Don't count your war crimes, make your war crimes count...

attacking medical personel is a war crime. number 1 rule in video games, kill the healer first.

"Remember kids, killing an enemy puts one soldier out of commission. Gravely injuring him keeps two others out of the battlefield for the price of one." _- Sun Tzu, The Art of War Crimes_

Rule 4 goes against basic military policy in all NATO and Russian nations. Your IFAK (individual first aid kit) is for YOU only. If you get hit, a friendly soldier is supposed to use your IFAK on you, and vice versa. They literally come with a little message stamped on them that says "This is for your use only, DO NOT USE ON OTHERS".

Remember, the worst crime in war is losing Avoid that, and the rest will be forgiven

the ICRC conveniently forgets the fact that war criminals aren't usually considered war criminals unless they lose

"Share your medkits with everyone" Friendly heavies who have been giving sandwiches and other food to everyone since August 19, 2008:

This video is literally more of an effective lesson about what constitutes a war crime than the Red Cross's entire Play by the Rules campaign.

i feel like this video is the closest davey has ever been to being gripped by something with the malicious intent of squeezing an emotiong out his cold, dead vocal chords. naturally, it was a response to sheer stupidity, the strongest force in the universe next to the irs

this video has mind me a different person, I have now commited 1000 war crimes, thank you davy you saved my family

Every time actions like this are attempted it's just wtf. Yeah, killing people is also bad but games aren't real life, I thought we went through that 20-30 years ago.

As someone who plays both Rimworld, Hearts of Iron IV, and From The Depths, I've probably committed enough warcrimes for this year, I think I should move on to crimes against humanity next.

I feel like the Red Cross should have a lot more important things to do with their time than whine about what happens in video games, honestly.

The Red Cross is full of old people who do not understand that we all do things we'd never do in video games. That's a good thing. Also there are multiple wars happening right now, is THIS what you're spending money on?!

In basic our drill sgt told us a story about how a triggerman who set off an ied on their convoy got almost torn in half by the .50 on a humvee, but was still alive and thus they were required to give him aid, so the doc walked verrryyyy slowly to go get his aid bag, and then verrryyy slowly back, and was like "oh no he died what a bummer"

Honestly the "monotone" thing isn't a bad thing in my eyes, it's better than being constantly fake excited.

Instructions unclear I am now under trial for warcrimes in angola

Davey has joined the war on war crimes on the side of war crimes.

Red cross: No, video game war crimes hurt me! Also red cross: Refusing aid in Maui, barricading areas to stop civilians from fleeing the fires, stealing third party aid for themselves, isolating Maui from the military bases and stopping any on or off duty soldiers from helping their families and ignoring drowning children.

Remeber, its not a warcrime if: A. It's the first time B. You win the war C. Have friends in higher places

I feel like this article could've been a lot better if it focused a lot more on franchises that glorify war and casually commit war crimes as part of the main story of the game. Like the CoD franchise. CoD games that drop you in some random town in a vaguely Middle Eastern location where you mow down everything that moves comes to mind. But by keeping it vague and putting the blame on the player, it becomes a really dumb joke

I'm actually surprised that TF2 hasn't been DMCA'd by the Geneva Convention already Like the RED team Medic is a straight up middle finger to our overlords at Switzerland

I think the first thing to do is to convince every single video game developer currently actively developing a video game to simultaneously reinstate the "red cross" to indicate medical paraphernalia. The resulting genericization effect on the symbol will result in the loss of trademarks on it.

Imagine having a committee made up of brains so smooth that they tried to create a psyop to coerce gamers into applying the incredibly gray and shaky real-world “rules” of the Geneva Suggestions to their own power-fantasy games. Games, may I remind you, whose primary purpose is to help the player ESCAPE from the cares of reality for a while.

Red cross really decided the best game to use for picture examples of 'not' committing war crimes was ARMA 3. The literal war crime capital of gaming (other than rimworld.) Maybe it was because the Rules of War DLC existing and they had no idea what they were looking at.

