In our game, the Ghosts are sent to Bolivia with a clear objective: taking down a fictional cartel. We are not making any political statements with this game. We are creating an amazing, credible, expansive and fictional world for players to experience. We decided on Bolivia as the setting for our game primarily due to the beauty and diversity of the country. Its environment is perfectly suited to the type of open world gameplay we want to offer to players.

- Ubisoft employee "UbiKeeba" on Ghost Recon: Wildlands on the Ghost Recon Subreddit.

Well, I've gotten dismissed here before for believing a game was going to be indelicate toward the topics it was presenting but since The Division has recently gotten a lot of voices to think about how games should handle their subject matter with a more careful hand I thought I'd dredge up this post that irked me some and see if the waters have become less viscous.

After The Division "we are not making any political statements with this game" seems like one of the worst things Ubisoft could say about a game that's already been announced as covering US interventionism, drug cartels, and I guess possibly deniable ops. To say they aren't making any political statements on the surface says that they think it'd be possible for them to not make a statement. Beneath the surface level though it says that Ubisoft wants to deny responsibility for the content of their game. Neither reading of the statement conjures belief that Wildlands will covers its subject matter with a deft hand. If your aware that your game's going to be touching something so delicate why not put in the effort to handle it well instead of letting the game suffer. It's not like it's impossible. Sicario was an okay movie. Hell, Far Cry 4 was pretty good at making statements about the faults of Far Cry 3.

I don't say this to dismiss the game preemptively. I like what vague premise that's been given so far of the gameplay. I've liked previous Ghost Recon games and doing the Shadows of Mordor thing in a modern, somewhat military setting does have me interested. But certainly I'd like it more if the game ends up handling its subject matter with grace and sensitivity. Who knows, maybe I shouldn't expect so much from the franchise that gave us the premise of a Mexican military coup during NAFTA talks and said military's attempt to pick a fight with the US.

I just realized that Wildlands is Clear and Present Danger: The Game. Only this time it's Bolivia and not Colombia.

I don't think it's playing it safe so much as just not caring to dig. Black Ops dealt with the U.S.'s assassination attempt on Castro, for goodness' sake, and there was definitely no deeper message to it beyond "Here's a cool historical setting with some CIA stuff."

I'd like some Six Days in Fallujah games, experiences that engage with the realities of geopolitics and military might. But I like enjoyable games more, and discussing national sovereignty, foreign military intervention, and the horrors of death is not conducive to enjoyment. The Walking Dead worked really well because it was an unexpected dark and melancholy adventure game, when to that point adventure game meant wacky puzzles and witty dialogue. Spec Ops: The Line was so well received because nobody expected a cover-based shooter with "COOL SAND TECH" to actually address anything meaningful, and because very few shooters tried to do so before it.

Look at it this way: Gears of War is about a native population being driven underground, having their natural resources taken from them, and then when they try to retaliate, the player's job is to chainsaw them into pieces. Literally, that's the story of the Locust in GoW. Epic never tried to make anything of it, telling the story purely from the protagonist's perspective. Nobody who played the series felt like a monster, because it was just an enjoyable cover shooter.

@mlarrabee: Has Epic ever had the critical public lens on it that Ubisoft has repeatedly? Besides, there's a lot you can get away with when the enemy is actually a different species instead of just alien. So help me though, now you've put me in the position where if I ever play the Gears games I'm going into them with a critical eye. Gonna have a post-feminist analysis the game's idea of masculinity. I will take these chunks of muscle and grunting down!

People will read into it whether or not the creators intended for it to mean anything. However, by distancing themselves beforehand they can claim ignorance when some inevitably icky implications rise out of your actions in the game. The Division's problem is that there are some quotes floating around from pre-release (specifically one about how shooting is a last resort for an Agent) that are clear attempts to paint that game in a different light than what it actually is, which they then tried to separate from.

it's the difference between a teenager idly drawing their school principal hate-fucking a corpse and A Serbian Film. Only one of those parties thinks they're doing anything noteworthy, but they'll both draw attention.

@blackout62: My guess is "we are not making any political statements with this game" is PR speak for "you cannot use our game (with our endorsement) as a pawn in your larger conversation about stuff we're only lightly using for setting and theme, plus we totally aren't open to being sued by real people who believe we're creating fictional versions of them they don't like for our setting".

