The Red Cross decided it would be a good idea to waste everybody’s time:
Earlier this year, game maker Activision counted up that 62 billion people had been ‘killed’ virtually in online games of Call of Duty: Black Ops – including 242 million stabbed to death at close range.
That’s just one title among hundreds of modern war games – most of which lack any kind of ‘surrender’ button bar switching the machine off.
Now, a committee of the Red Cross is debating if gamers might be violating the International Humanitarian Law as they slaughter each other online.
Way to put all that donated money to good use boys. Instead of using every available dime to help people in need the Red Cross decided it would be a great idea to create a committee to deterime if video game players, you know people partaking in an entirely fictional and therefore non-consequential universe, are violating the Geneva Convention.
I’ll save you guys a lot of debating, the answer is no. You can’t violate International Humanitarian Law if you’re not actually physically hurting people. That’s like claiming an author writing about the death of a main character is somehow equivalent to murder. Likewise what will be the ultimate extent of this debate? Will you idiots try to determine if firing a Clan extended range particle projector cannon from a 30 foot-tall BattleMech is a violation of the Geneva Convention? Let me save you some time on that future debate as well, the answer again is no because none of the Clans, nor the Inner Sphere, ever signed the Geneva Convention.
I dunno, I went on a killing spree in Battlefield 3 not too long ago, including counter-mortar fire in which I killed the opposing guy using his mortar on my team. Am I a bad person?
/sarc
You’re probably considered a better person than me. In Sins of a Solar Empire I went an bombarded numerous planets held by my enemy simply because I decided to be a total dick.