Real talk tho: The Red Cross getting mad over video games is... well, incredibly stupid. No matter how much they push for us using the rules of engagement in a freaking video game... the game won't always let us *do* that (see example - Spec Ops: The Line) Also the whole medkits thing is also stupid. If they'd ever played a game where those are used, (such as Halo, Warface, or pretty much any FPS game) you physically can't heal the enemy team. I feel like we're beyond saving if even the people who are supposed to be providing aid in disasters and warzones are getting upset over a bunch of pixels on a screen instead of doing their job. Yes, some people are influenced to do horrible things by video games. But that's typically the *very* mentally unwell. The average gamer will commit warcrimes because either the game forces them to or they do it because they can. However they still realize that warcrimes are horrible real world things. In short? Defy the Red Cross. Be gay, do crime.

my reaction to seeing the "no thirsting" made me think "so everyone making sure corpses are in fact corpses are war criminals because they don't want to risk a 'corpse' just pretending to be dead and so commiting a warcrime?" after all, in my extremely limited knowledge about warfare, i at least think something done is 'double tapping', where you fire an extra round or two into a corpse to make sure it isn't just pretending to be a corpse in order to catch you by surprise

This video increased my wcpm (war crimes per minute) by 80%, thank you for helping my optimize my girlbossing potential

Odd comparison but this reminded me of this weird survey i found a few years back. One of the questions was You are the healer of a group fighting in an arena, Your team is steamrolling the other and you have one charge left on your healing staff. The choices were essentially Heal your Team, Heal the Enemy Team or Abstain. I chose to heal my own team because thats what my job was. Apparently that was a bad choice dictated by the survey results

The "no thirsting" rule sounds dumb to me because in some games enimies can fake their death and attack you when you stop looking (like unreal, wolfestein Blade of agony, the zombies in quake, etc), so i guess i am suposed to let them shoot me instead of... Using a few rounds to have shure that they are actually deada

It is funny how they put a "do not target civilian buildings" rule, but neglected a "do not use civilian buildings as cover" rule. So, people could just sit inside a house and fire frommthe windows, without getting any return fire.

The red cross : ew, war crimes are gross, don't do that, not even in video games! Davey: BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE THRONE OF SKULLS!

Yes, thank you, I will now commit every possible war crime in every game I play, no matter how difficult they are!

When would they learn that the fantasies one experiences never automatically translates into their reality.

Homemade weapons for use in real combat are considered warcrimes. Therefore, pretty much every weapon in minecraft can be a warcrime except the trident.

You can perform War Crimes in Animal Crossing. The only way to truly prevent them is either by completely removing video games entirely or surveilling every game session, a complete invasion of privacy.

If Davey wasn't the "war crimes guy" yet, he sure is now

When replaying Mass Effect 1 recently, I made my shotgun fire explosive rounds and it was the best weapon I had. Used it for pretty much the entire game. The segment about weapons literally described all of my favorite weapons in any game ever.

As a Terraria player, you're right. A bleed build can be jacked as hell, especially if you stack the bleeding with flames.

I like how most of the TF2 mercs classify for this initiative Scout: The Boston Basher causes a lot of unnecessary pain when you could just shoot the enemy to take them out of their misery. Also, Scout looks like a civilian without even using cosmetics. Soldier: The Beggar's Bazooka has an insane amount of unpredictability and is very likely to cause collateral damage towards everything in its radius. Pyro: Almost all of Pyro's equipment would be incredibly painful but not kill you outright, especially when factoring in the burning. Demoman: If you throw your sticky bombs willy-nilly, it can be classified as collateral casualties Engineer: Your sentry gun automatically locks on to anyone who isn't in your team, including Medics. You don't even really need to try here. Heavy: The Eviction Notice looks about as painful as the Boston Basher. Medic: It's a crime for combatants to pretend to be medical personnel, and Medic lost his license long ago, which technically qualifies him. Also, most of his weapons are war crimes by themselves. Sniper: covering people with Jarate counts as both biological warfare and unethical treatment. Spy: Not only can you disguise as a member of the enemy team, you can also pretend to be a Medic.

Honestly, the red cross is pretty good, but their video game stance is ridiculous. Most war crimes are in solo games and multiplayer is way less good. Which is worse: killing a downed ennemy in a world where they have a pretty good chance of killing you later if you dont and where coming back to life is a thing, or the minecraft nuke mod for being a nuke? A few colors in a random indie game or 99% of dnd characters for ignoring the geneva suggestion? Either way, I hope Davey doesnt get branded as a war criminal in the next few days. Have a good day to anyone that reads

This is truly an inspirational video. I shall now find a game and speedrun the entire Geneva Convention. Like God intended

I've always found the Red Crosses crusade against using a red plus sign in video games to be insane. That's why I always love seeing older video games that use it. It's like an old monument still standing in open defiance.

I feel like defying the red cross is just an inherent instinct

Pro tip: It's not a war crime if noone finds out.

