
Call of Duty's underlying message is becoming more troubling - evo_9
http://www.edge-online.com/features/call-of-duty-piece/
======
rl3
There's far more than the plot lines that are troubling.

For example, much is made of the fact that real-life Special Forces soldiers
aid in the development of these games for the sake of authenticity. That's
great, but that authenticity is then baked into products that paint a wholly
misleading picture about the realities of war. The Medal of Honor franchise is
also guilty of this.

In a much larger sense, it just feels like there's a giant entertainment
industry cash grab that's been taking place off of ongoing US conflicts, and
it's being masked in soldier worship and flag-waving. In my opinion, this
phenomenon only serves to obscure the real sacrifices made by service
personnel.

This is even more unfortunate when you consider the franchise is heavily
marketed on the basis of its supposed authenticity, and its main audience
tends to be quite a few years below each game's M rating. I don't even
remotely care about violence in videogames, but messaging that resembles
propaganda seems troublesome, especially with a younger audience.

That said, I realize they're games, and the object of games is to entertain.
Therein lies the second problem: Call of Duty games tend to be mediocre at
best. The fact their sales are so strong is a testament to Activision's
marketing powerhouse.

~~~
saraid216
> For example, much is made of the fact that real-life Special Forces soldiers
> aid in the development of these games for the sake of authenticity.

I'm really amused at the idea that there are veterans who have been through
hell sat in a room debriefing for a bunch of artists and programmers.

Also in complete disbelief.

~~~
sliverstorm
You wouldn't be excited if someone wanted to make a video game about your job?
That's like the 21st century's movie deal.

~~~
rhizome
"How many bone chips were there? Did any blood spray in your face?"

~~~
sliverstorm
Yes, I'm sure it goes exactly like that. Because lord knows CoD software
developers aren't actually people, but a bunch of gore-thirsty carrion
vultures.

------
Houshalter
Oh Jesus, it's an American war game, what did you expect? They have to make up
fictional enemies in order to have something to fight. It's not realistic and
it's not _supposed_ to be.

I think it says a lot about the current state of the world, how implausible
world war scenarios now seem.

~~~
mistermumble
Even Hollywood movies now have a global perspective, with storyline and
characters that allow people in different regions to identify and own the
experience.

Wonder why CoD has not caught up with the times.

~~~
dageshi
Because people don't buy CoD for the single player campaign they buy it for
the multiplayer. So long as the Single Player sets up some nice maps and
environments for the multiplayer that's all that really matters in selling the
game.

~~~
psykotic
> Because people don't buy CoD for the single player campaign they buy it for
> the multiplayer.

I assume 'people' means a majority. While I'm not privy to statistics
specifically for CoD, one of the first games I worked on (Unreal Tournament
2004) was explicitly focused on multiplayer. It didn't even have a single-
player campaign. You could play versus bots and that was about it. In spite of
that, comparing sales with server data showed that only a small minority of
our customers ever went online, let alone played predominantly online. I'd be
surprised if CoD wasn't skewed even further in that direction considering its
extensive single-player campaign.

------
benihana
Doom might be just a game, but it's underlying message that we should be
killing demons makes me very uncomfortable.

~~~
gamblor956
It always did seem weird that all the demons were trying to escape from hell
but we were trying to get to it...

------
thisiswrong
This article raises a valid point, but sadly doesn't fully address it.

Are the same group of conspirators who illegally spy on us also pulling
strings in Hollywood and at game studios to promote their agenda? This concept
may seem hard for certain to believe. But a quick look at history clearly
shows that oppressive and feudal rulers have actively promoted different types
of story telling/theater acts or bible scripts that implicitly match their
agenda.

Some articles for your thoughts...

[http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/18/video-
game...](http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/mar/18/video-games-
propaganda-tools-military)

[http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-17/government-p...](http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-17/government-
pushes-propaganda-through-video-games-0)

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/the-cia-and-other-
gov...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/the-cia-and-other-government-
agencies-dominate-hollywood-movies-and-television.html)

~~~
mhurron
>Are ... [they] ... pulling strings in Hollywood and at game studios to
promote their agenda?

Only if they always have been. War movies are not a new phenomenon.

Couldn't it simply be that the American public are war-mongers and game
studios are simply giving the people what they wanted?

~~~
thisiswrong
> The American public are war-mongers and game studios are simply giving the
> people what they wanted

By that logic GW Bush was simply trying to get reelected when he helped start
a false war in Iraq and Obama is simply appealing to his electorate (and
perhaps the Nobel peace prize panel) with his assassination programs.

