upvote
I think it's fun, not cynical at all. I'm sure if my close one was shot, I'd be uneasy playing call of duty, and so on.

I'm sorry for your friend.

reply
As someone who was personally a victim of a violate car accident when very young, causing permanent facial scarring; I give everyone permission to play GTA, Wreckfest and Burnout 3.

I would hope my friends would never use me to say otherwise.

reply
Meta comment to say I appreciate the measured takes and responses you and parent comment had.

Overall feels net-positive.

I know meta-comments are discouraged, but I wanted to encourage managing emotions during discourse with clear emotional fuel.

reply
I wouldn't say so, since shooting at mini tanks and buildings that look like cardboard on a gray street map doesn't seem connected to real events.

That said, I did not find the game fun. It was laggy, UI elements seemed a bit sloppy and cut off, and the purpose of buttons wasn't very clear. Also, I saw mostly brown tiles rather than buildings, maybe it was already all destroyed.

reply
Thanks for the honest feedback. The lag was the server struggling with today's crowd, and I've shipped fixes for it over the last hour. The brown tiles are rubble from earlier players. Pick a city further away and you'll find it untouched.
reply
I'm surprised by the comments defending this, I also think it's in poor taste. I wouldn't say cynical, in my opinion it's worse than that, it's too real.
reply
If it makes you feel any better tanks are almost useless now in modern war.

They can't at all compete with some off the shelf kids toy costing $30 with a HEAT round attached. The cost differential here with a 35 million euro tank is beyond pale.

reply
It's art, it's supposed to make you feel uneasy. If this wakes you up by making a faraway concept suddenly seem real to you - I'd say the artist did a very good job.
reply
This kind of outrage takes away from things that are actually distasteful and cynical. Conflating unproblematic things with actual harmful things is a you problem. Policing tone, while people are actually dying out there, is more cynical that this game. The only outcome here is there you guys feel better about yourself.
reply
It's not really outrage, I just think it's in poor taste. Unproblematic is a matter of opinion, which we're each entitled to.
reply
Having a negative opinion is not policing. If you want to spend your free time simulating destruction, that is really your thing. It's common entertainment. It doesn't mean others can't share a different perspective on it.
reply
I don't think that quite makes sense. Sometimes it's useful to point out/shame unsettling things that happen in society, even if it doesn't directly cause harm.
reply
I both think this is allowed to exist in addition to finding this tasteless.
reply
It sounds like you yourself are outraged and policing how people feel about this game?
reply
You're on HN, where people celebrate YC companies that in "defense". The majority of people in our networks would bomb a house if it completed their next round. Let's not pretend that we're surprised people defend this.
reply
It's been jarring to see just how thin morality in engineering was all along. Turns out it's mostly downstream of whatever level of morality doesn't get VCs uninvited from cocktail parties.

Edit: typo

reply
This game is only too real if after playing it, you suddenly have an urge to purchase a Komatsu D355A bulldozer
reply
NO FUN ALLOWED
reply
Fun is very much allowed. But people are also allowed to question if one person’s fun is another person’s pain.

Like, if a bunch of kids caught a stray cat, tied him up, and started shouting in his ears and laughing, would you stop them? And if they complained “no fun allowed”, would you think that was fair? What about if there was a video game in which you beat to a pulp deepfake representations of your friends and family? Do you not agree it would be reasonable for some people to find that in bad taste, including those who have suffered from domestic violence in real life?

You may say that this is just a game, but media affects people too. There are thousands of games where you can shoot at fictional infrastructure, is there really that much to gain from destroying representations of real buildings?

reply
> "media affects people too"

The previous incarnations of that, like "videogames cause violence", "superhero comic books cause juvenile delinquency", "D&D causes satanism", "rock and roll caused a decline in youth morals", are nonsense that was discredited long ago.

reply
You completely misunderstood. I meant that media affects people emotionally. Have you ever seen a person cry watching a movie? Have you ever seen someone say “this story speaks to me on a personal level”? Have you ever seen someone say “I couldn’t finish the show, it reminded me too much of my own father and his struggle with the same disease”? That’s what I meant, not “booga booga, fear mongering”.

