This caught my eye at MGON :

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Quote:

In the light of recent events in New York, and in keeping with EA�s general approach to the subject there will be little or no bloodletting in the game. Soldiers writhe about when hit, but you are unlikely to see a hint of blood, which will hurt the game on the realism front, even though it helps make the game more likely to appeal to a wider and younger audience.

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This would be unusual if EA ever had blood in their shooters. Because, y'know, it's an EA policy that no blood appear in any of their games. And MOH:AA won't even have swastikas in it. More market share? Surely. Keeps 'em from getting an "M" rating, I'd imagine.

Oh, and a fun fact: MOH:AA has never, ever had blood in any spec, any revision, or any screenshot.

Personally, I'd hammer MGON for not doing their homework and passing off this somewhat irresponsible (and incorrect) assumption as "fact". The fact that MOH:AA won't have blood or swastikas in it has exactly zero to do with the WTC tragedy.

But then facts are hard and whatnot.

Not sure if you're being sarcastic, Bill, but isn't Undying an EA game? Seems to me those red splotches across my screen were blood. :)

Seriously, though, if MOH is intended for a wider audience, then no blood is fine. The fallout from September 11 is still really weird. We're all fumbling our way through it. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if EA thought removing blood is the right thing to do.

OT tangent: I saw Zoolander recently (don't ask), which is set in New York. All the shots of the skyline had the WTC digitally removed. I'm not sure what would have been more disturbing: seeing the WTC in shots of the skyline or knowing it had been carefully blotted out. I'm sure you're all like me in that you can't help but look for those twin towers whenever you see a NYC skyline.

-Tom

I think the idea of a WWII shooter featuring enemies who are supposed to be Nazis, yet have no Nazi symbols, and who die writhing, but don't bleed, yet is supposed to "appeal to a wider audience" is disturbing. It's still a game about killing, doesn't removing blood sort of seem like a non-issue when you're also, um, blowing them up, to death?

Writhing is somehow less violent than blood?

-Andrew
PS: I agree Chick, I'd rather see the towers as filmed than have them removed after the fact. I too search the skyline, and miss them. Removing them is sort of more disrespectful to me.

I agree with the Zoolander thing -- the movie is very frivolous and lighthearted. If the events in the movie had taken place after the towers blew up (which the absence of towers implies), that would make the events depticted in the movie morbid and trivial.

As for blood and violence, shooting without blood and suffering is worse, because it makes shooting seem like a casual thing without consequences. And the lack of Swastikas seems to fly directly in the face of the post-Holocaust mantra "never forget."

TomChick:
"Not sure if you're being sarcastic, Bill, but isn't Undying an EA game? Seems to me those red splotches across my screen were blood. :)"

Undying isn't a shooter. For what it's worth, TWINE didn't have any blood in it, and none of the MOH games to date have had blood in them, either. So it's not like having blood absent is a departure from the norm.

Frankly, in a "soldier" game, I think there should be blood. And realistic depictions of human bodies blown open.

Not that I want to see that. But frankly, I think it's MORE harmful to show "clean" war. "Shoot a guy with a machine gun, he falls down and goes to sleep."

If they're worried about doing the "right" thing, then showing killing without making it seem a horrifying thing is just the WRONG thing to do.

But EA has been run by idiots for years now.

Undying isn't a shooter.

Just curious, what do you classify Undying as?

What is weird to me is that we are dealing with one of the most violent acts of recent history and we don't have the media to blame for it. With most major violent acts that occur in this country there is an immediate blame bandwagon that includes film and games, but in this instance the usual suspects simply cannot blame the violence in movies. Nobody can go on MSNBC and say that Con Air must have influenced the hijackers and therefore Hollywood has to be policed. Here we have criminals who were not products of our society doing far worse than any of our own supposedly media corrupted citizens have ever done.

Which only plays into my contention that entertainment cannot be blamed for our violence. Humans have always been awful to each other.

Actually, an odd parallel occurs to me. The Christian right blames Hollywood for many of our society's ills. The extremist edge of Islam might point to Hollywood as indicative of our depravity. Hmmm.

