Wargaming.net has made good on a promise it made to users earlier this month who were deeply offended by the use of the Rising Sun flag in its game World of Warships. Earlier in the month some Korean players were offended by the use of the flag, mostly because it represent aggression by the Japanese towards it country during World War II. Many countries in the South Pacific have similar feelings of ill will towards Japan for its actions during World War II, so this reaction to that symbol is not all that surprising.
"We will be removing the Rising Sun flag from the game in the future," a moderator wrote on Wargaming's official forum earlier this month. "There has been quite a bit of discussion recently regarding this sensitive topic and I hope this clears some of the confusion."
Today the company announced that, as promised it has removed the flag from the game, though it can still be used if players use a modded flag.
As Kotaku's report notes, while the Japanese flag is a symbol that other parts of Asia find loathsome, it is still in use in Japan; the flag is still used by the Japanese Navy, for example.
On a related note, Wargaming.net announced that the official beta for its flagship title World of Tanks launches this weekend on Xbox One.
Source: Kotaku
Comments
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
Thinking about this, there's another aspect to this particular issue which is worth considering. Most people agree that historical accuracy is generally a valid reason to display symbols used at the time, even if they're offensive today. But, can a competitive multiplayer game ever claim historical accuracy?
In a single-player game, you can set it up so that the player is only successful when they follow the course of history - put them in battles that their side won historically, and give them a Game Over if they lose. In a competitive multiplayer game, however, either side winning has to be acceptable. A battle might have gone one way in reality, but in a such a game, it would have to be acceptable for it to go the other way.
Once you accept that you have to allow battles to go either way (as otherwise it's going to be a pretty unfair game), this takes the game out of perfect historical accuracy. This leaves it as a historically-themed game. And there are plenty of ways to get the theme across while leaving out certain offensive symbols.
I'm not saying we should ban offensive symbols from such games. I think it should be a choice for the developers in the end. But they should probably consider that, if the game isn't intended to be educational about what happened and what symbols meant, then leaving them in may not be worth the offense it causes in people.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
I am outraged by people's outrage.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
Score one more for Team Offended...
Really, though, wtf? It's a historical war simulation, with a historically accurate flag. What is the point of bitching about it? And presumably the Japanese ships will still be floating around and blowing shit up in these historical scenarios. Is that less troublesome than the flag? It's like if someone made a 9/11 simulator and people were just bitching about the United/American logos on the planes.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
I think a better analogy would be to say it's like if someone made a civil war simulator, and people were offended by the use of the confederate flag. Unlike the United/American logos, the confederate flag is commonly seen as an offensive symbol today and representative of hate, but it would also be historically representative.
That being said, although people in Korea apparently see this particular flag as an offensive symbol, it bears asking the question of why. Let's look at the US for a comparison. Although the Germans never attacked the US directly and the Japanese did, Americans see the Nazi swastika as offensive, but have no such feelings about any Japanese symbol from during the war. Why is this? It's because the swastika became associated with a repulsive ideology, and there are people still using it to promote that ideology.
So why is the Rising Sun flag so offensive in Korea? It seems to be solely because of what was done in WWII, which means someone would have to be around 75 years old at minimum to remember it happening in their own life. For anyone younger (certainly the vast majority who signed this position), the flag can't represent anything that personally happened to them, so why do they still care about it?
Well, as it turns out, Korea has a huge problem with bigotry against Japan (and vice-versa for that matter). There doesn't seem to be a huge wave of people deliberately waving this flag in the faces of Koreans to agitate this hate (though I'll admit it certainly is odd that Japan was never forced by the US to change the flag after WWII). Rather, I suspect this is due to a segment of the population that thrives on hate and can't let it go, and so they've come to see the flag as a symbol of their hate.
In short, from my admittedly-limit understanding of history here, it looks a lot like Wargaming.net gave into the bigots this time.
(Which also means "Team Offended" is a rather useless way to group people, as every side gets offended at one thing or another.)
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
Or, considering all the "war crimes and atrocities" Japan committed during WII, considering there's a Wikipedia article listing all the apologies made by Japan for said war crimes spanning from the 1950s to this decade (which would imply there's still a need to apologize), considering that "As of 2010, 24% of South Koreans still feel that Japan has never apologized for its colonial rule, while another 58% believe Japan has not apologized sufficiently", and considering some of the South-Korean 'comfort women' are still alive, maybe you don't know what you're talking about.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
I had a big post written out, but I realized after thinking on it that I was relying a lot on the assumption that people think much like I do, particularly when it comes to symbols. I think that was a lot of what was going into my thoughts behind my past post as well.
It seems human nature to conflate the symbol-for-a-thing with the thing itself. And it seems that in Korea, the symbol for imperial Japan has this going on, even though in modern Japan it's a symbol for different things (depending on who you ask, either a symbol for good fortune, nationalism, or right-wing politics).
