No one pays $60 to go to a funeral.

Just how real is "realistic" and more importantly how realistic do you want it, If video games are a form of entertainment then shouldn't their primary purpose be to entertain?
Specifically I'm talking about military based FPS titles, Gamespot writer Tom McShea penned an 800 word article based on his findings at E3 for Electronic Arts upcoming shooter Medal of Honor:Warfighter, McShea clearly wasn't happy about the level of realism and stated that regenerating health and respawning teammates trivialised the sacrifices that the game professes to honor. Producer Greg Goodrich to his credit pointed out that Medal of Honor: Warfighter makes no "realistic" claim—it is simply "authentic" in terms of the tools, weapons, uniforms, dialogue and other supporting features depicted.
Medal of Honor: Warfighter will come with a "hardcore" mode that strips out the regenerating health but I for one would not want to see this as a default option as suggested by McShea. How realistic do we really want military FPS titles to be, do we continue to acknowledge that the taking of another life is indeed horrific and profound but remove that shocking emotional effect from video game entertainment to protect the viability of the product or do we include it at the expense of taste and economic success?

Not a week goes by when we don't hear on the news that another soldier has been killed by an IED in Afghanistan, the Taliban's current preferred weapon of choice but my question for Mr McShea is does he want the horrific realism of injuries caused in combat to be reflected in entertainment products like military genre  video games. Will the inclusion of seeing a young soldier screaming in incredible pain with both legs missing below the knee whilst his uniform is on fire bring anything new or do anything more to reflect the realism in war. I know for a fact I don't want that level of realism in my games, that doesn't mean I'm not aware of the sacrifices our soldiers are making or even makes light of the life changing injuries that have a devastating effect on the physical and mental state of our veterans.
If I get shot two or three times in one instance on a real battlefield, chances are I'm either going to be dead or seriously injured, maybe even paralysed. I really don't believe that including the realism of life changing wounds in a battlefield situation is going to do anything for FPS games. So what are we talking about here?, we get shot in the game, fall to the ground bleeding from three 7.62mm rounds that ripped into us from a compound seventy metres away, then we wait for a team player posing as a medic to come over because we're mashing the call for help button like crazy. 3 mins later he arrives having taken the long way round from the construction site(Battlefield 3), my game is now on hold as I'm still on the floor, my joypad is vibrating and I'm still bleeding. Okay so now we've called for a medevac from the aircraft carrier and one of my team mates (who I don't know) needs to run out into the open and pop smoke for the chopper to find us in the Gulf of Oman map somewhere by veterans retreat, that's another 5 mins before the chopper can safely  land and still I'm on the floor and can't get back into the game. Turns out that my main artery is ripped and I'm bleeding internally, medic's got to cut me open and clamp it but I need to stay conscious that's another 2 mins spent on a bloody floor with med packs, plasma and crap everywhere. All the while I'm using up one medic, one guy popping the smoke and probably another three team mates to secure the landing zone. Is this the realism we're talking about? because so far I've been in the game 9 mins and on the floor 8 mins unable to play.
Video games are as stated at the top of this article entertainment but they are also a business, there are investors, there is a product, there is a consumer and there is a profit to be made.
Under no circumstmances am I remotely trivialising the sacrifices made by serving soldiers when I say that, but that is the fact, a brand and a product has to have appeal in order for people to buy it. EA's Medal of Honor reboot in 2010 was heavily criticised as being too realistic with the military jargon that it went against the product, that also calling the enemy "the Taliban" was also wrong, but hang on, I thought you guys wanted realism, I thought you wanted to follow proper radio protocol and all the glossy tier one chatter didn't you?
In the single player campaign for Battlefield 3 you experience in first person view your own execution at the hands of muslim extremists, they toy with you in front of a camera set up to film the act which in this case is your throat being cut. I did feel uncomfortable while playing it, it made me slightly uneasy but its because I'd seen the 2004 Ken Bigley video, a barbaric and inhumane act as you can imagine, an innocent man having his head cut off on video for all to see.
God I wish health regeneration did exist in our daily lives, perhaps then those four hollow point bullets fired by Mark David Chapman into John Lennon's back wouldn't have been felt for generations since. Do we really need to understand the complexities of soft tissue trauma caused by hollow point rounds in order to appreciate the dangers of firefights while playing a game on xbox Live on a Saturday night?

Developers have a huge responsibility for product content, finding a perfect balance and doing so with a  level of taste that does not offend is no easy task.If I play Battlefield 3 it really doesn't bother me that when I destroy a tank the opposing player / occupant doesn't tumble out of the hatch with his uniform on fire with the skin melting from his face, I don't necessarily require that specific level of detail to realise in real life that is what does happen. I'm more than happy to have in-game characters with the same level of speech and expression as LA Noire, I'm quite happy to have 5 times more collateral damage to objects in games and I'm as happy as Larry to have an unrivalled selection of firearms and attachments and medals to obtain. Give me an Osprey I can fly with the whole multiplayer team on-board, give me access to each and every floor and building in the multiplayer map and all at the sacrifice of experiencing what real bullets do to real bodies, that is more than fine with me.Game play and the complexities of game design mean that there needs to be a degree of flow to how games are played, sometimes this is done at the creative expense of what reality actually proves otherwise. This balance is a paper thin line that developers are challenged with staying within, not just for the sake of game play but as an entertainment product that won't offend because its being seen to trivialise active duty soldiers in combat situations.I'd very much like to know where Tom McShea was when EA released Medal of Honor Allied Assault, did the lack of combat realism and the fact we weren't exposed to seeing 19 year old American boys screaming for their mothers with their lower intestines on their lap on Omaha Beach make this product a poor one?, depicting a place where over two thousand soldiers were gunned down in the surf in an attempt to storm 600 yards of beach, did that mock the actual veterans that went through it all? Did Mr McShea criticise Mr Speilberg for Saving Private Ryan, I mean, that's a movie right?, another entertainment product where Tom Hanks probably had a personal assistant bring him hot coffee between takes of storming up that bloody beach for the fifth time in a morning. That doesn't mean Tom Hanks didn't understand or appreciate any less the magnitude of the horror one morning in June 1944.
Tom McShea's article does raise some interesting points, unfortunately without actually suggesting any alternatives. Real soldiers don't regenerate health over time, yes we all get that Mr McShea but what is it you really want, what level of realism do you want because no one pays $60 to go to a funeral?

Tom McShea's original article can be read here