It’s probably a mixed bag. When you think about it, wether it’s a game or a story or a film or whatever else- this is pretty common. Most people don’t find war on the whole am enjoyable time. Most people find little if any enjoyment in combat. Children and even adults have romanticized and played at combat. Playing soldier and knight and warrior and pirate and so forth; reenacting historic battles or supposed moments of valor. Stories of these great battles and such have been told for thousands of years. But… how would the soldiers or citizens of Troy feel after their city was burned to know that it became a (probable) myth about a horse, a joke, a tale of hubris or gullibility? But we don’t actually need to go back in time to more than the lifetime of those on earth today.
There were still plenty of WW2 vets alive when films of valor and such and tales of the war began being made into huge movies. WW2 vets got to see movies like Saving Private Ryan and got to see games like PlayStation titles about the war. How did they feel? How did the Vietnam vets or desert storm or any of the other wars world wide made to games or film and such feel…?
Mixed. Some think it’s great, others think it’s an insult, others feel it’s sick to try and turn horrifying combat into some game after they fought for peace… others think that the fact that there are kids who are able to play these games or any games they want is a legacy to their fight.
I think there is a valid observation here. I mean, instead of asking what a hypothetical dead soldier might think or even what an actual live soldier might think we can simply see that our fascination and normalization of violence and war is perhaps a dark thing. Kids grow up with violence and most coherent narratives in entertainment for kids and youth involve violence and killing, expressed or implied. Of course- chicken and egg. Do violent games and fixations lead to violence or, like most animals that show “play” behavior- is it that human play also functions as a form of “practice” for useful survival and social skills and that violence is simply a part of the world?
Mixed. Some think it’s great, others think it’s an insult, others feel it’s sick to try and turn horrifying combat into some game after they fought for peace… others think that the fact that there are kids who are able to play these games or any games they want is a legacy to their fight.