------
emiljbs
You know "it's just a game" does have a lot of mileage left in it if you had
to write an article on edge-online.com about the issue. I can promise you that
none of those teenagers that play CoD ever even thought about that or even
tried to interpret the story at all. In fact, the single-player campaign is
just something you do when you get temporarily bored with multiplayer. If a
teenage player did think of what the story implies then I am sure that he is
also smart enough to think about it further and conclude that that's quite
silly.

I wouldn't be bothered with what one source tells you (if you look really
closely at it) when there are so many other sources of information out there.
Especially when that source isn't considered serious by pretty much everyone
who plays the game.

~~~
debt
While I agree, I do think this underestimates the power of a person's
subconscious. The details outlined in the article might not be explicitly
called out in the gamer's mind, but might set a subconscious expectation for
it to be the case; that "America is a superpower". When this expectation isn't
met in reality, then the user might find themselves defending the position
that "America is great" without them ever realizing why they hold that
position in the first place.

~~~
dwaltrip
Very well said, thank you for posting this. It seems to me that humans in
general have a hard realizing the powerful subtleties of the subconscious and
how it can shape world views/thought patterns over time.

------
patrickg_zill
Supposedly, during WWII and before, the military had a problem: only about 50%
of the guys with a gun in their hand, were shooting to kill the enemy. That
is, about half of their troops felt morally bad about shooting at another
human.

I think that it quite possible that a side effect of CoD et al, would be that
those who played it who later did join the military, would have much less
reluctance in shooting at others. Whether this is deliberate on the part of
the military or just an unplanned outcome, I don't know.

~~~
emiljbs
If they go to the military and act as if it is CoD then the only one that will
die are themselves. It is an interesting question though, however cheeky my
replies may be.

------
copx
Call of Duty is bad, not as bad as Harvest Moon though. That game teaches that
love is something you buy, turning our children into prostitutes with its
underlying message. We must eradicate this filth!

[http://gamezfile.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Download-
Gam...](http://gamezfile.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Download-Game-Harvest-
Moon-For-PC.jpg)

And as if the promotion of prostitution were not enough, it is subtle PETA
propaganda too! You cannot slaughter your farm animals! You run a vegetarian
farm! Instead you have to pet them to make them happy, an act rewarded with
better milk etc. Children who grow up playing these games will likely see
bestiality as normal!

~~~
pyre
I can only assume that this is satire, but:

> You cannot slaughter your farm animals! You run a vegetarian farm! Instead
> you have to pet them to make them happy, an act rewarded with better milk
> etc

This doesn't make any sense. You think that if Harvest Moon were more true-to-
life that slaughtering the animals would make them happy, and produce better
milk?

Also, this:

> Children who grow up playing these games will likely see bestiality as
> normal!

does not jive with this:

> it is subtle PETA propaganda too!

As animals can't consent to sex, I'm pretty sure that Peta wouldn't agree with
bestiality.

~~~
copx
The post was satire, my rant was meant to be nonsense.

The linked article over-analyses a game and over-estimates the impact of games
in general. If you did the same thing with Harvest Moon you could indeed
classify it as pro-vegetarian propaganda and as having a very questionable
message about human relationships.

------
BetaCygni
I haven't played the game, but doesn't a story line that warns about current
(military) infrastructure being used against the population of the U.S. itself
sound very dystopian and modern? Yes, it is troubling but that's not a fault
of the messenger.

~~~
dmazin
I agree with your first sentence, but what's being said is troubling is the
message that American military power should be unchecked.

------
mason240
[Insert popular video game here] might be just a game, but its underlying
message is becoming more and more troubling

~~~
aaronblohowiak
Spec Ops: The Line was a video game and the message was a good one.

~~~
venomsnake
But the gameplay was bad even for modern console shooter. And that says a lot.
I loved the cutscenes but the other parts were terrible. It was - slaughter
these people in gameplay - watch the cutscene how bad war is. They failed to
relay their message with the gameplay.

------
angersock
So, let's run down the list of some military shooters and observe some themes.

Call of Duty--all iterations are basically varying degrees of "America, fuck
yeah!". What's troubling (as the article posits) is that the series has
basically focused on trying to portray America as an underdog despite the
facts of today basically showing that in any knock-down-drag-out fight, we're
basically on par with the Empire in Star Wars. We have all the toys and all
the troops.

Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/2--Not gory, fun gameplay, not serious, not America
Fuck Yeah. All sides are represented more or less fairly, and it's more on the
"game" side of "military games" than the "military" side. The games are about
a level I'd feel comfortable letting a young teen play.

Rainbow Six/Ghost Recon (original series)--Fairly brilliant and unforgiving
tactical shooters under the Tom Clancy/Red Storm banner. Troops died and
stayed dead, one-shot kills were the norm, and honestly anything other than
like an hour of pre-mission planning would result in casualties on your team
if not a complete failure. Hard.