Rimworld is infamous for being "the warcrime game" which makes me wonder if I would be able to commit (literally) every war crime in the book in that game. Some may require a little fudging (such as using IVF to impregnate prisoners of war in lieu of the direct approach)

I love that Valve was able to reach around the Red Cross by saying “no we use a red plus”

the whole concept of 'war crimes' is really funny to me cause war is itself a crime against humanity

Wait. So are they ok with committing war crimes in single player games? Cause that’s where I commit most of my war crimes.

A single DRG player has likely done all of these things: Firing upon allies, use of flamethrowers, use of nuclear weapons, cruel and unusual torture of enemy, cluster explosives, use of chemical weapons, cyber warfare, and likely many many others.

I love that they use screenshots from the A3 Laws of War DLC on the website for it. The DLC that added in easier ways to commit war crimes.

"Stop doing mean things in video games! It's not funny!" Best way to get loads of gamers to do something while thinking it's hilarious.

Thx for the tutorial Davy! Now I can be much more efficient while committing various atrocities against the civilian population. Truly, you are one of the people of all time.

This... How do I say this? This is the greatest video ever made. EMBRACE CHAOS.

"I would never commit a war crime. Blitzkrieg and surprise nuclear strikes are wrong." Said no Civ player ever.

4:12 The idea is supposed to be that the medic who isn't armed is supposed to be able to go in and pick up the injured (friendly or enemy) and since he isn't armed and clearly identified (i.e red cross, which is why they're jerks about people not misusing the symbol for things like HP or basic medicine since if people don't know that red cross means unarmed medic; they'll shoot em) he's not supposed to be shot at. Obviously the real rules leave a lot of flexibility from admissions that certain actions can't be taken if there is a power imbalance (i.e the side that clearly has no medical capacity because they're a ragtag militia aren't under any significant expectation to provide aid though they are expected to at least try to be impartial), aren't actually considered a real military (i.e mercenaries and terrorists don't actually have any legit combatant rights under geneva lol), or there is no potential to take prisoners. Particularly in the last case, there's no reason to assume you would have to run out and save a man during an active firefight and no sane medic (unarmed or not, many medics are often times armed simply because their enemies don't follow the rules anyway) would risk that either. Still weird that they want people to follow the rules in video games that often establish that the laws of warfare don't apply due to non-military status, non-human status or otherwise.

I think rule 1 was more about if the target is already dead or fully incapacitated, don’t overkill as it’ll likely come off as sadistic, and you’d be wasting ammo anyway. Rule 4 probably meant like for enemy personell who end up taken as prisoners, after they’re fully clear of the combat zone.

Speaking of Rule 2 of customizing weapons to cause suffering, playing Baby Shark on loop in the VC does count as psychological warfare and it causes severe mental damage to your enemies. Use when only when strictly nescessary.

this is so dystopian bro imagine if the red cross tried to get any depictions of war crimes in movies or books removed

Fun fact: the Red Cross' first rule, "No thirsting", actually kind of violates standard ROE. Unless the wounded combatant is surrendering or there's no active combatants left in the area, you just double tap them. This is both to prevent them from trying to do a last stand and also to put them out of their misery. Of course, you shouldn't target the guy writhing on the floor in pain when the guy in front of you is still shooting, but it's too risky to let them live.

Well the part about helping both sides is for when the fighting is over. Basically if you find someone belonging to opposing or allied forces, you cannot refuse treatment to them. They’re not saying you should go seek out wounded enemies and treat them during the fight.

List of warcrimes: This list is incomplete, *you can help by expanding it* In game

I like how rule 2 kinda just invalidates all battle Royale games, considering you aren't supposed to shoot the incapacitated which downed players are

I love the tiny bit defending nuclear power:):)

Thank you, I will now commit as many war crimes as possible and inevitably get away with it because my side won the conflict and will repeat it in the next conflict but much worse in every way possible because it'll be way funnier this time. If I ever get caught, I'll just say that it was all for the goofs

This absolute genius has now completely reversed my ethics and morals, thus making me the best version of my self that I have ever been. I will be ever grateful of the intense wisdom that has been pumped into my brain. Crime rules!

Remember, it's not a crime if you don't get caught or you win

Me, a warframe player breaking every rule of the geneva convention by breathing: "wait what do you mean avoid warcrimes?"