God damn, why must HN always assume the worst? Engage in good faith for once, stop assuming every argument is made by an imbecile and that you understand everything and are the lord of reason.

reply
Your premise makes no sense. We’re talking about a top down tank game where the buildings don’t even resemble their real life counterparts here.

If you’re offended by this, maybe you should just not engage with it. Why does the onus fall on the creator?

Take a look at Battlefield. Should we take that down because it simulates war? Maybe we should remove guns from ever appearing in media because people have died from guns. Should we remove color from media because it may be insensitive to the colorblind? Why don’t we just remove all words everywhere because someone has had their feelings hurt by words. Where do we draw the line?

reply
> If you’re offended by this

I’m not offended by it. I am in fact very politely and cordially inviting the commenter above to consider a different perspective, and my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable. I recommend doing that before launching on tirades of bad faith argumentation.

It’s been my observation that people who accuse others of being offended are themselves the most easily offended. Very much like the people who call others “snowflakes” have the thinnest skins themselves.

> maybe you should just not engage with it.

Despite it not being my case, those who are offended can and should very much still engage. Suggesting otherwise is nonsensical and a tool of those who promote hate. There is no societal progress if those who see something wrong do not speak up.

> (…) Should we take that down because it simulates war? (…)

I said in my comment that we already have thousands of games like that. I didn’t say that was bad. You are arguing in profound bad faith and are not even doing a good job of hiding your repeated straw men. I recommend you learn to engage with the arguments, instead of making up new ones in your head and fighting those.

reply
> "my approach to this subject in this entire thread has been one of compassion and curiosity, which is easily verifiable."

You were lambasting the HN community with various pejoratives like "blowhards" and "putrid" in a comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997 ) in this thread 5 hours ago? There is no good faith interpretation for that I'm afraid.

reply
You don’t understand, he’s got basic human empathy man
reply
Calling me out for “straw manning” by creating your own straw man is very cool.

You misunderstand the entire premise of my original comment, presumably on purpose. Oh well, I guess that’s just how online discourse is now.

reply
> Like, if a bunch of kids caught a stray cat, tied him up, and started shouting in his ears and laughing, would you stop them? And if they complained “no fun allowed”, would you think that was fair?

You are talking about directly harming another living creature who cannot fight back.

> What about if there was a video game in which you beat to a pulp deepfake representations of your friends and family?

You are talking about "harming" a collection of north and south facing flips on a disk, a few ones and zeros in a RAM chip. Hell, we used to actually make Quake characters with our real faces on back in the day so you really could blast your real-life friends and family to pieces.

reply
> You are talking about "harming" a collection of north and south facing flips on a disk

No, you missed the point. It has nothing to do with the entities in the game, it’s about the player outside of it. Look, it’s all well and good to blast your friends in a game and call each other rude names and whatnot, have fun! But you understand that’s OK because you have consent, right?

Here’s a story for you. I have omitted unnecessary details because outing anyone isn’t the point. There was a guy who played a certain competitive game. He was a good person, but he had the habit of describing a big game loss as a “rape”. He wasn’t trying to be malicious, he described himself as having been raped too when he lost big. But he threw it around too casually, and one day he played against a rape victim. Now, can you put yourself in the other person’s shoes and understand how having a traumatic experience thrown back at you casually can make you feel? And even if you believe it wouldn’t bother you personally, can we agree that everyone is different and that we shouldn’t ignore how they feel their pain? That there are little things we can all do to make other people be comfortable, and in turn they may do the same for us?

That’s all I’m saying, that we should practice some empathy. I’m not even saying this game shouldn’t exist, I’m only asking that we recognise that it may affect some people in major ways most of us on this website can’t possibly understand (and we should be thankful for it, not derisive) and that we should take that into account. In short, remember other people exist and share the planet with you, and try to not be a dick to them.

reply
Not just you. With a fourth of the world in an actual war, it doesn’t sit well with many of us.

