IGN: former US Marine describes cruel realities of White Phosphorus and why using it as a killstreak reward in CoD is not the best idea.

[Jakisthe]

I could kinda get the "this particular weapon is otherwise banned IRL" angle, but isn't that also true of cluster munitions, proximity mines, non-command mode claymores, and gas grenades?

Like, I can get the concerns about normalizing and diminishing the depiction of certain weapons of war, but...I mean, yeah, that's a lot of things. Which, of course, has been mentioned countless times in this topic, but I haven't seen any reasons mentioned as to why WP in particular is getting this much attention.

It is a personal experience thing? As in, is it because the author has particularly close encounters with WP which would convince them that it should be given more weight in a game? That's a perfectly fine reason to want people to see just how grim the reality of war is, but..I dunno. That seems kinda arbitrarily narrow, but I'm not sure what else is the argument being made here.

 

[Xx 720]

Curious to see if the campaign has a part with white phosphorus, they could show how inhumane it is, why its banned as a weapon.

 

[chrominance]

I know that the Nuke in CoD: Ghosts doesn't end the game. In fact, not only does it wipe out the enemy team, it turns the entire map into a wasteland.

Edit: Actually it was called a K.E.M. Strike, but it behaved in a similar way to a nuke. It also acted as an EMP for the rest of the match I believe.

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Just saw the edit, but yeah, not a nuke. I think crucially, a theoretical railgun/space missile weapon doesn't have the same sociopolitical significance that a nuclear weapon, which is an actual thing we've known about and used against people in the past, does. But also, it sounds like the game does treat the missile with a certain amount of gravitas; the environment changes when you use it.

The MOAB in Modern Warfare 3 isn't a nuclear bomb but is based on a real weapon with immense destructive power and maybe feels a little sketchier. Napalm in Black Ops is definitely in the "war crimes" section of COD killstreaks, but other weapons like the flamethrower in World at War did, I think, get some blowback.

 

[GringoSuave89]

Curious to see if the campaign has a part with white phosphorus, they could show how inhumane it is, why its banned as a weapon.

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This would somewhat make me feel "better" but it's still an odd addition to MP. Especially since they game-ified what it does.

 

[Hey Please]

Every time I read a post which has some variation of "iT iS a VidEo GaMe"...... I remember what hot trash having-my-cake-and-eating-it-too gamer culture is.

I mean why bother protesting sexism, racism and other forms of bigotry both in games and those who practice them online whilst spewing equally violent diatribes online.... It Is JuSt A vIdEo GaMe .... hurr durr purr....

Fucking dumbassery.

 

[Dio]

Every time I read a post which has some variation of "iT iS a VidEo GaMe"...... I remember what hot trash having-my-cake-and-eating-it-too gamer culture is.

I mean why bother protesting sexism, racism and other forms of bigotry both in games and those who practice them online whilst spewing equally violent diatribes online.... It Is JuSt A vIdEo GaMe .... hurr durr purr....

Fucking dumbassery.

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preach it.

 

[blitzblake]

Seems a weird spot to draw the "too much violence" line? I mean ripping people to shreds with that ac130 gun and hearing that commentary, boo yah?

 

[entrydenied]

Seems a weird spot to draw the "too much violence" line? I mean ripping people to shreds with that ac130 gun and hearing that commentary, boo yah?

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Did you read the article? It is not about too much violence.

 

[McDomination]

Are folks actively looking for something to be mad about?

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I too remember my first day on resetera the Internet!

 

[MagitekDad]

That's my fault then, I took this quote from him thinking he was the author but interviewing a marine

I didn't think to understand before that a marine probably doesn't consider themselves a soldier? again apologies for misunderstanding.

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Don't sweat it. It's been a long day.

 

[Arex]

A lot of whataboutism in this thread.
IMO they can say it's an incendiary weapon or anything but the fact is it's a chemical weapon and glorifying its use is bad.

 

[Issen]

Cutting someone in half with a chainsaw seems pretty cruel to me (Gears of War's Lancer). Or shooting them in the head (literally any gun in games), or blowing them up with a grenade...

