Codies: real world FPS are not "tasteful"

By Fred Dutton Published 20 December, 2010

"There are British soldiers dying."

First person shooters based on real world conflicts are neither "tasteful" or "appropriate", so says a Codemasters developer.

Sion Lenton, creative director of forthcoming FPS Operation Flashpoint: Red River, told Edge, "I, personally, don't want to focus on live conflict. I don't think it's appropriate and I don't think it's tasteful.

"One of the girls who works here, her nephew was killed by an improvised explosive device [IED] a couple of months ago. So when I hear that, I don't want to be in a fucking meeting bigging up my IED tech."

Earlier this year, EA ran into trouble when a British MP called for a retail boycott of Medal of Honor. Liam Fox was left "disgusted and angry" by the developer's decision to allow players to control Taliban fighters in the game.

Media outrage also forced Konami to shelve its planned Iraq-based shooter Six Days in Fallujah last year. It was to be based on a brutal conflict in the titular city that resulted in the deaths of around 1,350 insurgent fighters and 95 US soldiers in 2004.

"We are deliberately setting out not to court that controversy, we don't want to go there and it's not a conversation we ever wanted to get into," Lenton went on to explain.

"At no point did we think that it would be cool to set the game in Helmand or Afghanistan, because there's a war going on there and there are British soldiers dying.

"We're still making a war game, and showing soldiers dying, but I guess [the fiction] is us playing safe. But I don't have a problem with playing safe when it comes to this kind of thing."

Operation Flashpoint: Red River, the follow up to the solid 2009 shooter Dragon Rising, is out next year on PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It follows a fictional 2013 conflict in Tajikistan involving the US and China.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (43) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Phantom_Dynamite #1 1 year ago

    So it's Ok for them to die in fictional wars just not real ones, why not find out what they think is tasteful and whats not.



  • Emmit_Assassin #2 1 year ago

    It is a little close to the bone. However, other media can do it and do it better. Games will never been seen as tasteful by many, no matter how the subject is handled.

  • moriss #3 1 year ago

    hang on, how can you possibly attribute this quote to "Codies" when the quote in the article clearly starts with "i, personally". He's not talking for Codemasters there.

  • Scurrminator #4 1 year ago

    Null argument really. There are tv shows and films about current conflicts every month. Just makes games look bad not being able to do the same.

  • bumgut #5 1 year ago

    "resulted in the deaths of around 1,350 insurgent fighters and 95 US soldiers in 2004."

    So civilian deaths not even worth a mention then?

  • chrisjm #6 1 year ago

    guns dont kill people, video games do.

  • Dolly #7 1 year ago

    Oh ffs, not all this again...

  • beastmaster #8 1 year ago

    Doesn't matter. The last game was shite of the highest order.

    Edited by beastmaster at 21/12/10 @ 10:16

  • FWB #9 1 year ago

    So is this an excuse for why they destroyed OFP and will bastardise it again?

  • Eraysor #10 1 year ago

    A video game could do a perfectly respectable job of being set in a current war. However, the problem stems from assuming you can simply palette swap a contemporary warzone into a Call of Duty-type game, when you simply can't. That was the problem with Medal of Honor. The game would have to be very similar to a movie, and almost certainly not involve a multiplayer component lest it devolve into "+100 points for every Taliban killed".

  • ShiroBen #11 1 year ago

    Reality.

    Fantasy.

    THERE IS A DIFFERENCE.

  • TOOTR #12 1 year ago

    The last time this kind of controversy raised it's head I scoffed at it but after a recent all weekend LAN/System link sesh with some mates it struck me, for the first time, how ridiculously violent a lot of the games we play are.

    I agree that films/books etc have carte blanche to cover current wars and why shouldn't games have the same right, but, and maybe it's my age or just the sheer amount of violent games I've played all my life - I'm a bit 'over' it.

    I am finding myself in agreement with the developers comments here.

