Valve has put Ultimate General: Gettysburg on the Steam store main page

https://www.facebook.com/UltimateGeneralStrategyGames/photos/a.597633186948895.1073741828.558492594196288/907112076001003/?type=1

by bdz • 11 years ago

109 132 11 years ago

facebook.com

Dylan16807• 11 years ago

Wha?

Oh, there's context not on this page, it looks like Apple decided confederate flags are verboten in depictions of the civil war.

Sigh.

tribaal• 11 years ago

Thanks for the context, I really didn't understand why that showed up on the front page :)

fennecfoxen• 11 years ago

Oh, there's context not on this page, it looks like Apple decided confederate flags are verboten in depictions of the civil war.

I wonder if they'd do any better replacing them with swastikas.

zamalek2• 11 years ago

Context: http://rt.com/usa/269779-apple-civil-war-games/

Apple and other "major retailers" are pulling anything that includes the Confederate flag as content from their stores because, as we well know, the best way to respond to intolerance is to bury our heads in the sand.

Mithaldu2• 11 years ago

More context:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9777854

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779699

benihana2• 11 years ago

Thank you. I had no idea why this was showing up so high, but I was fairly sure it had something to do with outrage over something.

blfr• 11 years ago

Puritanism never dies. It only gets sillier.

adventured2• 11 years ago

It's not puritanism. Every culture in the world behaves this way about different topics.

izacus• 11 years ago

Apple, the world's babysitter O.o

(Why would a corporation willingly want to play this babysitting game? Doesn't that expose them to bunch of liability?)

ghaff• 11 years ago

They're not so much babysitting as pro-actively trying to get out ahead of what they fear could become a PR problem. The situation right now is there's a lot of legitimate public outcry and pressure to remove the confederate battle flag from being flown by government institutions in the South. This is expanding to various stores stopping selling the flag and even calls for renaming military bases called after Southern generals. I'm not saying that I agree with Apple here but I can understand them wanting to avoid any possibility of getting sucked into the controversy.

AlexandrB4• 11 years ago

As someone who thinks the Confederate flag is a powerful racist symbol, this doesn't make a lick of sense. No one is pulling WWII games even though plenty feature the Nazi flag.

Mentioning a thing is not equivalent to endorsing it, this is like burning history books because they also depict the Confederate flag.

zamalek2• 11 years ago

Agreed. If we had truly put this stuff behind us we would be able to defiantly stare down those symbols; instead Apple has cowered in fear: which is arguably handing a victory to intolerance.

We will have truly won when we can look at those symbols as nothing more than pieces of history: no emotion either positive or negative would be derived. We have won when we are so far removed from what those symbols mean that we simply cannot comprehend them.

If Apple's actions are anything to go by, that war never actually ended. These problems need to be faced, not made as though they don't exist.

rmc2• 11 years ago

Mentioning a thing and celebrating/embracing a thing are 2 different things.

Very few people/groups use Nazi flags for themselves anymore.

fenomas4• 11 years ago

I suppose the issue here is that Apple sees apps and games as abstract consumer goods, like toys or kitchen gadgets. In which context, they might see dropping these war sim games as no different from, say, Etsy dropping confederate flag t-shirts. After all, why should anyone want an app with the objectionable images? There are dozens of others without them; surely they'll do instead.

Of course if one considers games to be media content analogous to books or movies (or dare I say it, Art), such a view seems insane. Then again, one doesn't normally hear about curated gardens erring on the side of free expression, so maybe it's exactly what we should expect.

pmorici2• 11 years ago

It's sad that no one seems to have bothered to read the history behind the confederate flag and why it is associated with racism so strongly to begin with. It isn't because it was used by the confederate army during the civil war. It was only one of many flags used by the confederacy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_State...

