Ask HN: Why are Americans always the good guys in video games? - turkthrower123
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zabana
This is a very interesting question.

I've always wondered what the backlash would be if a studio were to release a
Call of Duty style game from the point of view of middle eastern factions
resisting the illegal invasion of their land and massacre of their people.

Because it seems to me that these FPS war simulations are very close to
reality (ie using real location names and sometimes actual 3D rendered
versions of said locations) and are somehow being used as a propanganda tool
to get most people on board with whatever the political agenda is at the time.
I know this sounds very conspiratorial and I'm open to counter arguments but I
can't shake off this feeling. Hope I'm wrong though because this is rather
depressing.

~~~
viraptor
> I know this sounds very conspiratorial

Not really. Some games got American military funding to promote the army.

> wondered what the backlash would be

For examples, look at backlash to farcry 5. See
[https://www.change.org/p/ubisoft-cancel-far-
cry-5](https://www.change.org/p/ubisoft-cancel-far-cry-5) where people just
can't handle white American Christians being the bad guys.

~~~
non-entity
> Us Gamers have had to endure a lot of crap over the last few years. The
> targeted harassment by the mainstream press through Gamergate, the terrible
> launch and outright lies of highly anticpated video games, the outright
> censorship of art through “localization” policies, the continued rejection
> of romantic partners when they find out our hobby, the appropriation of our
> culture by so-called “gamers” on twitter. NO MORE!

This has got to be satire. This reads almost like the gamers rise up memes.

~~~
viraptor
I remember seeing a lot of this kind of ideas at the time farcry 5 was
released. This site may be satire itself. But if it is, it's heavily inspired
by reality.

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ajeet_dhaliwal
Because they _are_ the good guys of course :-) Almost all triple A games are
made in the US itself or allies (UK/Canada/Japan/EU) so it’s expected these
games will have a positive view. Same reason it’s true in Hollywood. Most
people just want to get on and have fun with a game, not overthink politics
and ethics and I don’t see it as an issue. The more annoying thing is when
you’re nudged to know random guy is evil due to generic Russian/Middle East
accent.

------
iDemonix
Because the Americans make a lot of those types of video games, and if you
want to pander to your biggest market, you make them the good guys.

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LUmBULtERA
I've played a lot of video games where they aren't. In fact, I'd posit most
video games don't take place with real-world geopolitics/national boundaries
at all. And where they do, I don't think it's unusual that the antagonist may
be an American.

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blaser-waffle
Because the US won the struggle against the USSR and now the global economy is
loosely based around US-style liberal capitalism. Most countries and their
place in the international order is relative to their participation in this
system. This is best explained in Jihad vs. McWorld by Barber[1].

What this means is that those who want to buy-in to this global system have to
deal with Western (US) media, Western (US) norms, and even the language of the
West (the language most common in the US). English is the new lingua franca,
and is the language of business. This creates huge incentives to develop media
(games, movies, whatever) that can be ported into English and sold to wealthy
US consumers (something the Japanese figured out in the 90s -- think of bad
Final Fantasy translations a la FF7). Plus many studios are in the US and make
games for the US market, and to a lesser degree the export market (Chinese and
Korean gaming leagues being the biggest pushes, IMO).

That said, I remember one of the Medal of Honor games (WW2 themed) which has
you killing Japanese in the Pacific -- and was still hugely popular in
Japan.[2]

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad_vs._McWorld)
[2] [https://slate.com/culture/2004/02/why-japanese-gamers-
love-a...](https://slate.com/culture/2004/02/why-japanese-gamers-love-
avenging-pearl-harbor.html)

------
tsukikage
Because, as an English speaker, most video games you play are of American
origin.

~~~
turkthrower123
As a Turk, I Believe that _all_ games I play are of American or Japanese
origin.

~~~
krapp
There are European game studios as well.

~~~
stuxnet79
But European game studios have to cater to the American market or they risk
going out of business. The simple answer to OPs question is: Americans are
always the good guys in gaming because the American market is a large one for
gaming and a lot of what's trendy and tasteful in gaming has to have an
American bias for this very reason.