Y’know, I have always wanted to do an all war crimes speedrun

"If you treat people like criminals, they become criminals"

This made me realize that Payday2 (and likely the entire Payday franchize) speedruns the Geneva convention as if it was a to do list Lots of guns have poison and incendiary ammunition modifications, so you can use poison rounds You can attack civilians (though bain charges you for it you can just pay him a million dollars to attack 12 civilians) You can take a police man hostage and make him fight for you You can attack shopping malls, and other non-military buildings The police squad in higher difficultirs has medics, which not only can you attack, you are actively incouraged to attack them You can set up trip mines, and completely forget where you put it, so a civilian can run into it and explode Torture is present in a lot of heists

Not sure why but I feel like I can trust Davey

Imagine caring about a game using your symbol but not about all the war crimes that happen every day in Africa, middle east etc. Because what happens there isn't such a big deal but some game used a red cross on a med kit? That's a offence

Didn't the red cross complain about first aid kits in Neverwinter Nights a couple of decades ago? All the red from the first aid kit was removed as the devs decided it was not a battle worth fighting. This is not new behavior for them

As someone with hundreds of hours in it. Rimworld is a game that's great for doing virtual war crimes.

I love war crimes.

As someone who never got into Fortnite, the video idea of delving into the lore sounds interesting as I didn't even know there was lore.

If I was convicted for my war crimes in video games I’d get the noose.

At 4:12, you outline a scenario that the Red Cross probably does not actually imply. Basic first aid certification training states that you only should perform life-saving procedures if it doesn't put you at risk. Step one of every scenario is to scan your surroundings for potential hazards, since the last thing EMS needs to worry about is another wounded person. So, by that logic, running across an active battlefield to perform first aid for an enemy soldier is not exactly obligatory. However, this training guideline also suggests that you shouldn't use your medkits on enemies at all. A quick examination of the scene will instantly reveal that bringing an enemy back from the brink you sent them into will most likely lead to your injury or death.

The title of the video got me to click, within the first minute with the mention of the article I paused the video, leaned back, took a deep breath, and just muttered "Ho boy, this is gonna be the start of something akin to PETA's losing battle against Pokemon, isn't it?" Edit: okay, lets go over the ICRC's "Rules of engagement." 1. No "Thirsting". So... are they telling us to camp a downed enemy, use them as bait to draw out other enemies to kill/down? I mean... sure, whatever. Doesn't say anything about not letting them bleed out from a gut shot. 2. Don't kill non violent npcs. Most multiplayer maps will not have non hostile npcs on them, and for co-op shooters, you tend to get penalized for firing on non combatants anyway, bit of a moot point. But if a game doesn't penalize you for that, yeah, sure, check your targets. 3. No targeting civilian buildings. Once again, not really something a game will incentivize you to do. Most destruction to civilian buildings and infrastructure tends to come from scripted events of enemies applying excessive force to stop the player and their squad, so again, a moot point. But sure, in games where environmental destruction is a thing, prevent or minimize collateral damage to buildings wherever possible. Instead of blowing away a wall with a rocket, breach the door and let the claymore the enemy placed do that for you. 4. Use Medkits on everyone. You just straight up can't do this one. A vast majority of games will not let you heal an injured or downed enemy, and medic classes tend to have a limited amount of healing, or at the very least, a cooldown between uses. In games where such a cooldown is negligible or non existent and scarcity is no concern, usually the only targets you can heal are allies, and generally you have a single target focus. Granted, a lot of these can apply to games like Arma and other milsim type shooters, and most youtubers who partake in Arma Ops and the like, typically try to avoid, or at the very least, severely limit non combatant casualties, at least from what I've seen. So... congrats ICRC, these rules are things that are either already enforced in game, or straight up only possible to do in a very select games. Let people have their fun in a space where it's not actually hurting anyone, christ.

davey, we love you, we love your depressed monologue, it makes me think that you are a real human being that understands the sad sack of crap that our world really is, keep up the good work man, we love you srsly!!! id buy you a baegle if i had money but i live in brazil were the exchange rate would probably cost me 10 beagles to buy you 1 beagle so i not gonna do it :)

Counterargument to war crimes in games, you can't commit war crimes if you're not a UN Signatory.

As a Warframe player, literally every weapon in that game fits the conditions stated in #2. Literally the meta strategy in that game is to infect your enemies with viral bioweapons so that the bleeding applied by your melee weapons or guns is more potent, all while setting them on fire so their armor is less effective.