That said, whoever made it might not be thinking about that. A kid could vibecode a game these days. I wouldn’t hold it against them.

Moreover, many AAA games glamorize war (Call of Duty, Far Cry, Battlefield…) or crime (GTA, Red Dead Redemption, Payday, Hitman…).

reply
[dead]
reply
Almost everything fun doing is going to have a naughty element that's bound to upset somebody.
reply
You mean I cant read certain books without upsetting someone. oh wait... think I know the answer. ;)

This used to be so ridiculous it was satire.

reply
I think it’s the particular design choice of leaving emoji on the rubble you destroyed, with options like a skull, fire and so on.

The Call of Duty series gives a much more detailed view of the battlefield, with a lot more blood, and it doesn’t get a reputation for being cynical because it doesn’t force your hand with a choice that feels like mockery of the situation. This game’s emoji defaults slightly do, whether it was intentional or not.

reply
deleted
reply
ya. If those are the emojis used. I have to agree with you.

Would give better perspective if your own virutal geographical building was equally destroyed as destroying others.

Would also be better if RL names where replaced with fictional random names.

reply
I think it's rather poor taste to code something like this. Usually when buildings or other things are destroyed in movies or even a game, it's to tell some kind of story. In a way telling the story brings the justification because the destruction in the story is usually counterbalanced by someone trying to stop it, which brings the story to the level of good being done.

This is just wanton destruction and has nothing good in it.

reply
I mean, technically, Blast Corps had a story (you needed to pave the way for a runaway nuclear missle to not crash and explode or something), but then you'd get medals for thoroughly destroying everything anyway, because really it was about knocking down buildings and the "story" was a silly pretense. And it was great.

Rampage and its sequels were pretty much also just "destroy buildings, the game," and also great.

My kids enjoy building with tiles and then knocking it down.

If you've ever shot a gun or detonated some explosives in real life, you'll know that's fun too despite these things being used to hurt people also.

reply
Red Faction: Guerilla had physics based modeling of damage to structures and an auxiliary game mode where the objective was to collapse as many buildings as possible within a time limit using demolition charges and other weapons. (Of course, the player is a noble revolutionary fighting an oppressive government so there's a fig-leaf of social acceptability.) Precise and quick placement of demolition charges on structural supports was key to getting a good score. If they'd had some sort of procedural map generation for it, I'd probably still be playing it today.
reply
Counterpoint - the whole point of the arcade game Rampage was to have a big monster punch lumps out of buildings and helicopters, and just destroy as much stuff as possible, and everyone played the absolute shit out of that.
reply
It's AI slop which was probably made in an afternoon with zero human input, you're giving it too much credit
reply
Didn't we all learn to not connect fake entertainment with reality when we were kids? What does one thing have to do with the other? Seems a bit overdramatic to me, and life's too short, and already stressful enough, for that.

Now, it would certainly be in poor taste to ask for your friends old address so we could destroy their virtual house, but I don't see anyone doing that here.

reply
Multiplayer flight sim lets you destroy real skyscrapers
reply
Reminds me of the kid that got expelled for modelling his school as a Counter Strike map
reply
You are overreacting. Its not cynical.
reply
Its just you. Get a grip. People are doing war since ancient times. Its in our dna
reply
I had a similar thought.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50390997

If your friend would be willing to share their thoughts, I’m interested in learning. Of course, if they don’t want to share or you think it would be disrespectful to even ask, don’t. I’m just thinking the perspective of such people should not be ignored.

reply
I'm really sorry about your friend's home. I never meant it that way. It started as just a 3D map that you could drive around. Then I added collisions, then a tank, and it grew into a game from there. None of it came from anything in real life. But I understand why it feels uneasy when war is real for people you know.
reply
deleted
reply
[flagged]
reply