The Moral Panic Over the Six Days in Fallujah Game

The video game Six Days in Fallujah is making its comeback
Back in 2009, the video game Six Days in Fallujah was canceled due to controversy surrounding the game. Set in the 2004 Second Battle of Fallujah, a bloody and harrowing part of the US/UK invasion of Iraq, the game was based on soldiers’ real experience and designed to recreate the events of the battle. At the time, many felt it was too soon after the actual battle and, due to negative publicity, the game was scrapped. Now, 12 years later, the game has been revived and is set for release at the end of 2021.

According to the initial statement, the game is based on interviews with soldiers and Iraqi civilians who experienced the battle and appears geared toward attempting to provide a realistic perspective on the battle. It is understandable that the battle is personally harrowing for both many veterans as well as for Iraqi civilians who lived through the battle. Thus, controversy has once again emerged, and an effort is underway to have the game pulled.

Some of the debate has focused on the framing of the narrative, is it possible for the game to allow players to empathize both with soldiers experiencing combat as well as terrified Iraqi civilians? These are reasonable questions, but the reality is we won’t know until we see the game. These may be reasonable grounds for critiquing a game once it’s released, but I worry about de facto censorship of a game because it might have a narrative some people disapprove of.

There’s a petition to stop the game from being released
However, a recent petition to stop the game (reportedly signed by some individuals within the gaming industry) has gotten attention. The petition claims the game will, among other things, “breed a new generation of mass shooters in America and brainwash gamers into thinking RACISM IS OK” (all caps original). At present, it’s been signed by about 5000 people.

Whether the game is offensive or is telling the “correct” narrative is subjective and difficult to judge for a game that hasn’t even been released. But these claims in the petition are a bit clearer to deal with.

The idea that this, or any game, is going to create “a new generation of mass shooters” is completely anti-science. At this point, the belief that video games and mass homicides have any relationship at all has been thoroughly discredited. This is the kind of line that was used by anti-game crusaders 20 years ago, and it’s almost surreal to see it resurrected here and signed onto by some game developers and journalists. It’s language like this that suggests we’re in a moral panic, not a careful consideration of the game.

Do video games teach players that racism is okay? There’s little evidence to support this conclusion though, in fairness, there’s much less research on this question than on the violence/mass homicide one. Unfortunately, what research does exist isn’t very good. This is a question that needs well-designed, preregistered research using standardized outcome measures and carefully matched game conditions in experiments. We just don’t have that data yet. But we certainly can’t assert the presence of causal effects without that data.

Research doesn’t back claims that such games are harmful

The good news, and a reason to be cautious about stating such effects, is that evidence for other video game effects outside of the violence realm has generally turned up very little. That’s true whether we’re looking at body-image concerns, sexist attitudes, or pro-militaristic attitudes. In general, beliefs that fictional media can influence behaviors or attitudes is largely exaggerated. Thus, even if the game were to portray a one-sided version of the Second Battle of Fallujah (something we don’t know since the game hasn’t been released) there’s no clear reason to believe it would have particularly noticeable effects on players’ attitudes toward Iraqi citizens.

For fictional media to consider real wars is nothing new. Even books or movies sometimes do this well or do this poorly. I suspect games are still judged differently from other media: the perception that serious topics can’t be addressed in the context of play is a difficult assumption to undo even for a medium that has grown exponentially in sophistication. Either way, such media has a right to exist and, of course, critics also have the right to criticize it if they feel the portrayals are discriminatory. I support the right of critics to criticize the game once we know what it looks like, but not to prevent people from accessing it should they wish to.

Ultimately, the claims made about the game in the petition can’t be substantiated with current research (and are clearly discredited regarding the mass shooting claim). This suggests we’re in yet another moral panic cycle over video games, this time coming from an increasing wave of moral puritanism from the cultural left.