Probably a joke. I imagine the Geneva Convention has some sort of conditions on how red crosses are used in regards to denoting medical personnel / infrastructure. No idea what crosses in the game the bug fix is referring to, though.
It's the cross on the front of the clinic. It's blue now. And the cross on the health bar. It's an H now. I do to an extent see the "sanctity" of the red cross in a war time context. The fact that they want to pressure video games though, seems a bit silly. I'm not well versed in the nuances, but I believe the Geneva Convention on use of the cross, and the Red Cross holding the trademark on the image are two different issues. But that doesn't mean game creators aren't caught in a cross fire between the two. I see there's a mod on Nexus that restores the previous imagery... curious if they're going to catch flack... Thinking about it they'll probably never hear a thing. It's 2018, they won't say a word to mod creators, they'll just demand Nexus remove them.
This piqued my curiosity a while back when I noticed it in the release notes, so I looked into it a bit more. In many countries it is a specific criminal offence to use, without proper authority, the emblem of the Red Cross, and related emblems such as the Red Crescent. For instance in the UK, as far as I can tell, it looks like it's an indictable offence punishable by a fine of up to £5,000. I think you'll find it's green
You know what is great about Switzerland? I don't either, but their flag is a big plus. <it's related, think it through> Actually on topic, I don't know the exact code, but for the Geneva Convention to apply to use of the Red Cross flag I would expect it to be akin to fighters are required to be in uniforms to denote what side they are on. Thus using the Red Cross flag to imply neutrality to get close to launch an attach is obviously a War Crime. Using a red cross in a video game? Where do we draw the line?
I don't understand all this fancy talk, can someone please explain in english why having a red cross is such a big deal?
We had this same problem at my work we had an in house program that used a red cross (it was a program for medical records) and were forced to change it. It boils down to two issues with a red cross. First in the US it is reserved for the organization "The Red Cross" in many other countries its use is reserved for similar aid organizations. That is also spelled out in certain treaties such as the Geneva Convention as stated by UnexpectedPatrol above that use is reserved for those that are non combatants in action and other use is prohibited. So simply said you are not to use it unless you are representing an aid agency.
It isn't. It's just CA's dry wit: Red Cross->Geneva Convention->but no Red Cross group in the game, so it's eliminated->joke. And explaining jokes in any fashion is the most unfunny business in the world.
Put plainly and simply, no matter how trivial the usage may seem, even in a computer game graphic, in a lot of countries it is quite literally a criminal offence to use a red cross emblem, unless you are THE Red Cross.
The deal is, according to the Geneva Convention in wartime(actually anytime) the Red Cross is protected. If you attack a Red Cross facility it is a war crime. If you attack your enemy from, or store weapons in a Red Cross facility it is a war crime. The Red Cross(Red Crescent) is a internationally recognized symbol of a non-military, humanitarian organization. And they take it very seriously. As One More Day said, there are places where it is a punishable crime, not a civil infraction, but an actual criminal offense to misuse the symbol. I don't know if ConcernedApe was asked to change the symbol, changed it himself for better international support for the game, or if it was done tongue in cheek to point out that the symbol is misused by a whole bunch of folks. But it is International agreement that the symbol won't be used except in the case of humanitarian aid under the authority of the Red Cross.
Out of all the games I've played I would not expect SDV to be the one to violate the Geneva Convention. If you do a quick search on the great internet you can see that other games have been asked to swap out the red cross for something else (Prison Architect if I'm not mistaken was one, but DOOM was allowed to keep the red cross on their health packs). As others have pointed out, the red cross symbol is used by the Red Cross to show neutrality in conflict. I don't know for sure if the Red Cross has copy right over the red cross symbol, but the wording of the Geneva Convention and other international laws prohibit it from being in the public domain.
It's not actually a Geneva convention violation... well, perhaps I should clarify, in this particular usage it isn't a Geneva convention violation, it's a copyright and trademark violation. The Red Cross, as in the organization, has trademarked and copyrighted the Red Cross image and likeness, particularly when used in reference to medical equipment, and doesn't like its likeness being used in video games in general. You'll find many other games that have changed the image of their healing items for similar reasons. I don't know if CA did it voluntarily or were 'asked' to do so by a politely worded C&D, but this is more about copyright and trademark infringement than military law. It would be roughly like using a Mario image or a Mickey Mouse image to denote something in a game... Nintendo or Disney would be rather upset if you used that in your content without their permission.
I was wondering why Earthbound (SNES game from 1994) danced around the red cross image like they did, this makes sense. I'd like to think CA changed things up upon realizing it was a copyright violation, I imagine lots of people aren't aware that the red cross is trademarked. (I wasn't before reading this that it was specific to Red Cross).