The confederate flag wasn't all that common in the south until the civil rights movement in the 1950's and 60's at which point southern legislatures specifically started adopting it as a symbol of their opposition to the federal government's efforts to force southern states to end segregation and enforce the civil rights legislation. In other words it was adopted by the anti civil rights movement explicitly to represent their racist cause. That is why it was put on the South Carolina state house and incorporated into flags of other southern states. That is why it is disingenuous to say it was placed there for 'historical' reasons.

Apple's apparent banning of all use of that flag in any context shows a lack of understanding for why it's problematic to begin with and an ignorance of the history of the civil rights movement.

pdabbadabba2• 11 years ago

Thanks for pointing this out. The history may not be quite as clear as you (and Wikipedia) say. But regardless, it's good for more people to know that these flags haven't just been flying there peacefully ever since the end of the civil war.

Here's a fairly thorough discussion: http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/jun/22/...

zemanel• 11 years ago

True. The best way to deal with darkness would be to let it out in the light.

pdabbadabba2• 11 years ago

This is not totally true. Apple has clarified that

We have removed apps from the App Store that use the Confederate flag in offensive or mean-spirited ways, which is in violation of our guidelines. We are not removing apps that display the Confederate flag for educational or historical uses.

They are working to restore some games to the app store.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/25/apple-bans-games-and-apps-f...

Clearly Apple is struggling to draw a sensible line here -- which is probably going to be very tricky. And they certainly should have come up with a reasonable policy before banning things left and right. But, nonetheless, it is no longer correct to claim that

Apple and other "major retailers" are pulling anything that includes the Confederate flag as content

doe883• 11 years ago

As much as Apple's decision is highly contestable, I don't know if it is worth trying to make a PR coup by implicitly backing a racist flag. I know I personally wouldn't want to be remembered as being that guy. Anyway, well done Valve, I guess, stick it it to big bad Apple.

Edit: to illustrate my point a bit more I think there is a difference between simply proposing a game with historical flags in your store, which I think should always be allowed, and putting a controversial subject in front of your store for PR purpose. For me it's like saying: see, see in our store we have games with controvertial flags - come buy our games. I'm not confortable with that. Maybe I'm wrong though.

cjslep2• 11 years ago

Edit: I misunderstood parent comment when crafting the below response.

a racist flag

I'm curious, should all WW2 games be removed because of the facist swastika flag? Or games involving the cold war because of the communist flag with the Soviet Union? In both cases, atrocities that were an affront to humanity occurred with millions perishing in various camps.

Which brings up another question: Why stop at video games? Board games physically print these symbols that could be taken offensively. I ask because I have Axis & Allies and Twilight Struggle sitting on a shelf right here, but don't consider myself facist, nor communist, nor insensitive. I don't have a civil war board game but I bet they physically print those symbols too.

doe883• 11 years ago

should all WW2 games be removed

I don't want to remove nothing, apparently you've misunderstood my comment. It wasn't the point I was trying to make at all.

simias• 11 years ago

I don't disagree with your overall point but I don't remember a lot of WW2 games featuring a swastika (well, besides wolfenstein 3D), they often replace them with other symbols. I'm in europe though, maybe it's different in the US.

That being said it's probably not comparable. If some US states still had confederate flags on some of their public buildings in 2015 it's probably not nearly as offensive as a swastika.

cdash• 11 years ago

What is wrong with depicting a confederate flag in a game about the civil war?

doe883• 11 years ago

Nothing imo, it's historic facts. But what is wrong imo is using the situation for PR purpose.

j_s• 11 years ago

It is worth noting that what is commonly thought of as the confederate flag today was actually only adopted as "a battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia"; the historically accurate confederate flags are different.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flags_of_the_Confederate_State...

The flag probably would have been relegated to Civil War museums if it had not been resurrected by the resurgent KKK and used by Southern Dixiecrats during the 1948 presidential election.

asddubs• 11 years ago

Upvoted. No, the confederate flag probably should not be banned from being used in any context in media, ever. But while apples decision was wrong (IMO), it's also in bad taste for a competitor to promote material containing the flag solely as a PR stunt.

jarman• 11 years ago

Apple decides to perform PR stunt to benefit from hysteria, while fucking over publishers/developers.