Response to OT tangent: I want to be on the record as having warned Tom about Zoolander. But as for the fact of the WTC buildings in films, I think filmmakers are in a damned-if-they-do/don't situation here, and maybe they and we should be in that situation. Maybe we are at a moment where we simply do not deserve the total bliss that movies may sometimes provide. Maybe what happened deserves more than a "moment" of silence. My entertainment is now interrupted...perhaps this is how it should be.

Amanpour

"Undying isn't a shooter."

Undying most certainly is a shooter, Bill. From EA's web site: "Clive Barker�s Undying is a first person shooter that delivers an unparalleled tale of horror."

Not sure I agree with the second part of that sentence, but the first part is pretty hard to dispute. :)

-Tom

Oh, there were plenty of people contributing this problem, in part at least, to flight sims...

In reality, though, when someone is hit with a bullet, blood doesnt magically explode in a fountain of red. you will bleed, but Quake-like "gibs" are hardly realistic though truth is stranger than fiction stuff, things can be disgusting and people can explode but i mean its not really accurate as it is seen in many fps games... If you want "real" gunshot type wounds... look to Operation Flashpoint... you dont see people getting blown to bits... just people falling down...with some blood soaking the clothing, or faces mangled in a knot of red... its surprisingly real if you look at pictures of gunshot wound victims ...

anyway, i dont know, they should just have an option for blood or no blood, i mean its a game based on WAR. Oh well its just a game... removing blood isnt as bad as having green blood!

etc

"The Christian right blames Hollywood for many of our society's ills."

You mean Joe Lieberman?

Only when he's NOT running for Vice-President.

Bernie Dy:
"Just curious, what do you classify Undying as?"

Action/adventure. And yeah, I know what EA classifies it as, Tom. Doesn't mean I agree with it. Eidos calls Deus Ex a shooter, too. :)

Complaining about MOH:AA not having blood just proves that hard-core gamers have nothing real to complain about. Who cares? Ask yourself this: why do I care if a game has blood in it? Does not having blood make MOH:AA less of a game? Does not seeing the red splatter make me have less fun?

No offense, but why don't we move on to more important issues, like John Romero's new company or this United Gamers thing? =)

Adam at Sierra, the no blood thing doesn't bother me so much as the press release stating that "blood removal" now somehow makes the game more suitible to a "younger audience".

The blood is just crimson gilding on what is actually "offensive" here. So it sounds just as silly as adding a bra to a Sea Reaper.

Bill McClendon, you're splitting hairs, Deus Ex and Undying are far closer to "Shooter" than to any other genre they've been associated with.

-Andrew

"Ask yourself this: why do I care if a game has blood in it? Does not having blood make MOH:AA less of a game? Does not seeing the red splatter make me have less fun?"

Although NOT having will just seem like a goofy choice to most gamers, I think the problem here is the REASON they're not having blood in the game. I think it'll seem a bit strange, but really won't have any impact on the overall enjoyment (or lack thereof - don't want to get ahead of myself :) ) of the game. BTW - are they really removing swastikas as well or was that just mocking EA?

I've been reading previews on MOH for quite awhile, and the decision to not have blood was reported quite a while before the events revolving around sept 11th. I wonder whether or not the fact that it is now being tied to sept 11th is some kind of crap from EA or just bad reporting. I find it a bit disturbing that they want to make a very violent game based on REAL events "accessible" to as many as they can, garnering a teen rating, by playing with the semantics of the system to limbo under the bar. I'm not some big anti-violence-in-games crusader, hell, probably just the opposite, but this is just makes them look like a bunch of weasels.

-Matthew

I'm gonna jump on the bash Bill for mis-speaking bandwagon here.

Bill, you said, paraphrasing, "EA has a policy of 'no blood' in FPS." & "Undying is not an FPS."

Tom established that EA does indeed consider Undying to be an FPS.

In regards to EA's supposed 'no blood' in FPSes policy it is irrelevant what you, Bill, consider the game to be. It only matters what EA considers the game to be. We have established that they [EA] consider it an FPS. It has blood. Thus, you are wrong about EA's 'no blood' policy.

Not that this matters at all. The overall discussion of MOH not having blood stands. MOH never had blood. They didn't remove the blood. It was NEVER there. :)

On the other topic mentioned: I agree that not having blood but still having the act of killing complete with writhing death throes, is missing the point completely. It is not the presence of blood that determines whether something is violent or not. However, this isn't about whether a game actually IS violent or not. It's about an arbitrary rating. Whether there is blood or not may very well determine whether the game gets a higher rating or not. We're not talking about reality here, we're talking business rules.

