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本帖最后由 woikuraki 于 2012-3-31 14:01 编辑
【中文标题】使命沙发 － 为什么说视频游戏是一种糟糕的宣传方式
【原文标题】Couch of Duty Five reasons why video games are lousy propaganda
【登载媒体】外交政策
【原文作者】MICHAEL PECK
【原文链接】http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/05/couch_of_duty
当海克马蒂（Amir Mirzaei Hekmati）被伊朗以美国间谍的罪名判处死刑时，他向对方坦白曾经为CIA设计过视频游戏，这似乎印证了我们最不愿面对的恐惧。政府在现实世界中时时演练“信息作战计划”，为什么就不能在虚拟世界中也这样做呢？
海克马蒂是在伊朗的监狱中做出的上述交代，所以你当然可以假设他是在遭受胁迫的情况下说出这些话。但是，我们有理由怀疑，视频游戏市场的发展是否有可能影响到间谍的行动方案——常言道，再多疑的人也有自己的敌人。我们必须要提到海克马蒂的老东家——纽约的库玛游戏公司，它出品的库玛战争是可以在互联网上运行的自由射击游戏。玩家可以扮演美军士兵，在85项诸如“进军巴格达”和“突袭伊朗”的任务中游戏。尽管并没有证据证明库玛与CIA有合作关系，但它的游戏的确是宣传工作者的梦想。
库玛并不是第一家出品让新保守主义分子内心获得慰籍的游戏作品的公司。一些畅销射击游戏，比如《战地3》、《使命召唤》都把美军士兵描绘成与传统反派战斗的英雄，比如恐怖分子、伊朗、中国，这些游戏已经奏响了刺耳的民族主义音调。美国勇士在旧金山旋风般击败穆斯林游击队、摧毁中国坦克、与朝鲜入侵者作战，五角大楼的新闻官怎么会不喜欢这样的游戏呢？
越来越多的所谓“严肃游戏”（译者注：指游戏的设计目的并非仅供娱乐，有深层次的政治、经济、军事含义）都在试图传达某种信息。或许最成功之处是宣扬了美国军队，最受欢迎的第一人称射击游戏甚至直接可以作为美军征兵的广告。其它一些游戏被用来宣传达尔富尔的种族屠杀和治疗遭受癌症之苦的儿童。
美军同时在把游戏转化一种培训的工具，用来展示给那些18岁的新兵，这些人往往会在酣睡中打发枯燥的PowerPoint演示。如果美军可以利用游戏来击败敌人，那么美国的敌人也可以以其人之道，还治其人之身。哈马斯和黎巴嫩真主党也开发了自己的视频射击游戏，在伊朗的“特别行动85”中，轮到美国和以色列士兵被伊朗特种部队屠杀了。
视频游戏似乎是一个理想的宣传工具。漫画书和新闻短片曾经激励了“最伟大的一代”（译者注：指成长在经济大萧条时期，后来参加二战的美国人），而现在的00后喜欢视频游戏。2010年，美国人在游戏方面的消费达250亿美元，每周全世界的人花30亿小时玩游戏。游戏比电视和报纸等传统宣传媒体具有更多的优势：它可以互动、更加身临其境、具有挑战性、竞争性，以及亲手击毙敌人的成就感。
尽管反对者和诋毁者一直宣称视频游戏令人发指，但它并未真正导致玩家的暴力倾向。它只不过让人转换为一个战士的角色，他们赢得游戏的唯一方法是主动地（尽管实质上的确）杀害敌人（角色采用的是外国人的名字和浓重的口音）。谁会因为一个CIA间谍首脑曾经考虑是否可以利用游戏来妖魔化伊朗，或者诽谤委内瑞拉就责备他？谁说只有政府才能这样做？一个利益集团完全有可能秘密地资助某个游戏的开发公司，设计一款把环保主义者刻画成疯子或者环境恐怖分子的游戏，或者游戏中的角色无意中提到美国需要开采本国的石油。由于产品定位已经成为视频游戏成功的关键所在，因此政治影响是无法避免的。
然而，在玩家发现现实生活中的角落里隐藏着黑衣人之前，让我们把激浪饮料放在一边，先深吸一口气。视频游戏作为宣传工具有其明显的缺陷。以下是5个主要原因：
1，视频游戏浪费时间。像《意志的胜利》这样一部美化阿道夫•希特勒和纳粹的宣传性影片，只用1小时54分钟就完整地表达了其邪恶的内涵。而一些视频游戏至少需要60个小时才能结束，现在的人连看完5分钟YouTube视频的耐心都没有，难怪统计数据显示只有10％的人能完成一个游戏。时间的限制让宣传人员必须想出更好的方法。80年代大学生活动中心里25美分玩3分钟的游戏机很受欢迎，却没有宣传的效果。
2，视频游戏制作成本高。大发行商会为一部作品投入6000万美元。当然，就像社会上存在一些独立电影一样，也会有一些小制作的独立游戏作品。但是，《阿凡达》和在艺术影院中上映的前卫独立作品，哪一个会吸引观众？至少，花大价钱制作足够炫目、能吸引大量玩家的视频游戏，会让非西方国家和不那么财大气粗的利益集团望而却步。
3，视频游戏的市场生命周期短。如果开发一个提倡武装干涉叙利亚的游戏，结果发行三个星期之后就被丢在折扣甩卖架子上，那就没什么意义了。
4，视频游戏存在副作用风险。假如说，CIA出资在印度制作一部游戏，内容暗示支持轰炸伊朗。但游戏被盗版了，结果很多美国人在玩这个游戏。那么这是否算触犯CIA国内行动的禁令呢？
5，视频游戏要值得玩。《意志的胜利》是一部绝佳的纳粹宣传品，因为它首先是一部艺术级作品。但是，尽管很多制作商投入巨额资金、邀请著名设计师和艺术家加盟，依然有很多游戏表现平平，甚至在市场上一败涂地。它们错误频出、不具娱乐性，或者和上个星期的游戏太相似了。人们于是会去买别的游戏，他们对这个游戏的了解程度不足以让其政治含义深入脑海。
以上这些都不代表视频游戏不可以用来做宣传工具。游戏人人都喜欢，政府和财力雄厚的利益集团也难以抗拒其诱惑。但问题是它的效果如何？如果游戏厂商和好莱坞不能避免失败，人们就会怀疑，究竟有多少颗脑袋会被一个由政府委员会委托最低出价者开发的游戏所左右。
原文：
When Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, the alleged U.S. spy sentenced to death by Iran, confessed to his captors that he had been designing video games for the CIA, it seemed to confirm our darkest fears. When governments routinely practice "information operations" in the real world, why shouldn't they do the same in our virtual worlds?
