want to pander to your biggest market, you make them the good guys.

I've played a lot of video games where they aren't. In fact, I'd posit most video games don't take place with real-world geopolitics/national boundaries at all. And where they do, I don't think it's unusual that the antagonist may be an American.

Because the US won the struggle against the USSR and now the global economy is loosely based around US-style liberal capitalism. Most countries and their place in the international order is relative to their participation in this system. This is best explained in Jihad vs. McWorld by Barber[1].

What this means is that those who want to buy-in to this global system have to deal with Western (US) media, Western (US) norms, and even the language of the West (the language most common in the US). English is the new lingua franca, and is the language of business. This creates huge incentives to develop media (games, movies, whatever) that can be ported into English and sold to wealthy US consumers (something the Japanese figured out in the 90s -- think of bad Final Fantasy translations a la FF7). Plus many studios are in the US and make games for the US market, and to a lesser degree the export market (Chinese and Korean gaming leagues being the biggest pushes, IMO).

That said, I remember one of the Medal of Honor games (WW2 themed) which has you killing Japanese in the Pacific -- and was still hugely popular in Japan.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld [2] https://slate.com/culture/2004/02/why-japanese-gamers-love-a...

Because, as an English speaker, most video games you play are of American origin.

As a Turk, I Believe that all games I play are of American or Japanese origin.

There are European game studios as well.

But European game studios have to cater to the American market or they risk going out of business. The simple answer to OPs question is: Americans are always the good guys in gaming because the American market is a large one for gaming and a lot of what's trendy and tasteful in gaming has to have an American bias for this very reason.

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