You can make similar arguments about any weapon. Yes, some weapons might be more horrible than others, but not only is all violence different degrees of horrifying in real life, but when you pass the point of things that straight up maim or kill people I don't think making distinctions is all that useful.

 

[kittens]

I've stayed away from the COD games exactly because of their glorification of militarism and violence. I don't respect it and I don't find it fun.

 

[NinjaGarden]

The effects of all weapons in COD are watered down in comparison to real life. People take bullets to the arms and legs and heal from it on the spot. If players were being mutilated by stab wounds and bleeding out from gunshots then I could understand singling out WP for being unrealistic, but COD is painting everything with an equally sanitized brush.

This thread did remind me that US still uses that shit. That's far more upsetting.

 

[lt519]

In general I'm of the stance that human vs human war games are distasteful and something I'm not interested in due to their desensitization of serious issues such as this. I also despise movies that glorify war. I think as a whole the industry should pivot away from these depictions and keep it sci-fi settings that are completely detached from current events and preferably not human vs human.

I know that will never happen so in the mean-time I'm glad articles like this exist to educate people that are interested in learning and potentially have games molded moving forward into not using these horrific weapons just for a "wow" factor. The game would be no worse off without it and is really no better off with it so it's only purpose at this point is to desensitize young minds to using WP.

I'm not surprised the majority of this thread has ignored the nuance of the situation and is rife with "It's a war game where you kill people, get over it." Pretty disgusting.

 

[Sangetsu-II]

In real life, you don't take mild damage and stagger away, coughing with impaired vision; you scream in agony as you slowly melt while your organs systematically shut down.

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To be fair I could mention a couple of things in this game that would also get a similiar reaction.

- Someone chucking a grenade and you surviving without screaming as you would have shrapnel lodge inside your body.
- Someone shooting you 5 times and you not bleeding out and your organs systematically shutting down.
- Someone throwing a thermite grenade at you and your skin not melting away and your vision being impaired by it.
- Surviving a biochemical grenade without a gas mask.
-Nukes

As much as I think the author wants to try and make it seem like a big deal, it really isn't when you think about all the other stuff that is wrong with CoD.

 

[Donald Draper]

Between all the hand wringing over Joker and articles like this it's like I'm being transported to the 1990s.

 

[freetacos]

A lot of whataboutism in this thread.
IMO they can say it's an incendiary weapon or anything but the fact is it's a chemical weapon and glorifying its use is bad.

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Yeah the whataboutism in this thread is pretty disgusting. Was a good article that made some good points.

 

[Chief Malik]

The entire game is realistic murder simulator lmao

 

[Deleted member 35987]

I remember when Call of Duty actually had insightful quotes about the horrors of war on the loading screens.

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Yeah, right before you went on a flamethrower killing spree in the Pacific. Simpler times.

 

[Rodan]

WP is far from the most dangerous or brutal weapon we have conjured up as human beings (I've fired Willy Pete rounds in training but never in combat) and I see little reason to single it out specifically. The problem isn't with that particular killstreak reward, the problem is with the game itself. I don't like CoD because it does an awful job of straddling the line between arcadey gameplay and realistic combat. Whereas a game like Halo can lean on it's sci-fi underpinnings to embrace both arcadiness and realism simultaneously.

Other games (Tom Clancy games for example) do a better job of portraying more realistic depictions of combat while still feeling "game-y". Something about how CoD handles the same issues strikes me as a 14-year-olds fantasy vision of combat.

 

[Truly Gargantuan]

A lot of whataboutism in this thread.
IMO they can say it's an incendiary weapon or anything but the fact is it's a chemical weapon and glorifying its use is bad.

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Yeah the whataboutism in this thread is pretty disgusting. Was a good article that made some good points.

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I don't think it's whataboutism to say that CoDs depiction of WP is any different from it's depiction of any other implement of war and it's depiction of war in general. Zeroing in on the use of WP is missing the forest for the trees. That is to say CoD makes light of war and that includes the use of WP.

 

[DammitLloyd]

Didn't Mustard gas also get the same treatment when it was introduced in BF1? We got through it just fine. I think we'll get through this one the same.

 

[Alpende]

Spec Ops did that part really well, I still remember it...