"And yeah, I know what EA classifies it as, Tom. Doesn't mean I agree with it. Eidos calls Deus Ex a shooter, too. :)"

What the hell? I'm having trouble believing that someone is actually arguing that Undying is not a shooter. I guess that rules out Half-Life then, too.

-Ron

"Ask yourself this: why do I care if a game has blood in it? Does not having blood make MOH:AA less of a game? Does not seeing the red splatter make me have less fun?"

I'd have to answer yes to both the last 2 questions. Especially since it's supposed to be a realistic depiction of WWII. Not having blood would be strange, I would say. The Combat Mission board has debated this to death as well, and I think it's just silly. Now, if they can't get into a certain market with the blood in, then that's another story. Otherwise, if striving for realism is in your design doc, then I think you should put the blood in.

For MOA:HH, it will depend how it's done, actually. Maybe the writhing around in utter agony before dying will make up for the lack of blood, hehehe.

DeanCo--

I don't have a problem with MoH presenting a sanitized shooter, especially since they seem to have been doing this all along. You know, a little slice of Saving Private Ryan for the 13-year-olds. Whatever.

But I have to admit, having soldiers fall and writhe in agony is potentially worse than blood. For instance, I find the squirming wounded men in Return to Castle Wolfenstein far more distubing than anything in Counter-Stike or Rogue Spear, where the dead just die.

-Tom

"Especially since it's supposed to be a realistic depiction of WWII."

Let's be careful where we go. A realistic depiction of WWII would have people lying on the ground screaming, disemboweled from shrapnel or a large caliber wound, people with half their face missing, young soldiers crying as they died, etc. Read memoirs of soldiers from WWII as they recount lying in mud mixed with pieces of body parts. Let's not pretend a red stain or not a red stain ruins the "realism" of a WWII shooter. I can see it as a functional feature, e.g., a way to see where my bullet hit or that it really did hit and the guy didn't drop to the ground as a defensive move, but not a realism feature.

I'm with Tom - a soldier writhing in agony is probably more realism (i.e., more disturbing) than I really want in a game I'm playing for fun.

"Band of Brothers" offers up pretty realistic views of WWII; MOH:AA is supposed to be a cinematic view of WWII, and not SPR-gruesome cinema, either.

"A realistic depiction of WWII would have people lying on the ground screaming, disemboweled from shrapnel or a large caliber wound, people with half their face missing, young soldiers crying as they died, etc. Read memoirs of soldiers from WWII as they recount lying in mud mixed with pieces of body parts."

OK, first of all, games aren't capable of depicting that kind of stuff yet. When they become capable of portraying something like your examples, in a convincing manner, we can pick up the debate at that point. Who knows, I may agree with you then. Perhaps a game like that won't be fun, perhaps it will fall under the heading of those gross movies they used to show in drivers ed class, to scare us all into being safe drivers. The Horrors Of War.

What games are capable of, right now, is showing a red stain or not. And I vote for the red stain.

My vote for the most tasteful death animation : Tribes 2. It doesn't look like they die really, but rather they get knocked silly, or just run out of steam. It's satisfying from the frag standpoint as well. No blood.

DeanCo--

I think what really annoys me is EA using this as some sort of advertising advantage to try and sell their game.

Does anyone really think EA is truly sorry about releasing a violent game like MOH:AA post-WTC ? IMO all they are really doing is protecting their share prices.

If EA was truly concerned about violent video games and how they relate to the WTC disaster then they wouldn't have released MOH:AA in the first place.

Mark my words - in 12 months time all these game companies will lose their softly softly approach and continue to release ever more violent games as that is what sells and therefore benefits share price.

As we all know homo sapiens basic instincts are grounded in violence and conflict - that is what appeals to this species and that is why we like buying violent games.

I didn't see any games companies falling over themselves not to release violent games after the Oklahoma City bombing ?

They are? I haven't seen anything to that effect, unless the MGON article was fed misinformation or something.

Look ma, no blood! I can get it now!

--- Alan