

“You Have Died of Dysentery”: History According to Video Games - benbreen
https://notevenpast.org/you-have-died-dysentery-history-according-video-games/

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khawkins
Though I think it's an interesting idea discussing the role of history
education in gaming, this piece makes little headway in assessing whether any
of the games mentioned have done it well. I'd like to see a more thoughtful
piece which takes a stance on the industry as a whole and whether we should be
concerned about whether history is being misrepresented or people are actually
learning from these games.

My guess is that, for most mainstream titles, they are doing a poor job
educating about history. For example, while I loved Bioshock, including the
story, it very much misrepresents Rand's Objectivism. In the same way, I'm
sure many developers are calling on only so much as what they remember from
high school in order to develop characters and settings which seem familiar to
players. As gaming becomes a more dominant medium, we should probably begin
calling out games which instill a twisted view of history in the minds of the
public.

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mercurial
> My guess is that, for most mainstream titles, they are doing a poor job
> educating about history. For example, while I loved Bioshock, including the
> story, it very much misrepresents Rand's Objectivism.

I have neither played Bioshock nor read any of Rand's work, but it can't
possibly be more ridiculous than, say, the representation of Marcus Aurelius
in Gladiator. Comparatively, and taking into account the need to translate
real life elements into abilities and stats, video games haven't done such a
bad job compared to Hollywood.

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watwut
I played Bioshock and never read Rand's work. It never occurred to me that I
should learn something about Rands philosophy form Bioshock. Or that I should
take Bioshock as accurate representation of Rand's Objectivism or any other
philosophical movement for that matter.

I do not think the game is pretending it represents it.

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JoeAltmaier
Yeah its like an academic claiming Wizard of Oz is a metaphor for Hollywood in
the 50's. The author denied it. Its a game English professors play: lets find
a clever parallel between a work of fiction and {whatever}. Pointless but fun.

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Amezarak
There's no metaphor or third parties playing the guess-the-inspiration game.
Bioshock's creators explicitly refer to Objectivism (or how they interpret it)
as one of the primary factors behind the game's story.

[http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/20/exclusive-ken-
lev...](http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2007/08/20/exclusive-ken-levine-on-
the-making-of-bioshock/)

~~~
zokier
But using something for inspiration is completely different than representing
that something.

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personjerry
A badly researched article. Civilization is hardly the "only history game that
offers a global perspective on the past as well as an appreciation of
contingency in history". See Europa Universalis for example. The only good
content is the explanation of the games, but that shouldn't be extrapolated as
being the entire state of historical fiction in video gaming right now, and so
even this is irrelevant for the exposition that the article tries to make.

~~~
martiuk
I prefer Paradox Development Studio's games to Civilization as a 'History
Simulator', 'Mega Games' involving all of the 'contiguous' periods of history
can be done with he following:

Crusader Kings II - 769CE* - 1453

Europa Universallis IV - 1444* * - 1821

Victoria II - 1832 - 1936 * * *

Hearts Of Iron III - 1936 - 1948 * * *

* As of Charlemagne DLC(unreleased)

* * Converted games from CKII are backtracked to this date.

* * * This is where a continuous game stops, but unofficial save game converters can allow a player to bridge their games over.

~~~
mercurial
There are actual save converters that work "upwards" (time-wise) across their
range of games? Amazing. Sounds like an awful amount of hours to go from 769
to 1948, though.

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viewer5
Yep, the converters do their best to translate your save at the end of one
game's timeline into a new save at the beginning of the next game's timeline.
It's really cool. I say 'do their best' because different games sometimes
define regions along different borders, stuff like that. Crusader Kings II
might split the Iberian Peninsula up into 14 regions (just making up numbers
here), while Europa Universalis IV might consolidate them a little, into 12
regions, so the converter has to recognize that. I haven't looked into it much
myself, just reading the paradoxplaza subreddit and seeing people discussing
it.

And yeah, it's gotta take a long time to go from 769 to 1948, but can you
imagine doing that, then being able to look back at your 1100-year history and
see how far you came, from a tiny barony to a modern power, fighting tooth-
and-nail the entire time for survival?

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martiuk
One issue is that as you get better at playing the games it's extremely likely
you'll conquer the world at some point while playing EUIV.

Personal restrictions such as preventing yourself from 'gaming' the game helps
a more balanced mega campaign.

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mercurial
Not a bad article, but it's weird to see that alternate reality games like Red
Alert get more mention than something like Total War, when a mod like Europa
Barbarorum does a good job of using historical information. I've never played
Mount and Blade, but it probably transcribes some of the realities of the time
(mounted combat) that you don't find much about in other games.

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bhaak
No mention of Pirates?

The game was quite good in portraying the life in the Carribean during that
time period but the manual was fantastic.

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partomniscient
No mention of Mount and Blade either.

Kudos to the grassroots enthusiasts that are the chaos butterfly's wings that
produce the waves big publishers try to surf...

The most enthusiastic are still moving around bits of lead and plastic on
scaled terrain trying to simulate the past.

It can be exciting to watch, but I'd prefer peaceful times to live in though.

~~~
VLM
I suppose for modern american race relations we have GTA:SA, and for modern
american immigration policy we have GTA:4. I'm not kidding either. Gaming
reflects the societal attitudes that produced it...

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ekianjo
This piece claims to be an essay? Its very light in contents, its more of a
regulat video games article than anything else. no mention of Europa
Universalis, huge mistake.

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yincrash
One of the best strategy games I played growing up was KOEI's Romance of the
Three Kingdoms that takes place in China's three kingdom period

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ajuc
Weird it haven't included Europe Universalis and the likes. It uses a much
more realistic model than civilizations.

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teachingaway
You have died of dissing Terry :)

[http://boourns.dynu.net/pics/43dd53d4beb9b22340c88833856889c...](http://boourns.dynu.net/pics/43dd53d4beb9b22340c88833856889c4.jpg)

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jaachan
Missing mention: Pharaoh & Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom are two games
following the history of Egypt and China (respectively)

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claudius
There’s also Caesar I-III and possibly Zeus, though the latter is mostly
mythological rather than historical.

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yen223
Zeus was the bomb. I wished they made more of these games.

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gcb4
heh. video game portraits middle easterns and Russians in pseudo historic
events since forever. one hand about american revolution and there's people
thinking about historic accuracy.

actually, second game. i think day of the tentacle was the first.

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SixSigma
fluff piece