 

[Alienous]

I don't really understand their choice to name it 'White Phosphorus' instead of 'Incindiary Air Strike'. It seems like 'authenticity' from the single-player that's spilled over into the multiplayer without thought.

It seems like the kind of thing that Call of Duty has been canny enough to avoid, where Medal of Honor was tripping over its own feet letting players be on team Taliban before changing it to OPFOR.

 

[RocknRola]

But the rest of the game is A-okay.

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This is what I'm struggling with. Either the entire concept of war games is "wrong" or everything is on the table.

Killing someone, even at war, is something that will heavily weigh on any soldier. Be it with a small pistol or nuclear strike.

 

[boris_feinbrand]

Expecting nuance and tact from a series that delights in the glorification of warcrimes and the destruction of human life, a series that treats war as the ultimate playground for fascistoid wank material, promotes torture as a viable and necessary way of gathering information, is racist to it's very core... yeah that's a bit too much to ask really.

 

[Fastidioso]

All these comments just highlight why people in general dont treat videogames as art. When the minimum amount of criticism is applied, waves of people pull the 'its just a game' card.

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Seriously. Too many comments give me some shivers. Good Lord.

 

[mutantmagnet]

I suspect the majority of people here taking this subject seriously and think the best thing to do is remove WP is making a mistake. That was my own immediate reaction but I think since the author wanted people to actually think more about WP is then it would be prudent to consider leaving it in the game and using it as mechanic to be feared.

THe simpliest method is to make White Phosphorous be a weapon that adds a respawn timer penalty. The player can opt to ignore the penalty to rejoin at normal respawn rate but take severe hits to their stats that makes playing the game challenging. Of course in this scenario WP is a very limited item that can't be used everytime in a match.

You got wooshed. But also being a American soldier does not award one respect.

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At the very least being a soldier earns more respect than you just posting your insight.

 

[Deleted member 13328]

That's a really good article Mister Megative, great work.

And people should read what he has written before this as well. It's fine that they make war games and people should be allowed to play them and enjoy them. But we don't need to glorify what war is, the effect it has on soldiers, civilians or the world.

People should listen to people like Mister Megative, he's not trying to take away your war games. So unclutch those pearls and listen.

 

[SuzanoSho]

To be fair I could mention a couple of things in this game that would also get a similiar reaction.

- Someone chucking a grenade and you surviving without screaming as you would have shrapnel lodge inside your body.
- Someone shooting you 5 times and you not bleeding out and your organs systematically shutting down.
- Someone throwing a thermite grenade at you and your skin not melting away and your vision being impaired by it.
- Surviving a biochemical grenade without a gas mask.
-Nukes

As much as I think the author wants to try and make it seem like a big deal, it really isn't when you think about all the other stuff that is wrong with CoD.

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In the US military our standard issue isn't even designed to kill instantly so much as it is designed to cause severe complications that would (hopefully) cause opposing forces to instantly go into CUF mode. Because taking one person out of the fight is cool, but taking multiple people out of it is better...

That's why I'm always rolling my eyes during combat deployments when, inevitably, certain parts of the Geneva Convention and ROE are brought up. You brought this all-volunteer force over here to fight battles you failed to settle diplomatically. Trying to, on top of that, force an arbitrary set of rules we're supposed to follow in regards to, unfortunately, killing the people YOU told us are the enemy combatants while maintaining the top priority of protecting our own from harm seems so silly...

Nobody in the armed forces, from top to bottom, WANTS to fight. Every single one of the killing tools you send joes overseas with were designed with the intent of devastating enemy combatants so that the fighting that does break out is quick and will-shattering. NONE of them are any "better" than the next...

 

[Potterson]

How is WP any worse than a nuclear bomb?

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It's more recent. That's always the case.

Notice how WW2 movies or games can be more controversial than fiction about conflicts from XIXth century etc.

 

[Niosai]

It's more recent. That's always the case.

Notice how WW2 movies or games can be more controversial than fiction about conflicts from XIXth century etc.

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The game itself is supposed to be using recent weapons, though. Modern Warfare and all.

 

[Potterson]

The game itself is supposed to be using recent weapons, though. Modern Warfare and all.