Operation Flashpoint/Armed Assault (Arma)--A brilliant series of military
simulators, a slight rebranding of which (VBS2) is used to train actual
soldiers. The games do a brilliant job of depicting realistic engagement
distances, weapons fire, combined arms, the overwhelming superiority of
American air power, _and how much you will never ever ever want to be an
infantryman_. Seriously, my biggest impression playing the game was "Man, I
hope to hell I never have to wield a rifle for my country, because that life
is short." It's not particularly gory, but the impression of just how fragile
people are in modern engagements is hard to shake. It's pretty solid.

Spec Ops: The Line--A game which starts as a generic third-person America Fuck
Yeah shooter, and then gets darker. And darker. And darker. It's interesting
mostly for its story and gore in points; the actual combat is kind of meh. It
kind of ridicules the entire AFY and military-shooter mindset, and explicitly
mocks the player for participating. It's pretty intense, and I wouldn't
suggest it for younger folks.

Soldier of Fortune 2--This is what Call of Duty would've been if it was less
patriotic, more mercenary, and much much gorier. Every shooter decides to
optimize for something, and these folks decided "Hey, fuck it, what is the
most accurate damage model we can use for people?". You can sever fingers,
joints, render faces a pile of mush...it's quite unsettling, and is very much
not a kid's game.

~

The biggest problem I have with the CoD series is that you basically are
playing lazily-written and farcical missions, and that the combat is neutered
set-pieces. Enemies respawn infinitely in most areas, and gameplay is very
linear (levels do not lend themselves to meaningful exploration). The first
modern warfare game was at least somewhat restrained in its AFY, but the later
entries in the series are way too much "What's the next setpiece going to be?
What's the next cool America Fuck Yeah moment?"

If a game is going to portray war, it should decide whether it wants to be
focus on the fun or on the tactics. Battlefield is a good example of the
former, and Arma/Ghost Recon an example of the latter--Soldier of Fortune was
fun and messy but not focused on showing war, Spec Ops was commentary over
gameplay, and CoD is AFY and young male empowerment fantasies; that is to say,
the last few are action movies and not war movies.

~

One of the interesting messages of CoD (and a message implicit and much better
argued by example in Arma) is that you cannot challenge America and win. Nope.
Can't be done--look at the overwhelming force.

It's somewhat interesting to see this indoctrination going on at this point in
our national history, especially when the .gov and .mil in the past decades
have done so much to show their authortarian and anti-individual tendencies.

~~~
icebraining
_The first modern warfare game was at least somewhat restrained in its AFY_

Which is, not coincidentally, the last game made by Infinity Ward, the
original creators of the series, before Activision fucked them[1] and put
Treyarch in charge.

It's fun to compare the current games with the original, where the most heroic
campaign was definitively the Soviet, including the climactic end where the
player raised the Victory Banner[2] on top of the Reichtag.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward#Infinity_Ward_Em...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward#Infinity_Ward_Employee_Group_v._Activision)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_Banner)

~~~
dfc
I have no idea what are you talking about. Infinity Ward put out Ghosts; they
also put out MW2 and MW3.[1] TreyArch is not in charge of Ghosts, if they were
it would not be so awful. I used to be a die-hard CoD fan and then IW rolled
out the turd that was MW3. I played BF3 that year and I am playing BF4 this
year.

I don't remember World at War being very "AFY." What parts of WaW did you
think were bad?

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward#Games](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward#Games)

~~~
corin_
It's still called Infinity Ward, but it was completely torn up and
reconstructed in 2010, in between MW2 and MW3, really a completely different
company after that time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward#Dismissal_of_sen...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinity_Ward#Dismissal_of_senior_employees)

~~~
dfc
As I said I am a long time fan of the franchise, so I'm fully aware of the
history. I think MW2 (aka pre-restructuring) was where IW lost their way.
There is a giant difference in the gameplay/feel of MW2/MW3/Ghosts compared to
BO1&2\. It is really strange how easy it is to tell whose year it was to put
out the CoD release.

------
drill_sarge
Call of Duty isn't even a good shooter. The franchise has become the example
of a dull, repetitive and undemanding interactive experience - I don't even
say game because most of it are scripted sequences with almost no player
interaction or challenge. And the rest of it is uninspired "gun down 10000000
guys walking direct upfront to you who are too dumb to even hurt you". Also
this "authenticity" is basically laughable. Because there is none. It is not a
authentic war game (like arma) and it is even too dumb, easy and restricted to
be a simple straight forward ego shooter (like serious sam). It's the Michael
Bay of video games.