Steam perform PR stunt by giving one game promotion. I don't see how it is bad taste, especially compared to Apple actions.

rakoo• 11 years ago

implicitly backing a racist flag

I don't see how Valve backs the racist flag. They back the game, specifically because it has been banned by Apple. But I don't see any sentiment toward specifically agreeing with the flag and all its meaning.

yincrash• 11 years ago

They aren't. The GP is wrong. That's like saying that a historical museum is implicitly backing a racist flag by having one in their civil war exhibit they are promoting this month.

There is nothing racist about promoting a game that uses 'a racist flag' in the correct context. In this case, a historical one.

jameshart• 11 years ago

Right, but they run the risk that the kind of people who are upset with Apple not because Apple have made a general boneheaded move but who are specifically exercised because Apple has removed their flag, will now see Valve as some kind of hero and start acting like Valve is on their side.

While valve may see themselves as supporting free speech advocates, they're also, incidentally and presumably (hopefully) unintentionally, pandering to, and risk validating, racist bigots.

stevejones• 11 years ago

How do you feel about imposing a blanket ban on said flag for PR purposes?

sagichmal• 11 years ago

A company's prerogative, if they choose to do it.

fiblye2• 11 years ago

I think if Valve chose to promote this and it wasn't automatically placed on the front page due to a surge in popularity, it's probably because Valve is trying to show itself to be a marketplace where no idea is censored, no matter how unpopular and that their competitors have asinine policies.

Look at the whole Hatred debacle. Some people think it's the most offensive game of all time and should be banned, but Gabe himself came out and said that that's no reason to pull the game.

Besides, when it comes to censorship in games, it's usually from gross misunderstandings or willful ignorance. Banning all Civil War themed games because they display a flag in a historical context is a good example. The game is in no way promoting the ideology behind the flag.

fiveoak• 11 years ago

Look at the whole Hatred debacle. Some people think it's the most offensive game of all time and should be banned, but Gabe himself came out and said that that's no reason to pull the game.

Someone at Steam did initially pull it off of greenlight though. Gabe re-added it later.

SloopJon• 11 years ago

You're assuming that Valve is trying to make hay somehow by promoting this game, but I wonder if the game's placement is simply a result of a spike in sales by users who can't purchase it on the Mac App Store. I'm guessing it wouldn't take many purchases for the store's logic to pick up a historical strategy game as a trending seller.

yrochat• 11 years ago

Valve's position reminds me of Hatred disappearance/reappearance http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/17/hatred-gam...

In either case, it is in my opinion difficult to determine if this is good or bad PR, and if this is good or bad in terms of morals. However, more tendency towards provocation might bring the answer.

ubertaco• 11 years ago

a racist flag

When I look at the Confederate flag, it represents something completely different to me. It's the flag that my great-great-great-great grandfather fought for, not because he was a racist, but because he was 12 years old (he got discharged honorably for somehow getting enlisted below the minimum age) and wanted to protect his friends and neighbors.

The popular misconception was that anyone flying the Confederate flag during the war did so out of seething hatred towards anyone not white. The even more popular misconception is that by extension, anyone flying that same flag today does so out of the same reason.

For a lot of folks, it's just representative (if perhaps misguidedly so) of a lot of things that define "typical southern culture": redneck (used down here not always as a pejorative but as a lifestyle shorthand) "simplicity", blunt honesty when needed ("mouth of the south") and hospitality when not, and the sort of "God and country" stuff that you'd expect to find in a Keith Urban track. It's like waving a Texas flag, except nobody's tried to tie the Texan flag to the racism that was prevalent everywhere in the US during the Civil War (let's not forget that Martin Luther King Jr. didn't hang out with Abe Lincoln north of the Mason-Dixon line; he worked with Lyndon Johnson much later from Atlanta and Selma.)