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Well yes, but I'm talking about everything. Modern conflicts will always create more discussions while being depicted in games, cause we still have people who were a part of these conflicts. So it's a bit "weird" to have fun in such games I guess.

 

[tommy7154]

Just want to say I disagree with your line about killing people who are trying to kill you. That is indeed the reality of the situation in a just war, a war in the defense of our country for example...but OIF/the Iraq war was not a necessary war, it was not a just war.

It was a war that we (our government) put ourselvess in, and so I don't agree in that regard.

So to me youre talking about CoD glorifying WP, which ok I can see that somewhat...but at the same time you're glorifying your service in a despicable war that many people were duped into supporting, and at the time others who spoke out against it were shamed and called Unamerican or unpatriotic by many. To me that is at least as big of an issue as a videogame glorifying WP.

 

[Rendering...]

What does an audience admit about themselves when they insist that literally everything, even unimaginably agonizing death, should be fodder for throwaway entertainment? Think about what these people blubbering about censorship are really saying: any attempt not to trivialize real-world horror by not showing certain weapons in a casual light is "censorship," and censorship is bad!

Fucking derp. How childish. Gamers who won't be satisfied unless they can wallow in tastelessness with complete impunity are too immature to deserve a place in this conversation.

Hurr, durr, triggered snowflakes. Why does anyone bother consulting with manchildren who live in fantasy?

 

[Modest_Modsoul]

Recently played MGS4, there's a White Phosphorus Grenade.

I throw it every time I want to kill / burn enemies; though Molotovs have the same effect.

 

[Deleted member 1726]

I don't think it's whataboutism to say that CoDs depiction of WP is any different from it's depiction of any other implement of war and it's depiction of war in general. Zeroing in on the use of WP is missing the forest for the trees. That is to say CoD makes light of war and that includes the use of WP.

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All FPS games make light of war though, just picking on CoD is weird.

 

[Thera]

"nearsighted glorification"
Sure, the rest of the game and all others COD in the past are fine, just remove WP and we are OK.

 

[massoluk]

John made a pretty good point on trivializing of WP. It's pretty disappointing to read some comments here when someone actually tried to educate people on often overlooked subject in the industry

Here's my 2 cents lifted from my Twitter post

Read the Gamers comment ("It's just game!"), and got a flashback to when CoD (MoH rather) started as Steven Spielberg's edutainment pet project on the reality of war and the dev went to great length to get WWII's vets approval.

 

[carlosrox]

Fucking derp.

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...

 

[R0987]

Curious to see if the campaign has a part with white phosphorus, they could show how inhumane it is, why its banned as a weapon.

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Wasnt one shown being dropped in the trailer by a russian jet on some aid workers?

 

[PrintedCrayon]

Every time I read a post which has some variation of "iT iS a VidEo GaMe"...... I remember what hot trash having-my-cake-and-eating-it-too gamer culture is.

I mean why bother protesting sexism, racism and other forms of bigotry both in games and those who practice them online whilst spewing equally violent diatribes online.... It Is JuSt A vIdEo GaMe .... hurr durr purr....

Fucking dumbassery.

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I don't know mate. That's a bit of a strawman.

Critique the inclusion of white phosphorus for sure. However, surely the whole series should be critiqued for its glamification and fetishising of war and violence?

 

[carlosrox]

Read the article and it's not really anything mindblowing.

Basically "WP is an especially cruel weapon to include in the game and it isn't portrayed realistically", no? Did I miss something? I'm not trying to be a smartass here, I really mean it. I don't feel like I'm missing anything here.

It seems like a strange line to draw. He goes into detail about what WP does to soldiers and mentions it as if it's the only weapon not portrayed accurately what with the bubbling skin, nternal damage, etc. Then he goes on to say "everything else is portrayed rather realistically" yet many terrible things happen to the body when you get shot in various spots as well. And these games never show any of that.

Do we ever see the hell people who get shot in the stomach, chest, leg, etc go through?

These games trivialize everything.

Maybe there should be stuff like this in these games.

 

[Donald Draper]

Either you're okay with all of the violence and weapons or you're okay with none of it. Singling out this one thing is frankly bizarre and not even worth discussing.

