Variety | ‘Six Days in Fallujah’: a Bloody Iraq Battle, a Video Game That Almost Was

[Dancrane212]

https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/6-days-in-fallujah-1202829115/

Another great article by Matt Paprocki. Talks about the real life event, trying to balance having a game in that location while mitigating offense, FOX News, how Konami dropped the project and a lot more.

"What we had set on was the first war documentary that was a video game. We could set up this is what really happened, we could then recreate it to a certain extent and put you in that position so that you had empathy for those who were in that position. You can also experience to a limited degree, through the media of a game, what they experienced and the decisions they had to make," says Bonito

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Consider the location: Alongside destruction, cultural concerns enter the discussion, particularly religious sensitivities. "Even though it was a fully destructible game, we're not going to allow anyone playing the game to destroy mosques. We don't want that to be recorded, videoed, and then put on YouTube and it shows people laughing. Suddenly, you'd trivialized a nation's culture," says Cheever.

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"I probably had sixty hours of marine interviews and another 20-25 hours from Iraq itself. … the real problem was we were going for a real documentary which meant more than one viewpoint in trying to get the whole story, being real journalists," explains Cowgill.

That job, of an Iraqi reporter, was not an easy one and put some people in real danger. "Iraqis in Fallujah assumed he was CIA. He couldn't go back into the city after helping us because they thought he was a spy. He had hired a couple of Iraqi journalists to get the stories and talk to people but it became dangerous for all of them after that because of that environment," explains Cowgill.

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[gates2]

It could have been the ultimate political statement game, where the final Trophy or Achievement was:

"Platinum- found weapons of mass destruction"

Of course nobody would be able to get a 100% on this game, putting everything in perspective. Some gamers experience true agony and pain when they are unable to get all trophies. Imagine how marines would feel after they find out they fought, killed, and had their best friends seen killed or maimed, all based on a lie..

I hope that someday they will be able to create the game, they did the research!! Great article, thanks for sharing it!

 

[Springy]

I was thinking about this just last week. I always felt Konami's cold feet was a poor response and made me think the perception of the game being for the Call of Duty market wasn't just a public misunderstanding but something Konami had actually wanted, too.

Larger than that, though, it was a challenging project by the sound of it, caught between the market-driven desire to entertain and the feelings professed here to educate and document. Its path to market always felt narrow and fraught from the time it was first announced.

 

[Dancrane212]

I hope that someday they will be able to create the game

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That was the most surprising thing for me. That everything is all backed up and off to the side with the hope of coming back.

I had figured it was all lost due to publishing contracts and the developer going under.

 

[gates2]

That was the most surprising thing for me. That everything is all backed up and off to the side with the hope of coming back.

I had figured it was all lost due to publishing contracts and the developer going under.

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That was a big relief indeed!

I am hoping once EA has done Vietnam, and the first gulf war, they hire these guys to create the single player campaign for "Battlefield Iraq: Back 2 the Desert" (they'll come up with a more respectful name).
EA is a great developer to many smaller studios and I think they would love to have the historical accurate angle and weight to complement a Battlefield title.

It all depends on money in the end, but the original team should still be able to tell their story

 

[hydrophilic attack]

this game was before its time

it would probably have been celebrated if made and released just a few years later

 

[Dancrane212]

That was a big relief indeed!

I am hoping once EA has done Vietnam, and the first gulf war, they hire these guys to create the single player campaign for "Battlefield Iraq: Back 2 the Desert" (they'll come up with a more respectful name).
EA is a great developer to many smaller studios and I think they would love to have the historical accurate angle and weight to complement a Battlefield title.

It all depends on money in the end, but the original team should still be able to tell their story

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Having it be a "War Story" when Battlefield eventually returns to modern day combat could be fitting. Take all that research and apply it to at least one of those campaigns.

 

[Vela]

Honestly I don't see why this game was considered provocative or daring. It seemed to be just another US military propaganda game where you shoot and kill Middle-Eastern people without much reflection on the role of the US and the lives affected by the country's imperialism. From the sound of it, the developers probably didn't even question the justification of the Iraq war nor the many marines they interviewed. I bet the game wouldn't have addressed the war crimes committed in the siege of Fallujah or the fact that fucking white phosphorous used. Don't forget that the game would also have had to comply with the PR department of the US military in order to even get interviews, information, and materials, so the game's potentials would already be severely limited by the constraints set by the military. Based on the excerpts in the article, it would have probably just been another pro-US military game but with its explicit politics on its sleeve instead of other games' made-up Middle Eastern countries used to avoid controversy. So I don't agree with people thinking that we missed out on any 'radical' potential - in fact, the world is probably better off without yet another war game putting you in the shoes of US soldiers in the Middle East.

 

[Dancrane212]

Honestly I don't see why this game was considered provocative or daring. It seemed to be just another US military propaganda game where you shoot and kill Middle-Eastern people without much reflection on the role of the US and the lives affected by the country's imperialism. From the sound of it, the developers probably didn't even question the justification of the Iraq war nor the many marines they interviewed. I bet the game wouldn't have addressed the war crimes committed in the siege of Fallujah or the fact that fucking white phosphorous used. Don't forget that the game would also have had to comply with the PR department of the US military in order to even get interviews, information, and materials, so the game's potentials would already be severely limited by the constraints set by the military. Based on the excerpts in the article, it would have probably just been another pro-US military game but with its explicit politics on its sleeve instead of other games' made-up Middle Eastern countries used to avoid controversy. So I don't agree with people thinking that we missed out on any 'radical' potential - in fact, the world is probably better off without yet another war game putting you in the shoes of US soldiers in the Middle East.

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It's scenarios like this quote from the article that brought up those thoughts of it being daring and controversial compared to a traditional shooter.

"The example we used quite a bit was you're a squad leader and you're clearing the left side of the street down Fallujah. You see civilians on the other side of the street in their house as you clear houses. Later, you start taking fire from that house. You have three options. You can turn around and clear that house, kick down the doors and do what you need to. Maybe get some marines injured, maybe injure some civilians, but you're taking fire from the house. The second option is to leave it for the next squad behind you to clear so that they take the risk. The third option is to call in an airstrike. Of those three bad options, which do you choose?" says Cowgill.

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Trying to encapsulate those awful decisions in a game, especially one based on recent events, is where a lot of that attention came from. Also the article does go into how the team attempted to get perspective from the Iraqis in Fallujah to try and offer a more complete story of that conflict.