So I think it's cultural blindness to simply treat the Confederate flag as nothing but intrinsically racist or even as equivalent with Nazi symbolism (or to treat it as worse; Amazon still sells Nazi paraphernalia, but has discontinued Confederate flags).

But I also think it's cultural blindness to treat it as having no negative connotations. However misinformed the reasons, the public views flying a Confederate flag as assenting to what they believe it stood for: racism or hate. So whether or not they're right about what it stood for, it communicates to them that you agree with what they think it stood for.

In terms of my own worldview, I find 1 Corinthians 8:4-13 [1] to be pretty applicable here (where the issue at hand was "is it okay to eat food that had been used in pagan worship ceremonies?")

The idea being: yes, sure, I know better, so it's okay for me. But if I eat that food (or in this case, wave that flag) in front of someone who thinks it's very wrong, I am in their eyes giving approval to something they see as wrong, causing them an issue of conscience. If they go along with me, they are knowingly doing what they believe is wrong. It is then a conscious offense for them, because they have a different understanding of the issue than I do. And I either force them to compromise their conscience to justify my behavior in their minds, or else I cause them to see me and my moral framework in a much worse light.

So then, if I have a Confederate flag in my house, whatever, I understand the significance it has to me. But if I fly it out in my yard, I am in my neighbors' minds backing whatever they think that stands for. So any other cause I support or view I hold is immediately suspect to them now. I do damage to more important issues because of my lack of awareness on a less important one.

[1] http://www.esvbible.org/1Corinthians8/

AlexandrB4• 11 years ago

The popular misconception was that anyone flying the Confederate flag during the war did so out of seething hatred towards anyone not white. The even more popular misconception is that by extension, anyone flying that same flag today does so out of the same reason.

I think that's a strawman. In actual fact the soldiers of the Confederate army were fighting to keep the system of slavery intact in the south. That's historical fact[1]. Most of them weren't monsters but what they were fighting for was monstrous.

Even though the flag Confederate may represent things like the valour of the Confederate soldiers it primarily represents the cause of the Confederacy, which was slavery. That's why it's a problem to glorify it. You can't reasonable separate the two meanings.

[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/06/what-thi...

jasonlotito2• 11 years ago

Can you please provide proof that Valve is using this as an opportunity for PR for the reasons stated?

The game was recently released, and because of Apple's attempt at PR by banning the game, would result in people going to Steam to purchase the game. The end result would be more sales, and more likely to get featured. Your suggesting this is not the case. Please back it up.

sehugg2• 11 years ago

It is hard to pin down the precise motives of a large organization. But Apple is no stranger to embracing the zeitgeist when the mood suits them, e.g. the fast-tracking of the Fiore and Charlio Hebdo apps: http://readwrite.com/2015/01/13/apple-app-charlie-hebdo-mark...

hahainternet• 11 years ago

Are the front page games chosen explicitly? I would have guessed they were automated but I have no evidence to suggest that.

Lennu• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure Valve, like other online shops, have a content management team which optimizes the shop in all kinds of ways. Automation is probably heavily included but not completely running the shop.

mwill• 11 years ago

iirc, they used to be curated, over time organic features were added to promote popular games, and the social update brought the "Recommended for you" pages.

You can tell explicit placement still goes on, as games that are in the news pop up, so do preorders of big titles, etc.

If I had to imagine, how it works now is theres several buckets of candidates, such as popular new releases, curated features (IE "New DLC Available" or "Preorder Now", "New on Steam" etc), and Recommended For You, and a certain amount of titles are shown from each bucket every time the front page is shown.

theandrewbailey2• 11 years ago

Depends on if you're logged in.

Valve made a huge update in the past 12 months, where if you're logged in, that shows games (and games similar to those) that you don't have yet recommended by the people connected to you. On the Steam homepage in Steam, about half the games in the top carosel say "Recommended for you".

jcfrei• 11 years ago

this straw man argument against confederate flags doesn't deserve any further discussions.

