Teenagers and young adults all across the world couldn’t wait to get their hands on the sixth installment of the Call of Duty video game series last week. Modern Warfare 2 had an unprecedented debut, shattering records for both gaming and motion picture releases. Now hundreds of millions of gamers are playing the most realistic-looking warfare video game to date. While the game, like its predecessors, may look like the real thing, it couldn’t be any further from it. The most troublesomely misleading difference between the two is the game’s power switch: a button that may be able to bring your character back to life, but will never be able to reverse the fates of the millions of American soldiers and countless civilians whose lives have been ended or changed forever as the result of war.
First-person shooter games like Modern Warfare 2 imitate the experience of killing opponents, and in the process, reduce the reality of murder down to a gunfire sound effect and a virtual explosion of blood that drips down the screen. These effects, coupled with thematic story lines and cutting edge graphics, suck players into a game that portrays war as both thrilling and fun. The game belittles the cruelty, inhumanities, and injustices of warfare, creating a jaded perception of what war is really like.
The entertainment world as a whole has long been guilty of sensationalizing the glory of military combat and killing as a dignified and admirable national duty. The interactive nature of video games though, takes the excitement of the action to another level by putting the responsibility of the outcome in the hands of the media consumer. Killing then becomes a game that must be won, and the gamer becomes comfortable and confident with his or her part in it.
While the games have varying age requirements for purchase that range from 15 years to 17 years, it can be assumed that much younger children are also experiencing these warfare simulations. Many groups have spoken out against violent games like the Call of Duty series, with concerns that repeated exposure to this kind of content over an extended period of time could be even more difficult for impressionable children and teens to distinguish as a false-reality.
Modern Warfare 2 has sparked a renewed sense of alarm among these critics. It’s the first of its kind to take players through a realistic terrorist attack at an airport (including the killing of innocent civilians), an element that’s been dubbed the “most emotionally disturbing scene yet built into interactive entertainment” (Seth Schiesel, New York Times). Such a distinction makes me wonder at what point in time so called “entertainment” crosses the line from entertaining to unnecessary.
Not only do these games desensitize millions to the horror that is real war and terrorism, but they also build up an undue amount of hype about militaristic operations. One cannot help but notice the propagandistic similarities between popular war video games and the military recruiting ads themselves. They each glamorize a job that involves killing, living in unthinkable conditions, and risking one’s life on a regular basis.
The Call of Duty series also paints an incomplete picture that stops short of any kind of reality soldiers may face during or after they serve. For those who do make it out alive, many will experience some kind of physical or mental illnesses, joblessness, homelessness, and undoubtedly the painful daily reminders of what they witnessed and what they themselves took part in. These are the kinds of permanent, life-altering consequences of warfare that aren’t evoked by video games.
And for those who eventually choose to trade in their game controllers for real weapons, one can only hope that they can differentiate the fragility of their own life and the lives of others, from the dispensability of the video game characters on the screen.
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I agree that video games like Call of Duty glamorize war, but it is a video game and its purpose is to entertain.
ReplyDeleteAs for kids playing these games, its not the video games creators who are guilty but the parents. There was so much criticism when Grand Theft Auto came out and how it was too much adult material for kids to handle yet the parents kept buying it for their children.
Parents really need to start taking responsibilty for what their children consume.
The combination of realistic and unrealism features in war game combine to make someone more susceptible emulating violent video games. Realism in video games produces desensitization to violence and unrealism causes people think killing has no consequences. Realism comes in the form of graphics and sounds of killing another while unrealism exists in form of no emotional, psychological, or social consequences for killing someone. In real life, perpetrator of murder often manages psychological guilt, emotional trauma, and potential imprisonment for their behavior. In fact, society also does not reward killing unlike most violent video games.
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People always rag on video games for glamorizing war, but we rarely hear any protest when a war themed movie is a bit hit. I feel like the colored pixles in a video game would do little to desensitize a person when compared to a masterfully filmed combat scene. The difference is that there is simply a bias against video games in general. A big ticket war movie is seen as art and people are urged to go see it even if its disturbing, but a war themed video game comes out and people start protesting it. Its a bit hipocritical in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Scott. One of my favorite movies is Saving Private Ryan, which is critically acclaimed and even won it's fair share of Oscars. But have you seen how violent just the first scene is? Let me just say that it includes a shot of a fallen soldier lying on the ground with his stomach and intestines spilling out of him. Funnily enough, you don't hear a lot of people telling Steven Spielberg he's belitting the inhumanities of war or desensitizing people.
ReplyDeleteIf you're going to protest the Call of Duty series, you might as well protest all video games that include some level of violence -- even ones that don't depict war.
I don't agree that war movies are the same as video games based on war. When I see a violent movie, I cringe at the blood and gore, as do many people. But video games reward violent behavior. When you shoot an enemy, it's a good thing. War movies might make people invested in their side's victory and they may cheer for the heroes, but that's not the same as pushing a button and seeing the image of a person dying. Many war movies accurately depict the horrors of war, rather than viewing it in a positive light.
ReplyDeleteAnd though it may be the parents' fault when children play violent video games, that doesn't stop them from buying those games for their children. Not all parents care about what is or is not good parenting. I'm not saying we should necessarily get rid of violent video games, but I don't think they promote a healthy attitude toward violence, even if it's someone of age playing the game. War has a hugely negative effect on most soldiers. It's not fun, nor is it a game. In my opinion, it's disrespectful.
This isn't entirely true however. I understand that it can be easy to point to Call Of Duty as a videogame and say players are rewarded for the act of killing in the game. But, many of these war-type games (and especially the COD series) have been lauded by players and critics alike because they follow an impressive storyline that is very true to real-life war; that is to say that they don't just reward killing, but feature missions in which rescuing civilians, recovering troops, and other military strategies are the objective. While first-person shooter type video games do feature killing as an essential part of the gameplay (and this could appear to remove the actual seriousness of ), the most successful of these games--see COD Modern Warfare 2-- offer so much more than mindless death and destruction.
ReplyDeletePoint Scott. Sure, some games do reward mindless slaughtering of civilians, but most have other goals that often cannot be reached without them.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I read a great article about a guy who spent a good deal of time killing every single person in Fallout3 (they don't respawn)who became King of the wasteland.
I definitely agree the excessively violent video games normalize destruction and glamorize war for younger generations. I can't believe that one of the Call of Duty games actually takes the user through a terrorist attack at an airport and rewards the user points for killing innocent civilians. Games like this, that make violence and brutality perfectably acceptable as a hobby, desensitive our country's youth to real threats that war and terrorism bring and also insult the the soldiers for whom this isn't a game, but a terrifying reality. Video game designers should show more discretion when creating these games and think of the negative messages they're sending out to young people and what could be the repercussions of those messages. But, at the same time, I also agree with J.V. Torres in believing that some of the responsibility falls on the shoulders of the parents who protest the violence of these games, but still fork over the cash to buy it for their children. If the demand for these games disappeared, games like Call of Duty could eventually cease to exist.
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