------
unclebucknasty
There was a time when I believed that art was a reflection of the real world
(i.e. art imitating life). But, more lately, I am beginning to wonder about
that assumption.

For one, the "real world" itself is becoming increasingly virtual, with people
now spending hours each day "interacting" with others via technology. Are the
lines between reality and the virtual world blurring?

And, it's an age-old question as to whether the consumption of violent
entertainment begets real violence. The debate started with film, then moved
to video games. I believe there is a distinction betwen the formats, in that
film is merely viewed passively, while FPS-style games involve the active
engagement of the consumer in simulated violent acts. It is hard to imagine
that hours of this type of activity has no effect on the human mind.

So, while it has been argued that violent entertainment does not lead to a
more violent society, I find it increasingly difficult to reconcile the notion
of a _complete_ disconnect between mass shootings and other forms of dramatic
violence, with the proliferation of realistic FPS games. This is especially
so, given that tactics used in the former frequently seem to mimic those of
the latter.

------
kbar13
yet another sensationalist article about a game that's on its way out

~~~
exodust
The article is not sensationalist.

While it's too short, and only scratches the surface of the topic, his idea is
valid and not unfamiliar to people who like or hate these games.

I've played these games before and thought "this is American bullshit (for
reasons stated in the article).... but kinda fun at the same".

~~~
icebraining
The thing is, anyone who plays CoD for a reasonable amount of time (and I know
I did, until MW1) spends half the time killing Americans, because the single
player is only a footnote compared to the multi player.

------
neuroscr
Art can be interpreted in may ways. Just because the author reads it one way
doesn't mean it was the intent.

~~~
dmazin
But kids aren't consuming COD as art.

Maybe many many years from now we can appreciate it aesthetically, like we do
some propagandic speeches, but right now it's very clear that COD drives a
very certain message to the people who play it - but now I'm just repeating
the article.

~~~
Tohhou
"It's very clear that every movie you watch is driving a certain message. Also
every book. None of that is art. You are so simple minded that these medias
can tell you what to think just by existing and without you being able to make
up your own mind. Let's ban entertainment that doesn't fall in line with our
ideological tow."

~~~
dmazin
Okay...

First of all, children are not actively engaged with media. They can
appreciate art, but for the most part they are not having a conversation with
what they consume, so, yes, we should be aware of what they consume, because,
again, they do not consume like we do.

Second, I don't think we should ban Call of Duty. I think we should shame the
executives responsible out of the industry and set the developers right or not
work with them. However my opinion would be different if the games were less
vulgar/parents had better control over them.

~~~
Tohhou
If children were playing CoD I'd blame the parents, and not the developer, who
is clearly not engaging in a brainwashing conspiracy to get kids to think
things.

> they do not consume like we do

They are smarter than you think. Some play dumb because people except them to
be dumb, but try talking to a kid who isn't oppressed by people who think they
can't engage with media actively.

>I think we should shame the executives responsible out of the industry and
set the developers right or not work with them.

In other words, you want to encourage censorship for things you don't like.

~~~
PavlovsCat
> try talking to a kid who isn't oppressed by people who think they can't
> engage with media actively.

That's right! People who are worried about some of the crap kids get exposed
to are actually actively causing whatever they're worried about. This makes so
much sense.

~~~
Tohhou
Yeah, I blame people who support nanny states for children who are afraid of
thinking. These people think children are some fragile things which are
incapable of thinking.

I've met kids who were raised as people instead of as sub-human property. They
are not damaged. They can make solid choices. They know what's real and what's
not, and fiction doesn't hurt them no more than it does any adult. Children
are hungry for knowledge, and when gained it is exactly what makes people more
resilient against what you fear.

On topic, CoD is not made for children. It's made for adults. But if a child
was exposed to it and they understood it was all pretend do you think they
would be in any way damaged? If they understood that in reality it's not okay
to shoot people that playing a game would make them want to shoot people in
the real world? Would they think it was okay to shoot Russians? That the US
needs a larger army?

I grew up in a highly religious family and was censored from basically every
media in fear of the "crap" turning me toward satan. Which was everything, and
it makes me roll my eyes now what they thought would turn me away from their
god. This is why I hold so much disdain for people who are so worried about
kids being exposed to crap. Let the kids decide if it's crap or not. Talk with
them about why they like it or not. If something concerns you about what they
are interested in, talk with them to make sure they understand what is and
isn't real, what is acceptable in the real world and what isn't. If they know
what's real and what isn't why should they fear? Why should they be damaged in
any way?

~~~
PavlovsCat
Can you stop spawning strawmen and projecting your own parents on everyone
else?

------
Rygu
I guess Hollywood started it.