ZeroGravitas• 11 years ago

So, I'm not american, but I visited that page, and from the comments here I was expecting to see a confederate flag. Instead I see an old C90 style audio cassette?

Also, my grasp of American history isn't great, but the south lost this war right? And this particular battle at Gettysburg. And the Gettysburg address is fairly famous.

So, if not for the context of this being posted and then other comments here, I would assume this was a total non-event. Am I missing something? What's the supposed link between this and recent happenings with Apple store regulations and racist symbolism in the US?

edit: answering my own question, this particular cross-platform game got removed from the Apple app store as they were unwilling to edit it to remove the confederate flag from the game believing they shouldn't fall under the content ban as it was only used in historical context. It's not clear to me if it's presence is anything but a coincidence as it seems to be a well regarded game anyway.

fenomas4• 11 years ago

The game in the link is the same game Apple removed. So the story is that Steam is promoting the same game Apple blocked.

The cassette tape seems to just be the graphic they're using for the top-page feature. The game's store page shows regular trailers screenshots.

surge2• 11 years ago

All the corporations are pretending to be hyper sensitive to the church shooting tragedy, there has been a rush of some kind to blame the flag, although its a minor if any kind of factor in the issues of race in this country, especially in the south, Ferguson doesn't fly the flag anywhere and they have serious race issues. It's basically a marketing strategy under the guise of being supportive, its an old issue that many have seemed to hijacked the recent tragedy to push an old issue to the fore.

There has been a giant band wagon of support behind taking down the confederate flag at the SC state capital in front of a memorial, as its still seen by some like the nazi flag, or representation of a traitorous flag, for most, it represents slavery, so there is plenty of argument why its not appropriate in front of a government building. Personally, I think there are far worse crimes the U.S. flag represents (killing and past and current treatment of Native Americans, internment of Japanese, pointless wars that left millions of innocents dead in Iraq, Laos, Vietnam, the years of slavery under the U.S. government and the Presidents who owned slaves, etc) so there is a lot of hypocrisy in pointing out the issue with that flag and the history behind it. I lived in the south long enough to realize the issues with race are prevalent everywhere and has little to do with the flag, and hiding the history of it won't fix a crazy kid shooting up a historic church that had to fight for the right to worship during its inception in this country. I do think that its inappropriate to fly it in front of a government building, but wrong to use someone's tragedy as ammunition to push a long standing personal agenda that doesn't really fix why it happened.

sneak• 11 years ago

Yeah, what he said. Well illuminated. Have an upboat.

coldpie• 11 years ago

I largely agree with your comments, but

wrong to use someone's tragedy as ammunition to push a long standing personal agenda

Ugh. No one is using this as "ammunition." The shooting was a symptom of a problem. Acceptability of racism and pride in racist heritage are possible contributing factors to this problem. When the symptoms present themselves, it makes sense to use that opportunity as a reminder that the problems still exist and that we should take steps to fix them.

deadmik35• 11 years ago

there has been a rush of some kind to blame the flag

This is the big thing that I just cannot understand. One day, someone kills several innocent people. The next day, the country is focused on it. And on the third day, we decided that a flag was causing white people to kill black people.

rayiner• 11 years ago

The south lost, but they didn't handle it the way say Germany did WWII (internalizing a deep sense of shame for what they did and purging their culture of anything glorifying that period). They lost, but they didn't repent. Hence why we're still seeing this conflict today.

stevehawk2• 11 years ago

Apples and oranges, isn't it?

Hitler began a campaign for global domination and genocide. The South said "Fuck this, we're out" and seceded from the Union, then the North attacked it.