Some of the team probably agree that they can lift setting and so on without it being political. They're clearly wrong (and obviously so, everything is political and it's not as if games about violence have ever been anything but entrenched in the politics of might) but at least some on the team will be arguing it from the other side, for what politics they insert into the game. But can you imagine the PR nightmare if any of those people actually openly spoke about it, about how they situate the game in the politics of that? PR needs to message that this is "just a game" to avoid being dragged into that conversation. Because it takes nuance and a medium already accepted as being able to speak coherently about topics of importance to be able to pull that off and profit-seeking companies betting $200m on a project and advertising don't do well with being derailed by that going bad. AAA games are Hollywood blockbusters. That's their direct equivalent. Can you make a blockbuster with something to say: of course. Do most of them even attempt (despite film being well recognised as being able to say something and open to allowing authors to speak freely) to say something beyond "explosions are cool" - yes, but not often as the PR push or even surfacing that message at the top of the "entertainment" proposition.

The aim is to claim they're not touching the stuff the game is clearly going to be touching. With any luck in a decade games with big budgets will actually be able to be more explicit about this stuff and how they're engaging with the subject without it blowing up. And yes, that's a chicken and egg situation.

But this is a Tom Clancy game, the main reading will be pro-US military. Some of the devs will have racks of military hardware and either have served or are friends with those who have. Expect that to come through in the game strongly - as it does in every film that has shots of US hardware and so has "consultants" "check" the script in return for the ability to film the US military. As to how that may be subverted by the totality of the different themes and narratives laced through the game: now that's where it gets interesting (I'm one of the people who thinks the Division is interesting in this space and so think this title actually has space to comment on stuff here without it being blocked to only leaving the blandest of pro-US orthodoxy making it into the final game).

It's laughable that that's a thing that they actually said with words.

We are creating an amazing, credible, expansive and fictional world for players to experience. We decided on Bolivia as the setting for our game primarily due to the beauty and diversity of the country. Its environment is perfectly suited to the type of open world gameplay we want to offer to players.

Translation:

I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people...and kill them.

I'm not even sure why their response to the potential PR baggage is to just shrug it off instead of just highlighting the non-lethal weapons that will no doubt be in this game right? If the game is highlighting gameplay choice then I have to assume there's a bunch of tranq guns and stun guns and stuff right? If not just stick one or two of those in there and you can just point to that instead of coming off laughably tone deaf. I mean it doesn't actually solve all that much of what people would probably complain about if the game still has the tone of that first bloodcocaine reveal but it would mitigate the PR issue they might encounter.

So I've been playing Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Shadow Wars lately

and boy is it weird to be fighting Russians who have invaded Crimea in a 2011 game....

I'd play Sicario the game.

Unfortunately games do this a lot. Look at how COD: Modern Warfare set itself in the Mid-east during a time where the US was involved with two wars in the same region. Not exactly level-headed and thoughtful.

Drugs are often seen as nothing but a pure evil and anyone involved with them much of the same. Few games even attempt to tackle more complex political subjects.

It'd be nice if, at some point, this game stopped being a shoot-em-up and reexamined the war on drugs and how drugs, and outside intervention, affect other countries. Spec Ocs: The Line did a wonderful job pulling the rug out from underneath the player and I'm hoping, eventually, another game has the courage to do the same.

@dukest3: Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands: This Is The Land Of Wolves Now

#BigBenecio

That's exactly the thought I had when reading the topic title

I think you're reading too much into it. It's just a dumb game and I don't think anyone intended to be some deep political message. The recent Ubisoft games take themselves so seriously you can't help but laugh. You should try to laugh a little bit, too.

@whatshisface: I think when Ubisoft has to come out ahead of Wildlands release and specifically state it isn't political then it isn't too absurd to see the political connection, the game's maker even has.

After awhile shouldn't we expect our games to, occasionally, be upfront and honest about the subjects they're mining for money?

Clear and Present Danger: The Game

edit: Oh hahahaha @mike beat me to it

What incentives are players going to give companies to do this? If you're still going to buy it and play it regardless, why should they take that extra step?

@turambar: 100% correct. Video game criticism is almost entirely focused on quality, is the game good? And not on anything deeper. Indie games are starting to establish that a bit more, focusing on the experience rather than the moment by moment interactivity. But as long as players only care about how the guns feel and sweet loot it's all we'll get.

Turns out not everyone wants to shoot aliens, Nazis, or zombies all the time, if anything I laud Ubisoft for putting out shooters that aren't afraid to draw a little inspiration from the real world

Yes, it's political. No, it's not as political as you think it is (or should be). A-OK with that over here

@finaldasa: I think large companies are so terrified of public backlash that they feel the need to get out there and try to control the message before it gets out of hand. It's probably also what keeps them from taking risky chances when it comes to making a pronounced political statement on any given divisive subject (such as...all of them). The higher the budget, the higher the needed return, which means "let's not take a chance in pissing people off who don't see things the way we do."

I mean, isn't it what this thread is about? When people criticize Ubisoft for their messaging of "we're not taking a side!", what people are really upset with is the handling of the subject material, aka the side they took.