I'll just say this: Koreans have damn good reasons for hating all that imperial Japan did. I know this and knew it in my previous post. What I meant to say in that post was that for the vast majority of people who signed this petition, those reasons can't be due to personal experience of what happened. The present-day bigotry against Japan in Korea was my best guess for explaining this reaction, but I neglected to think about how other people view symbols differently than I do.
The situation is likely a complicated mix of symbol-hatred and modern-day bigotry against Japan, both of which are going on Korea.
Oh, and to your claims of ignorance, I quote myself:
I didn't go into specifics, but I think that makes it clear I knew that a lot of crap happened then. Please leave the barbs out of this discussion. (Please don't make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.)
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
I fail to see the relevance of your point. Especially since the issue here is the removal of a nation's banner used during the second world war in an effort to appease an audience so offended by a historically accurate and appropriate symbol.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
Really? You don't see the relevance of me responding to Infophile's claims that Koreans logically shouldn't give a shit about this issue and that people only complained because of anti-Japan bigotry (and therefore "Wargaming.net gave into the bigots") by explaining that in countries that were actually invaded and whose population was oppressed by the invaders, WWII left scars which still haven't healed?
I didn't actually offer an opinion about 'the issue here' itself, by the way, because I don't really feel like I am qualified to comment on it: I only responded to Infophile's ignorant remarks. So my 'point' was relevant to the comment I responded to.
PS: a better analogy than the one Infophile came up with would be if Jews (particularly those who had ancestors who were murdered by the nazis) were offended by a nazi flag in World of Tanks.
PPS: I'm not sure if you're aware, but Japan isn't as apologetic about the issue as it should be - and I don't mean 'it happened 70 years ago' unapologetic, I mean 'don't be silly, our country didn't actually enslave women so our soldiers could rape them, so we should withdraw the apology we made for it' unapologetic - and 'hey, you have a monument for these comfort women in the USA - we demand that you remove it' unapologetic. So this is an issue that both sides still care very strongly about.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
To be honest, no. I don't see the relevance. I acknowledge that there is a history to be had between the nations of Korea and Japan that has left a generation of people scarred, but that generation is very old and I highly doubt they would have any interest in World of Warships. I have no doubt that said generation would have passed on stories of the atrocities to the next, as that is something people are naturally inclined to do, but I am a person who believes that the son should not be held responsible for the sins of his father, and this demonstration of outrage is part-and-parcel in keeping with the actions of the eternally offended. Going out on a limb, I believe exactly zero Koreans complaining about the presence of the rising sun flag in World of Warships were actually alive when Japan had the flag as its national banner during the second world war.
I believe the reason for the outrage sparked by the aforementioned offended is distasteful, and I am offended that wargaming.net has capitulated and removed the rising sun flag -- a historically accurate and appropriate flag given the time period -- because doing so validates the behaviour when it should be ignored.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
I agree with most of your points here, Goth. The only one I'll pull out that I disagree with is the lumping together of the "Eternally Offended." I don't think that's a particularly useful grouping of people, as you can find something offensive to almost anyone, and once you do, they'll claim that their offense is justified, while others are just being silly in their offense.
I don't think offense on its own should be a reason to avoid saying something (or putting it in a game, etc.). It functions as a human shorthand for a lot of complicated negative emotions surrounding something, and we should really think about what those emotions are before deciding how to act. Consider:
In this case, it's quite likely that group A is acting out of anti-semitism, and their hatred of the symbol reflects that. Meanwhile, group B is reacting to the anti-semitism which the symbol they hate represents. They're both offended, but group A is offended because they hate another group, and group B is offended because they're hated. Obviously, these two offenses aren't equally deserving of consideration.
(None of this says that any given symbol must be removed, of course. That depends on more factors than this simplification.)
In the case here, I suspect it's more of a mix, with people hating the symbol due to a mix of hatred of what the Japanese did and hatred of the Japanese themselves. But it's hard to say for sure.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
I have no reason to believe or even suspect that the original decision to put the rising sun flag in the game was made with malicious intent to the people of South Korea, which is why I find this backlash particularly egregious. So too do I find the recent decisions to remove the Flag of the Confederacy from wherever possible distasteful, even though I understand the offense it causes some people. Such decisions, in my opinion, are tantamount to a willful rejection of historical fact, like holocaust denial. On an individual level, this is fine, but it's alarming at a higher level, such as state and/or education.
In the two examples you've provided, I believe both groups are out of line, regardless of motive.
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
Hey! Never attribute to ignorance that which is adequately explained by malice! Er... Wait...
Re: Wargming.net removes Japanese Rising Sun flag from ...
Haven't you heard? Outrage works.