  • disappointed #13 1 year ago

    Whatever your view, you've got to respect the guy for taking such an unfashionable standpoint in what is, for the most part, a highly opportunistic industry.

  • Spekingur #14 1 year ago

    Should make a game about Julian Assange...

  • coolbritannia #15 1 year ago

    who cares about soldiers when devs can magically swing cars into traffic to save loved ones eh?

  • TheApologist #16 1 year ago

    The idea that other media have a free reign to depict live conflicts is silly. They don't. When they do it, they have to take great care. Video gaming's problem, as Eraysor says, is that developers try to make the same old shooter and swap in some textures and a crap plot. That is disrespectful, it treats the violence of war as trite and consequence free, and people are right to be disgusted.
    Edited by TheApologist at 21/12/10 @ 01:28

  • TFM_Excalibur #17 1 year ago

    If a game has to be distasteful to be playable, then count me in.
    Better than playing the steaming pile of shite that is op flashpoint

    I'll take distasteful over shite any day of the week...

  • inutaihanyou #18 1 year ago

    'who cares about soldiers when devs can magically swing cars into traffic to save loved ones eh?'

    I'm somewhat new here so forgive me if i don't get the brand of humor...but that is a very sick thing to say about another person's misfortune, in my opinion of course.


    As for the topic, media is media. In my opinion, its not real and entertainment for the masses is usually distasteful in some degree, that's what makes it entertaining. From my experience serving in the US armed forces, a fellow soldier would be more prone to rattle off the inaccuracies of the game in that environment instead of being offended at what its portraying in general. No one around me has ever gotten 'offended' at playing COD or any other game of military conflict.

    As long as one can tell the difference between reality and fantasy, it shouldn't be a problem.
    Edited by inutaihanyou at 21/12/10 @ 01:51

  • _LarZen_ #19 1 year ago

    You talk shit Codemasters, do the movie industry think like you do? No? So why the fuck should you? Get over yourself, no one cares.

    I have been shooting millions of damn Germans for years now, about time I get to kill some US army, british soldier or even some bloody al qaeda!

  • mastertigurius #20 1 year ago

    Though there is a question of morality in showing any kind of military conflict, fictional or not, what I'm more interested in is to see a game that makes a real attempt at social commentary.

    What we're usually left with these days is low-brow propaganda (Call of Duty), which tells us that Eastern Europeans and muslims are the devil, and the United States and the UK are the knights in shining armor. Keep in mind that it's nothing new that games are showing real conflicts without any respect for those involved or with any historical correctness.

    There have been plenty of games set in Vietnam, where you (the cool GI) should shoot the face off of the evil little Charlies, not to mention countless games based on World War II. Yes, it is a long time ago, but to those who survived these horrors, it hurts none the less to see the worst parts of one's life turned into digital action entertainment.

    Game developers should stop being whores for a mass-producing, soulless industry, and start rediscovering their artistic integrity.

  • Paul_cz #21 1 year ago

    This hack should just stop ruining OPF franchise.
    And shut up too.

  • lostlain #22 1 year ago

    I always find it funny that gamers are so quick to say that their precious hobby is so different from Movies and that it is a new medium, with great new levels of interactivity, yet when this old story rears it's head, the comparisons and similarities to movies are pulled out. Which is it?
    Personally I think releasing a game based in a war that is happening right now is pretty insensitive, especially seeing as games are not especially good (yet) at portraying any kind of seriousness. On the other hand why is it any different from depicting violence in something that happened over 50 years ago, or something that hasn't happened? Who knows, I don't. Sure videogames don't kill anyone or help people kill someone, but I do think developers need to start taking a little more responsibility with the content they develop. I hate this black/white argument that gamers perpetuate along with the media, it isn't as simple as that.

  • 3william56 #23 1 year ago

    @ShiroBen: so, if someone made a nasty p0rno with your wife/mother/sister/daughter's face faked on to a participant, that would be OK because it's not real? Didn't think so.