The South's motivation wasn't particularly great, but their actions didn't exactly tear apart the world and change it's development forever.

brudgers• 11 years ago

Confederate flag controversies are a means of propagating the American myth that virulent American racism is a uniquely Southern trait and its primary form is based on proximate African ancestry. It's a comforting make believe that allows the American West off the hook in regard to indigenous peoples and Asian immigrants and Spanish speakers, and the states of the former Union off the hook for 100 postbellum years spent condoning Jim Crow and Federalizing its policies under the rationalization of sensitivity to well bread Southern sensibilities [not to mention the North's role in creating the events of the American West].

The current political motivation has far more to do with the shooting happening in a church [as was the case with the Birmingham bombing fifty years ago] than with some sudden realization that flying the Confederate flag represents an expression that going to war for the sake of preserving race based chattel slavery and the political advantage it afforded under the 3/5 clause of the US Constitution was a noble act. Were it nine black members of the Nation of Islam, Alabama wouldn't have pulled the Stars and Bars from the Statehouse this week...it's been flying a three wood from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church and the Southern Poverty Law Center for many years.

theandrewbailey2• 11 years ago

Steam page: http://store.steampowered.com/app/306660/

It looks like it's been available for about 8 months.

viola11• 11 years ago

Seems like they have like the maker put up a new cover image, pretty sure that stupid cassette tape wasn't the official cover image a week ago.

xmoki2• 11 years ago

"We view apps different than books or songs, which we do not curate. If you want to criticize a religion, write a book. If you want to describe sex, write a book or a song, or create a medical app. It can get complicated, but we have decided to not allow certain kinds of content in the App Store."

I can create a racist song or book and sell it, i cannot create an historical game.... WTF

xmoki2• 11 years ago

I can create a racist song or book and sell it, i cannot create an historical game.... wtf logic

Crito• 11 years ago

I wonder what the reenactment community thinks of all of this.

caseysoftware• 11 years ago

By refusing to show it - even in proper historical context - we're giving the Confederate flag more power.

This is just the latest "he who shall not be named."

protomyth• 11 years ago

My problem is Apple didn't pull books with a Confederate Flag on their cover. They pulled apps. I am getting a little sick of the stand that developers are not considered for the same creative protections that book authors are. Its bad enough that companies are designing machines that restrict the people who make those machines worth buying, but this constant harassment that no large company would think to apply to movies, tv shows, or books is discouraging.

ionised• 11 years ago

For anyone interested, Ultimate General: Gettysburg is a game made by the well-known modder of the Total War series of games, DarthVader.

His DarthMod series have been consistently rated as among the best, if not the best overhaul mods available for the series and rightly so.

They are really fantastic.

cmdrfred• 11 years ago

First they came for the people who waved confederate flags, and I did not speak out— Because I did not wave a confederate flag.

chinathrow• 11 years ago

And then you realize that if we wouldn't have games about wars (be it civil war games or WWII games or whatnot), we wouldn't have this issue.

paulhauggis• 11 years ago

I'm wondering when this nonsense will stop.

This game is a history lesson for kids. You can't rewrite history, even if you don't agree with what happened. This is the equivalent of digital book burning.

Apple isn't removing all of the World War 2 games that contain Nazi symbols. I'm sure there are games that offend Native Americans and other minorities, but those aren't removed. Why?

In a related note, this just happened: http://news.yahoo.com/vandals-target-confederate-monuments-h...

"The graffiti reflects the racial tension that permeates post-Ferguson America"

...And it's excused. The reason I can't stand behind any of these latest protests is because it excuses criminal, savage, and animalistic behavior and this graffiti incident is just another example of it.

I suspect in 10 years, our racial problems will not be any better. Mostly because the media and politicians continue to create a divide for their gain and people that question the reality, like me, are silenced long enough that they just stop participating.

DanBC• 11 years ago

Did you just call black people "savage" and "animals"?

k__• 11 years ago

The point here is, if you voice your opinion, your enemies will use this to voice how their opinion is different. You won't convince people with different opinions than your own to change, but just send them to your enemies.

Valve has put Ultimate General: Gettysburg on the Steam store main page

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