Like, using a flamethrower on someone in reality would be horrific. But using one in a game is one of the funnest weapons ever for me.

I dont need a game to lecture me on why using a weapon on someone would be bad.

Seriously. This feels like it was written by an out of touch soccer mom or something youd find a 50 year old white Republican sharing on Facebook.

 

[Deleted member 2809]

How is WP any worse than a nuclear bomb?

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How is slow painful death worse than dying instantly gee idk nevermind WP being used currently in some parts of the world

 

[carlosrox]

slow painful death

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This happened to people in Hiroshima.

And the point is these people still end up dead.

It's like "humane" animal slaughter. You're still fucking killing them, it's hardly "humane".

It's like saying killing someone in their sleep isn't as bad as torturing them for an hour before you kill them. Like, I guess it's slightly less shitty but it's still pretty shitty ya know?

And guns are still used in all parts of the world. So...

 

[品川駅]

All these comments just highlight why people in general dont treat videogames as art. When the minimum amount of criticism is applied, waves of people pull the 'its just a game' card.

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Why is that important to you? Are you looking for validation to enjoy your hobby?

 

[Rendering...]

...

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???

Either you're okay with all of the violence and weapons or you're okay with none of it. Singling out this one thing is frankly bizarre and not even worth discussing.

Like, using a flamethrower on someone in reality would be horrific. But using one in a game is one of the funnest weapons ever for me.

I dont need a game to lecture me on why using a weapon on someone would be bad.

Seriously. This feels like it was written by an out of touch soccer mom or something youd find a 50 year old white Republican sharing on Facebook.

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Is it so wrong to draw an arbitrary line? If consistent treatment of violence as a Very Serious Thing isn't practical in some genres of entertainment, the occasional reminder of brutal reality is better than nothing. Better than sanitized fetishistic war porn, anyway.

BTW, why would some aging Republican share a story that calls for basic empathy, and a respect for the grisly reality of war? That's not really on-brand, lol.

 

[chrominance]

I suspect the majority of people here taking this subject seriously and think the best thing to do is remove WP is making a mistake. That was my own immediate reaction but I think since the author wanted people to actually think more about WP is then it would be prudent to consider leaving it in the game and using it as mechanic to be feared.

THe simpliest method is to make White Phosphorous be a weapon that adds a respawn timer penalty. The player can opt to ignore the penalty to rejoin at normal respawn rate but take severe hits to their stats that makes playing the game challenging. Of course in this scenario WP is a very limited item that can't be used everytime in a match.





At the very least being a soldier earns more respect than you just posting your insight.

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I don't think it needs to be removed but I don't know if there's an easy way to make WP work in a multiplayer context. The crux of the matter is that the use of WP is seen by most people, including military personnel, as essentially a war crime. This seems out of sync with multiplayer, where that kind of context is next to impossible to incorporate because the whole point of multiplayer is to have fun hunting and killing each other in small arenas. I mean, it's not like Activision is going to put a "war crimes" counter in the top left of the screen and give you atrocitystreaks or something. That's very much not the point, and I think that's where all the whataboutism comes from in the end: lots of people who feel like multiplayer has tons of other ways to murder people and we've mostly decided all those methods can and should be abstracted into enjoyable game mechanics, so why is WP any different.

Its depiction in Spec Ops: The Line works because WP is placed in the proper context. I'd argue that the original Homefront, for all its many flaws, also managed to depict WP with sufficient gravity in one of the game's few successful story scenes. But in multiplayer, I don't see how you could do it. Tactical nukes I think just barely manage to work because they literally end the game, and thus don't have to depict any sort of aftermath (which, if targeted properly, would be instant death anyways so we don't have to think about its ramifications). WP doesn't feel like it affords us that same luxury. You either glide past the reality like Activision has done and make WP just another weapon with special effects, or you depict WP as something closer to its actual form, and then basically stop every multiplayer match whenever it's used to show people writhing in agony as their lungs catch fire, before I guess everyone gets up and keeps shooting each other? I'm not sure if adding a respawn time penalty really changes much from the first option I outlined.

P.S. Fun fact I didn't know: apparently a white phosphorus strike is ALSO a reward in Homefront's multiplayer modes. We've been down this road before, it seems.