The Red Cross “Play By The Rules” To Stop Gamers Committing Virtual War Crimes

The Red Cross has announced their “Play By The Rules” initiative which targets gamers in first-person shooter games and encourages them to respect the real rules of war whilst playing.

Stop Committing Virtual War Crimes

I’m no stranger to committing a few war crimes when gaming as I’m pretty sure Rico Rodriguez in the Just Cause series is the best example of a ‘walking’ war crime and we aren’t even getting close to my Arma 3 Antistasi experience. This, however, has caught the attention of The International Committee of the Red Cross which has introduced its new “Play By The Rules” initiative with several rules that gamers should follow and several games have been confirmed to be participating including Arma 3 and Fortnite. The initiative provides several rules for gamers to follow:

• No Thirsting – When an enemy is down and can’t respond, you can’t keep shooting at them.
• No Targeting Non-Violent NPCS – Bots that don’t fire unprovoked are considered civilians, and you can’t target or harm them.
• No Targeting Civilian Buildings – In any given game map, houses, schools, or hospitals are considered safe zones that you cannot harm. When fighting in these spaces, you must do everything you can to avoid damage.
• Use Med Kits On Everyone – If you have an unused med kit that works on others, you must give it to those who need it—be they friendly or enemy.

Follow The Rules

I can expect Arma 3 players to do this as much of the community plays fairly seriously, not to mention the game already features a Laws of War DLC but Fortnite? If I’m down on the ground I doubt that my enemy is going to come over and hand me a medkit. I also doubt they won’t break rule one and mag dump me on the ground and shortly after, default dancing on my dead body, I wonder if that’s a war crime?

Jokes aside this is all for a good cause and will feature several top FPS streamers playing various games by the rules of war, You can learn more about the cause at the website here.