Fallujah Game Axed by Publisher “Finished,†Ready for Release
U.S. Army photo.
by KYLE MIZOKAMI
According to a report on IGN, game developer Atomic Games has completed work on the 3rd person shooter video game Six Days in Fallujah. The game, based on the actual 2004 Battle of Fallujah, allows the player to realistically experience modern urban warfare from the perspective of a U.S. Marine Corps fire team, complete with “shoot/don’t shoot” situations involving civilians and combatants.
The game quickly became a lightning rod for controversy, with everyone from peace groups criticizing what they consider a game trivializing a “war crime,” to those who objected to the game developers’ interviewing actual insurgent participants to get a feel for the opposing side. In April of last year, game publisher Konami announced it was dropping the title, and huge layoffs were reported at Atomic. Despite all of that, the title is, according to Atomic, “ready to go.”
Video game publishers find themselves walking a find line in today’s games. Many avoid stirring emotions by framing the game in a past war, such as World War II. Others such as last Fall’s Modern Warfare 2 and the upcoming Medal of Honor, set the action in Afghanistan but not within any specific time or place. Atomic Games might have also erred in picking Konami as a publisher. Japan’s pacifist society largely avoids games with war themes, except in a fantasy or cartoon-like context.
Atomic Games originally began as a wargame company, then moved to produce simulations for the U.S. military. At some point, Atomic decided that a game that depicted the war in Iraq would not only be a money maker, but edutainment, entertaining gamers while at the same time showing them the realities of war. Like other forms of media wrestling with the subject of ongoing wars, Six Days in Fallujah does raise some questions.
Is it inappropriate to develop a video game based on an actual, recent battle, and is it fair to those involved in the battle — the soldiers, Marines, insurgents, and civilians — to have the totality of their experience reduced to a video game? Is there genuine value in conveying to a (mostly young male) audience the ambiguities and complexities of modern warfare? Could such edutainment games be a way of conveying extraordinary experiences?