Would that change anything? Maybe I'm alone in this but I don't come to these types of games for the rich story but the gameplay. Look at The Division. You gun down everyone who is a little bit suspicious, without any attempt to resolve the situation non-lethally. Does anyone bat an eye for it in the game? No. Does this bother me? No. Should it? Maybe. But the characters are so cartoonish and the story is so shallow that I just can't make myself to care.

Most portrayals of the drug war and intervention in the drug war are pretty gray. If you watched last year's Sicario, that's a movie that both justifies black ops intervention in Latin American drug wars and looks on in moral outrage at the way those operations are conducted. What was its political point? "Things suck" is about the only one that comes to mind. Even going back to Clear and Present Danger (yeah, totally what this game seems to want to be) back in the 80s, that was a story about a politically reprehensible operation launched to stop a morally reprehensible drug cartel. The good guy, Jack Ryan, was pissed off that the invasion had ever taken place, but that was only because it had not been conducted with approval from the Senate. What was the moral stance of Clear and Present Danger? Maybe "Presidents shouldn't secretly spend tax payer dollars to avenge their corrupt friends".

Have they explained what Bolivia's political situation in this game is? Because they'd currently be not at all cool with our troops being in their country.

I'll tell you how I'll handle it: I'll treat it like a videogame.

Where have you been that people aren't engaging with games on a deeper level than the quality of their gameplay? Where were you yesterday when Austin had his whole interview of engaging with The Division beyond "is it good as a game"? Where were you when Spec Ops: The Line came out?

What bothers me is that by saying "We are not making any political statements with this game." they believe that they actually can do that, that the game isn't already a statement with it's premise, and that they think they're in the clear just because they've stated that quote, that no one will be able to discuss the political statements of this game because Ubisoft said it doesn't have any.

From the Wildlands website:

Bolivia has become the largest cocaine producer in the world. The vicious Santa Blanca drug cartel has turned the country into a narco-state, leading to fear, injustice, and violence. The Ghosts, a legendary US Elite Special Operations team, is sent behind enemy lines to wreak havoc and break alliances between the cartel and the corrupted government.

So, yeah... It's probably going to be an off-brand Sicario playset. Player gets to toy around in this country where everyone's evil apparently and you can be completely irresponsible. Same scenario Heather Alexandra talked about with The Division where the only way to fight bad guys who don't follow the rules is with a good guy who doesn't have to follow the rules. Wooh! Who wants to go into an open world and do some things that would realistically be considered war crimes from the moment you pressed start? Also Santa Blanca? Really?

*Sigh* Yeah, so would I. Just as long as like in Sicario there's a constant sense that what you're doing may be a different but still equal kind of bad if not worse than what the people your trying to stop do.

@blackout62: I was speaking in general. I'm really proud that those conversations are, finally, happening. But as a whole the industry, and its fans, need to have that larger conversation, in more places, more often.

My point is to what degree does going beyond "is it a good as a game" matter when, if the answer to that question is "yes", you'll still buy it regardless of its other faults?

Often times, it seems to me that regardless of how well reasoned, engaging, and thought provoking criticism can be in this industry, it is still without teeth.

That's because 95% of people play games to enjoy themselves, to relax, to wind down after work/uni/school, not for some armchair politics or philosophy.

They do, not only is not having these conversations and denying them juvenile but it's boring. Engaging with games this way is incredibly stimulating and enjoyable for me.

@alexw00d: I spent four years doing armchair politics and philosophy while learning how to be able to engage stories with an academic critical eye. You think I don't want to apply those skills and thinking to the things I enjoy?

Because criticism doesn't mean throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Besides, why even have a protest level of teeth and commit yourself that much when every critique is responded to with:

Whatever statements Ubisoft have made re: Wildlands are just to preemptively insulate themselves from the critical think pieces they know are already in the pipe. I wouldn't read into it much more than that.

U.S. Imperialism, the video game franchise = any game with Tom Clancy in the name.

It's pretty boring and lazy that so many Ubisoft games have this attitude that the U.S. is supposedly the only special operative intervention player in the entire world.

I've never really had a problem with games depicting crime and politics until I really thought about how kind of fascist these games can be towards other countries as putting the U.S. as this unstoppable machine of freedom.

That's just what is going to sell though since it's just pew pew at people that aren't American.

@whitestripes09: Yeah, at some point you'd think this company that publicly presents itself as French and French-Canadian more often than not would make a game about French or French-Canadian people.

That is absolutely the appropriate response to all forms of deep analysis of dumb action games, and it in fact should always be the default answer. Look for deep political commentary in the New York Times of real world events, don't expect it from another action game based around the time honored mechanic of "killing the bad guys." I'm sorry that this might seem jarring or even ignorant to those that really want to have deep conversations about shallow games, but that is the truth of the industry. You can be critical yes, you can write to your hearts content how another shooter didn't offer enough choice beyond the most basic kill or be killed, but ultimately we are just playing games here. Games can be art, they can be many things, but they have to be games first and foremost, and that very often doesn't leave room for the extremely complex human interaction that goes beyond the concepts of simply defeating the bad guys - and these days most developers are having a hard enough time making even that simple premise work well and be fun.

