For those curious the articles of the Geneva Convention only ban active combatants in a theatre of combat from using humanitarian emblems in order to trick non combatants or even enemy combatants into falling into a killzone as that would be a war crime.
I can't believe I have to explain this to grown adults, but putting humanitarian aid emblems on humanitarian aid in a video game is not, in fact, a war crime.
Fun fact! The only humanitarian aid emblem that is covered by US trademark so far as I can tell is the red cross. So slap a nice red Star of David or Crescent Moon on your health pickups because the Geneva Conventions define humanitarian emblems as being multicultural and acknowledges not every one in the world is Christian.
Sorry for the rant but it drives me nuts how many otherwise perfectly intelligent people spread this misinformation without once thinking 'hang on, why would international war crime courts give a shit about some pos video game?'
@thelobdegg I'm genuinely curious since this comes up... A lot not just in the Doom community but elsewhere -- Nintendo had to (before launch) patch Earthbound, but it's been in several countries that **The red cross** points to the Geneva Convention as their cudgel:
On top of that, the ICRC **themselves** cite it: https://www.icrc.org/en/copyright-and-terms-use#:~:text=The%20red%20cross%20and%20red,unauthorized%20persons%20is%20strictly%20forbidden.
(They, of course, also want video games to conform; https://playbytherules.icrc.org/ )
Red Cross of Canada doesn't *directly* say it, but comes close:
@indrora I hadn't looked into the international wing, but I consider it telling that I only ever hear about red *crosses* get blocked. The articles of the GC suggest any red logo associated with faiths or even ideologies with publicly known symbology that are known to promote sanctuary and assistance can constitute a humanitarian emblem.