Hekmati's confession was delivered from an Iranian jail cell, so one has to assume it was made under duress. There is reason, however, to suspect that spooks are looking to the video game market to advance their agenda -- as the saying goes, even paranoids have real enemies. And it's not paranoid to note that Hekmati's former employer, New York-based Kuma Games, publishes Kuma War, a free shooter game played over the Internet, where players can assume the role of U.S. soldiers in 85 missions with titles such as "Baghdad Surge" and "Assault on Iran." Although there is no evidence that Kuma is a CIA contractor, its games are a propagandist's dream.
Kuma isn't the first company to produce games that would warm the heart of any neocon. Blockbuster shooter titles such as Battlefield 3 or Call of Duty, which portray U.S. soldiers fighting traditional bogeymen such as terrorists, Iran, and China, already take a stridently nationalist tone. What Pentagon press officer wouldn't love a game where American warriors embark on a whirlwind of slaying mujahideen, destroying Chinese tanks, or fighting North Korean invaders in San Francisco?
A growing number of so-called "serious games" also consciously seek to deliver a message. Perhaps the most successful is America's Army, the popular first-person shooter designed as a U.S. Army recruiting tool. Other games have been used to publicize genocide in Darfur or treat cancer-stricken children.
The U.S. Army is also transforming games into a cornerstone of training -- an inexpensive way to reach 18-year-old recruits who would snore through a PowerPoint lecture. And if the U.S. military can use games to destroy its enemies, why shouldn't America's enemies return the favor? Hamas and Hezbollah have produced their own video shooters, while in Iran's "Special Operation 85," it's the turn of U.S. and Israeli soldiers to be slaughtered by an Iranian commando unit.
Video games would seem to be ideal propaganda tools. Where comic books and newsreels once enthralled the Greatest Generation, today's millennials are in love with video games. American consumers, for example, spent $25 billion on games in 2010, while gamers worldwide play 3 billion hours a week. Games also offer advantages over traditional propaganda mediums like television or newspapers: They are interactive and immersive, they and deliver challenge, competition, and the hands-on triumph of personally gunning down enemies.
Although it has been argued almost ad nauseam by both opponents and detractors, a video game does not persuade players of the necessity for violence -- it simply thrusts them into the role of a combatant, where they can only win the game by actively, albeit virtually, killing enemies (with foreign names and thick accents). Who could blame a CIA spymaster for pondering whether games could be used to demonize Iran or vilify Venezuela? And who says that only governments could do this? One can imagine interest groups surreptitiously funding a game in which environmentalists are portrayed as lunatics or ecoterrorists, or where characters casually mention that America needs to drill for oil. With product placement already a feature of video games, political messaging is inevitable.
Yet before gamers see men in black lurking behind every virtual shadow, let's put down the Mountain Dew and take a deep breath. Video games have significant drawbacks as purveyors of propaganda. Here are five reasons:
1. Video games are time-consuming. A propaganda movie like Triumph of the Will, which glorified Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, delivered its sinister message in only one hour and 54 minutes. Some video games take 60 or more hours to complete. With today's audience barely having the time or attention span for a five-minute YouTube video, it's no wonder that only 10 percent of gamers actually finish games. This limits the time that virtual propagandists have to make their pitch. Those three-minute, 25-cent games in the college student center from the 1980s were popular, but they weren't propaganda.
2. Video games are expensive to produce. Big publishers spend as much as $60 million to develop a single title. Yes, just as there are lots of indie movies, there are plenty of indie games out there with cheaper budgets. But which movie grabbed more attention: Avatar or the avant-garde flick at the local art-house cinema? At the least, developing a video game with enough glitz to attract a large audience may break the budgets of non-Western countries or less wealthy interest groups.
3. Video games have a short shelf life. There is little sense in developing a game that advocates military intervention in Syria when it ends up in the discount rack three weeks after release.
4. Video games run the risk of blowback. Let's say the CIA funds a video game in India that contains a subtle message in support of bombing Iran. But the game is pirated, and it ends up being played by American gamers. Does this violate the prohibition against CIA domestic operations?
5. Video games must be worth playing. Triumph of the Will was devastating Nazi propaganda because it was a cinematic masterpiece. But despite huge budgets and skilled designers and artists, many games are mediocre or even downright bad. They are buggy, frustrating to play, or too much like last month's game. This doesn't stop the public from buying new titles, but it does mean they don't play them long enough for a political message to sink in.
All this doesn't mean that video games won't be propaganda tools. Games are very popular, and that will make them irresistible to governments and interest groups with deep pockets. But just how effective will they be? If the game industry or Hollywood can't avoid flops, one wonders how many hearts and minds will be swayed by a game proposed by a government committee and designed by the lowest bidder.
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发表于 2012-3-12 10:57
发表于 2012-3-12 22:26