    Fantasy doesn't get a free pass because it's not real. Any media has responsibilities to the subject matter if it's based on anything real. Context is everything, and yes, it's subjective. The Hurt Locker or Platoon is respectful of the situation. Rambo is not. Hollywood does not get a free pass (nor do books or any other media). Films (like Rambo) get just as much criticism if they cross the line as games do.

    Personally, I think there are enough good shooters in entirely fictional settings with no political baggage to enjoy without indulging in petty jingoistic US centric rewriting of any recent conflict. I prefer shooting robots and boggly eyed aliens in the face, or dodgy evil crims and mercenaries who've got choices to morally ambigous (at best) war sims.

    But as far as the news article goes: the pathetic whining that it's OK to be "one of us" - i.e. white guy shooting hundreds of arabs in the chops, but turning the tables is somehow a crime makes me puke. Double standards like this just make the folk on the other side of the fence rightfully p*ssed, and provide real ammo to the extremist f*ckwits who exploit that anger.

  • Freek #24 1 year ago

    The sort of statement we've come to expect from "old media" who don't understand games, but to hear it from somebody working inside the games industrie is verry strange indeed.

  • Scimarad #25 1 year ago

    I agree with this, TBH. I felt a little uncomfortable playing the CoD's set in WWII, let alone the modern ones. I prefer nice fictional war for my FPS thank you very much. Video games where you are basically charging around killing hordes of enemy soldiers are a pretty crap medium for presenting any kind of serious message about war.

    I think the whole 'serious and respectful' persona that these games try to put on just makes the whole thing even more ridiculous considering it's basically a shoot-em-up - It's almost as if they are trying to say 'yeah, it's heaps of fun to kill stuff and blow shit up but, you know, lots of real people died so try not to have TOO much fun alright?'

  • JohnnyWashnGo #26 1 year ago

    I find all war related games, especially FPS, distasteful whether they are set in the context of a current conflict or set in a fictional context. My main purpose for playing games is to escape reality for a little while - all this simulating reality in games feels less like escapism and more like training.

  • moriss #27 1 year ago

    As i feared people are assuming this single persons personal opinion is the stance of Codemasters and are attacking them for it, and games developers in general.

    The developer interviewed by edge CLEARLY states that he has a personal difficulty getting excited about the IED tech in his game because a colleagues sibling was killed by an IED.

    This is a wholly understandable personal issue for him, and EUROGAMER has attributed it to the entire company of Codemasters.

    This is EXTREMELY slack and tabloid journalism, EG. fix your headline voluntarily before you have Codemasters on the phone demanding you do so.

  • butler` #28 1 year ago

    Codies: real world FPS are not "tasteful"

    ye, but they are selling like fuck

    you should try it

  • moriss #29 1 year ago

    And there's another one believing your stupid headline.

    FIX IT.

  • kongzi #30 1 year ago

    Here's a secret: war is never tasteful. And this guy just has a guilt complex towards the cute girl in the office. It's not stopping either of them from working on a war game, is it? So talking about something that is actually going on right now is wrong when generalizing complex conflicts into a little sandbox and giving them names like... oh let me think.. US and China, is much much better? Last time I checked there's Chinese soldiers dying as well...

  • moriss #31 1 year ago

    jesus thats fucking insensitive. youre assuming he has this opinion beccuase shes 'cute' and nothing else.

    dude, her fucking nephew was murdered at war by an IED. his job is to recreate such IEDs in a game and make them cool. he now feels conscious that what hes designing to be entertaining in a game has taken the life of a friends family member in the real world and that upsets him.

    but no, you dont care, he must just want to fuck her, what a wuss he must be! how dare he let his penis get in the way of the game you want to play?

    well i like wargames too, but at the end of the day they are made by human beings, and human beings have feelings. what a cunt you are.
    Edited by moriss at 21/12/10 @ 10:47

  • moriss #32 1 year ago

    the entire problem with these responses is because FRED DUTTON has attributed them to the entire development team and the real personal reaction that stimulated the story was the mans own personal feelings.

    instead you've said that Codemasters said what he personally said, which is wrong, and you have cunts like the guy a couple of posts above insisting that Codemasters are wusses and should just get on with it because people are dying in wars all over the world.