@humanity said:

Oh, that's been untrue ever since walking simulators turned out to be good. Hell, Kentucky Route Zero is probably going to turn to just be a play with some improv and it's great.

To your overall point: what's the harm in striving for games to be better than just "defeating the bad guys"?

If what really matters about a game is limited to killing the bad guys then you have to wonder why Bolivia at all at that point? What does the beauty and diversity of the actual country have to do with however many gigabytes of meshes and textures this game ships with? Why Tom Clancy anything really when they have to fork over a ton of money to this dead guy's kids, for a bunch of nonsense that Ubi is pulling out of their own asses anyway?

The answer that it does matter. It matters exactly to the point where the wave of non-narrative stimulation crashes over the target player, and any narrative above the water line is a waste. But even that stump is interesting, because they have a lot of choices in what they can put there and Clance seems to work well for them. The exact specifics of why that is are not obvious to me.

Art imitates life.

The French seem pretty good at selling that glistening message about the US military, the only global super-power. Able to go anywhere in the world and break any law because who is going to stop them from being the violent kid breaking crap in a blind rage.

Considering the extent of US cultural imperialism (and the script input the US military get in exchange for allowing shooting of their hardware for use in film and TV), it's not surprising that it's commercially advisable to replicate the dominant narrative about US exceptionalism and military might being justified. Most people who are aware of politics know that's all a fabrication, but "our troops" (if you're not a USian, that's a foreign army which comes not far off spending as much as every other nation on the planet combined) are the ones revered in popular culture.

At least some of this stuff can be read as the feverish enthusiasm of the blindly positive protagonist (possibly as an unreliable narrator but alternatively as just the actual facts of being totally wrapped up in the shield of patriotism and the belief that this is unquestionably the right course of action - I don't think most adults playing games need the heavy-handedness of something like Haze to grasp potential subversive messages inside such an arc); a protagonist who knows they're on the right side of every fight (despite being the one who clearly fails to consider rules of engagement or so on - see the Division chatter* for this being plainly clear to anyone playing the game, even if some seem to suggest they want a big on-screen prompt "you are possibly also the bad guys" before they will read the game/text as self-aware of this; really this is an area verging on Poe's law).

* [spoilers for the Division, although the other threads make it clear few care about the plot so...] They made the big bad in that game the exact same troops (US military, Division Agents, first wave) as you play as, only the first batch got there much earlier than you and so had time to watch it all go to Hell and become a brutal regime (with lots of vignettes showing that descent for people engaging with the [environmental] storytelling offered) rather than liberators. Combine with the way the game constantly throws messages questioning the military force's right to be there and nature of some of the enemy forces (except for messages directly at the protagonist: the protag always gets told they're doing the right thing and are saving America - but the scenes (echo etc) you stumble onto, the radio broadcasts, the game putting looters in places where you're going to loot shops so it's impossible to not kill people for doing an action you're about to engage in... I think it's just as likely to be read as about how US might is ultimately destructive rather than the ludonarrative dissonance that approximately 100% of articles about it seem to be saying about the violence (only that terminology is out of fashion so I don't think many are using it in 2016).

I don't find criticism worthwhile if it abdicates any desire to cause change.

To this, I'll just say "no, you're wrong." We can talk at length about what should be considered appropriate venues for social and political commentary and whether limitations on human interaction exist in games to the extent stated, but both points are tangential to a more central one: do you want to discuss media in this fashion at all, regardless of any other factors. If your answer is no, then that's simply an unbridgeable divide.

@blackout62: @mavs: @turambar: There is no harm in games striving to be better and in fact I'm the first person in line yelling that they should. We have been asking this of developers since the beginning of time and they've been doing an amazing job in evolving the medium. You simply shouldn't have unrealistic expectations on what a certain type of game is going to cover and how it will go about doing so on top of everything else that is going. What I was talking about has no relation to games like Kentucly Route Zero or Gone Home, which exist in their own specific niche and are all the better for it. I'm also not trying to say that we shouldn't "discuss media" because that is what we do on these very boards every single day and it is a lot of fun. The fact of the matter is that I'm not wrong the very same way you can't be wrong when discussing what direction something should or shouldn't go in and what tone it should or shouldn't take on as it's a matter of taste and everyone likes something different - that is what makes us all unique individuals after all. What is wrong is expecting an episode of Seinfeld to do a serious job in covering an important political issue, and then being disappointed when it doesn't and defensive when people tell you to "lighten up" when watching it.