Call of Duty's underlying message is becoming more 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.

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

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.zerohedge.com/contributed/2013-01-17/government-p...

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/01/the-cia-and-other-gov...

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.

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.

http://gamezfile.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/Download-Gam...

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!

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.

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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.

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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.

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.