    That is true, they are, but the point here is that this particular human being, this one man, was personally affected by his colleagues grief, and how that made him personally feel about getting excited about recreating such traumatic explosive devices for entertainment. its a totally understandable feeling to have and predicament to be in.

    but FRED DUTTON has attributed those very personal feelings to the entire codemasters company. he should correct this article and post an apology

  • tomjoadsghost #33 1 year ago

    Isn't the fact that the game is set in a 'fictional' conflict evidence that there is some kind of corporate feeling which echoes his personal feelings. I'd certainly be kind of worried if codemasters did feel the need to distance themselves from the idea that portraying real life events is a complex matter which should not be undertaken lightly.

  • Mox #34 1 year ago

    I agree with moriss.
    FIX IT.

  • moriss #35 1 year ago

    tom - probably to some extent but the story attributes HIS quotes to the company.

  • The-Bodybuilder #36 1 year ago

    I don't believe all this bollox from some people here that games cannot portray stories like hollywood can, especially as you've spent the last few years telling us gaming is equal to other forms of media.
    I've been emotionally connected to games with great stories and characters; from mass effect to Ico. The question is not whether games CAN tell war stories like hollywood, but why, as far as I'm aware, none have actually attempted to (beyond the typical US and UK kill evil russians and arabs).

    And Morris is right, this is terrible reporting from EG. This isn't the first time too.

  • tomjoadsghost #37 1 year ago

    Codemasters would have arranged the EDGE interview, chosen him to represent the game and approved the article before publication I'd imagine.

    His comments are hardly incendiary and probably reflect the design decisions which have informed the project from the beginning.

    I'm not a fan of the regurgitating other publications method of journalism but i hardly think anything here is going to be a surprise to codemasters.

  • mcmothercruncher #38 1 year ago

    Their may be 'tasteful' but they're a LONG way from being 'good'.

  • superdelphinus #39 1 year ago

    but it's fine to get a bit of publicity talking about it?

  • TagemandBagem #40 1 year ago

    So basing games on real world conflicts is "distasteful" because "There are British soldiers dying" yet it's fine to make a war game that brags about the weapons and vehicles of the U.S. Marines, which you play as. As long as you're jumping on your safe, moral high horse, you might want to find out how many "real" civilians have been killed by this group and their weapons.

  • kongzi #41 1 year ago

    "dude, her fucking nephew was murdered at war by an IED. his job is to recreate such IEDs in a game and make them cool. he now feels conscious that what hes designing to be entertaining in a game has taken the life of a friends family member in the real world and that upsets him."

    Yes, i can read thank you for reminding me and expanding my statement into something I didn't say, though. Did you get all those dirty words out of your system, little man? Moral outrage feels nice, don't it? yeah, I like mine with a little IRONY on top, but I don't think you'd get that, judging from you resorting to calling people cunts because they don't seem to agree with you. Maybe you should join the army?

  • man.the.king #42 1 year ago

    @bumgut

    "So civilian deaths not even worth a mention then? "

    Apparently not if they aren't from Western countries - look for an Italian documentary about the Fallujah incident, American soldiers used some phosphorus based weapon which basically melts flesh - from the inside. Try and Google it.

    WARNING: Many gory images and videos of CIVILIAN men, women, children and babies fried this way in Fallujah are there in this documentary.

    The media, of course, will NOT report this.

    EDIT: I would bet good money that a large number of those "1,350 insurgent fighters" were civilians - just ordinary men, women and children.
    Edited by man.the.king at 21/12/10 @ 21:55

  • metalangel #43 1 year ago

    I guess any comments that the game 'is as real as it gets' in future interviews or publicity can be laughed at as this tosser seems to be saying it's only as real as they feel like showing.