See now, the reason rules of war were created was because someone, somewhere, was enthusiastically doing those things. War was civilized because of how many wars were being fought in Europe. A lord could be expected to fight multiple battles across multiple wars, and people generally didn't want to die (and especially didn't want to die horribly). So wars developed a sort of gentleman's ruleset. Things like accepting surrenders and not butchering them to a man. Surrenders especially are an interesting idea, because you are essentially telling the other guy "I give up" and expecting him to take that on faith and not kill you just to be sure. Which is why there were rules in war for both the victor and the loser. The winner should accept surrenders, because it means he has won and no more blood need be shed. If you gain a reputation for not accepting surrenders, then the enemy will fight to the last man, costing you unnecessary losses. Meanwhile, you should never FAKE a surrender, because that means future real surrenders will be rejected, and you might be butchered to the last man. Let's look at medics for a moment. See, medics are a recent addition, and the gentlemen's agreement was that as long as no one attacked the medic, then both sides would get medical attention. So, if you kill medics, your guys aren't getting medical care, and if you use fake medics to get the drop on people, your real medics will start getting shot. By the way, this is where the idea that America brutalized the natives comes from. See, originally, we tried treating them according to the upstanding and gentlemanly ways of European war. Some tribes got the point, but other tribes looked at the idea that you make rules for war, and concluded that only weak people need rules to fight a war. Eventually America stopped giving the natives the gentlemanly touch. Every tribe that broke a treaty meant less value was given to those documents on America's end. Every faked surrender meant a real one turned into a slaughter. Every time a perceived civilian suddenly attacked a soldier, it meant soldiers gave less of a shit about giving other civilians basic decent treatment. The native Americans only knew one kind of war, and that was total war. And while they fought total war and we fought civilized war, we were on the back foot. When we discarded those civilized rules, and started butchering tribes... Well, that's the lesson of history. If a vastly technologically superior culture wants to use a specific set of rules to fight a war by, you should follow those rules. Because they didn't come up with those rules just to protect their fragile little peaceloving hearts. Those rules come from dark oceans of blood surrounding islands of corpses.

War crimes, as a concept, only make sense for wars that have no purpose. Where winning or losing doesn't really make a difference to you, it's just war for war's sake. If the war has a purpose, like for example you're fighting for your continued existence, and losing the war means the destruction of everything you know and love? In that kind of situation, crimes are a secondary concern to winning. The Red Cross are thus horrible people. They don't see soldiers as being people, just toys in some game. They don't see war as a serious thing, or some sort of existential threat to the people subjected to it. Nope, they just see war as a minor thing where you need to play by the rules. Truly disgusting.

Yeah, it's so dumb that the red cross goes after video games for having what is pretty much considered the universal symbol for first aid. You might be able to get around it by using the templar cross which is mostly the same except with some little bits at the end tho

I have an idea. How many war crimes can one commit in Pikmin? It feels like it would be a lot.

you do not have to gaslight me into believing the world's better with me in it, i already know it isn't

I genuinely wonder if the person who wrote those red cross rules ever even played a game

“Stop committing war crimes in games” me with my slam fire shotgun, triangle bayonet and homemade flamethrower.

Funny thing about rule 3 (No targeting civ buildings), is that you are allowed to do so under certain conditions, mainly that you can argue that the military advantage of such actions are worth the possibility of civilian casualties I learned this from Arma 3's DLC "Laws of War", which was made in collaboration with the ICRC

Is melting a continent full of two billion people a warcrime? Cuz I've done that like a million times now in a game I play, and now I'm worried the Red cross will find out.

Last rule, plead insanity because there's not another man who would have done what you have done

I like how they say "no thirsting" as if the double tap isn't standard military protocol.

One of the most important steps is enlisting or commissioning you character into the military. If you’re not a soldier, you’re just committing regular crimes.

You could argue that some war crimes actually reduce suffering by ending the conflict quickly rather than a protracted team sport where everyone gets to stand back up and try again after being rescued by a medic. Better to inflict unimaginable but very visible suffering on a few unlucky soldiers and have the rest surrender for fear of being the next victim to your chemical nightmare devices.

It would be funny if you had a whole website about this lol

I'd like to thank the Red Cross for making such a fun checklist to live by every day.

BTW, the us army infantry gets around the first rule by deadchecking everybody before they pass over, the assaulting team does on passover, deadchecks everyone they see, the the fire support team does the same. If boths teams miss someone and "pass over" the combatant, they are now a POW and protected under the geneva convention.

Yeah no I want to commit MORE war crimes in games.