My belief that video games don’t cause real world violence are no secret. There’s no science behind the idea that it does and there never has been. It’s just Tertullian all over again.
That said, there are a few things about modern war games, especially shooters like Call of Duty and Medal of Honor: Warfighter that are starting to trouble me.
I don’t think games cause violence. But they are a part of culture: They can play things up or tone things down. And I think the war games are starting to cross a few lines that I’m not sure they can come back from.
#5) Hiring Oliver North
We’ve already gotten into this, but it bears repeating that Oliver North is a convicted criminal currently enjoying an undeserved reputation among certain circles that in no way makes him ethically clear enough to be plugging a video game in any way, shape, or form.
That in of itself demonstrates a lack of awareness on Activision’s part. But it’s hand-in-hand with…
#4) The Jingoistic Rah-Rah Bulls***
These games are, in terms of writing, Team America: World Police, except with zero self awareness.
No, seriously. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is a series I don’t hesitate to refer to as having a stupid story. Battlefield isn’t much better. These games are, as fiction, so brutally divorced from modern geopolitics and even basic reality that I wonder if it was written by an adult, or by the developer’s day care.
The problem is how often these fictions adhere to party lines and “acceptable” bad guys. The new Call of Duty has us going after the Chinese, and it’s troubling how many defense contracts are centered around the idea of attacking China or vice versa.
I’m exempting games like Homefront or Spec Ops: The Line because they make a conscious attempt to break from reality a bit. But most of these games like to pretend they’re realistic.
Hey, speaking of reality…
#3) You Can Not Only Use Real Guns, You Can Buy Them From EA
Here’s a list of EA’s “partners” for Medal of Honor: Warfighter. You can buy a sniper rifle from these people.
Look, I firmly believe that most gun owners are responsible adults who respect the safety of others, but the idea of using a gun in game and then buying it over the Internet reads like a bad piece of “socially conscious” science fiction.
Except it’s actually happening. EA looked at the idea of facilitating selling weapons to its customers and said “Oh man, that’s so awesome, let’s do that.”
That leads me to my next problem.
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Warfighter? Really? Medal of Honor: Warfighter? Was this from the maker of Kickpuncher?
No, but Terroristshooter was its internal nickname.
remember there was that one game where the final boss was hand to hand fighting Osama. Now that was realistic. Unfortunately there was no ‘smash dialysis machine” button
Planebombermissleshootingthingy is the next sequel .
This isn’t the first time that subtitle was used. It’s not really that unusual. [en.wikipedia.org]
#3) You Can Not Only Use Real Guns, You Can Buy Them From EA
I know I’m going to come off like Nitpicky Nitpickerson, but no, you can’t. You can go that page, look at a list of people whose products are represented in the game, and go to their respective websites to potentially order products. Only two of which sell actual guns.
I get the point you’re making, and I agree with the overall tone of the article.
We have enough hysterical hand wringing on these issues without my favorite geek culture blog clutching their purse and running for the hills along with all the other sensationalist news outlets.
Unless I’m misreading the site, going through the site is technically using EA as a proxy. That might just be for explicitly marked MOH merch, though.
And for the record, it’s a very narrow genre I have these problems with. I don’t think there’s any ethical problems with Homefront or Army of Two because they don’t really ask you to take them seriously.
Every Partner includes a blog post link which, quite simply, is blatant advertising connecting the game with the real life “tools”.
That said, if the goal of EA is to create an “authentic” military shooter, they will be wanting to portray the actual weapons and gear the SpecOps are using in the field, which inevitably brings them to partner up with just those companies who make and sell that real world gear. It’s quite simply the military equivalent of Need for Speed sporting the Porsche and Ferrari logo in their games.
Authentic equipment isn’t really the issue though, it’s the braindead stories about super terrorist organizations and evil russians, as if no one has noticed by now that for the past 20 years a bloated US military had no one to fight but dirtholes of countries with illiterate peasants who barely knew which way to point a gun.
Whoever finances these games must feel it’s worthwhile to keep up the illusion of fighting dangerous and worthwhile enemies on the battlefield. Everyone was bitching about too many WW2 games, but at least there the scenario fit. Now they have to make up BS in order to transplant WW2 battles into the present day.
I clicked that link to the sponsor page and It was just a list of tac-gear firms and I couldn’t click through on any of them.
That being said the stories in these things really are getting dumber as the mental back flips the writers have to make in order to keep the player “in the right” are just getting worse.
This is why I play sport sims. I never have to feel ethically challenged or confused.
Unless that’s a football sim, which purports the idea that it’s okay to enjoy football without being “socially conscious” and worrying about how the concussions will affect players 30 years from now.
You know, the funny thing is, I’d be willing to bet Mr. Seitz probably wouldn’t go after games like “Grand Theft Auto V” with such scrutiny. While they harp on shooter storylines for being “jingoistic”– because who would have thought Americans like playing as Americans who fight evil people from other countries?–things like hooker murder and wholesale slaughter will be considered “awesome.”
This is the same kind of soft shit you get from overeducated hacks who pander the social acceptability of being a football fan. There seems to be a lot of it floating around the blogosphere. There’s seriously an article in the margin right now telling me how I can “understand Bronies.” I think that illustrates the point well enough.
Funny you should bring that up, because I’m playing “Sleeping Dogs” right now, and it works overtime in subtle ways to emphasize that it’s not based on reality but on movies.
By the way, it’s not that the soldiers are American that’s my objection. It’s the fact that the lines are so clear-cut, even in situations like, say, the Cold War where we know for a fact that they weren’t. Especially in a medium like games, where you can make moral choices if the developer allows you to, it’s a pretty serious problem.
In any conflict, you have two conflicting ideologies. The lines are typically pretty clear cut. Whether it’s the U.S. against Muslim extremists, as illustrated in “Medal of Honor: Tier 1,” or allied forces against the Communist Chinese, there are pretty thick lines. I’m frankly not sure what you’re searching for in stories like that, but moral objectivity isn’t typically a part of war.
^^ I think you just proved Dan’s point for him.
Of course GTA has always presented itself as a tongue in cheek parody of American culture, including over the top violence and society’s reaction to it. If you haven’t gotten that vibe, you’ve obviously never played any of the games. Talking about killing hookers like it’s some big point of the game honestly sounds more like you’re some soccer mom who has no idea what it’s about but has heard those bad things you can supposedly do in the game, maybe.
Then of course you applaud the “brave” storylines of patriotic american soldiers shooting the evil people because hey, that’s safe and no one has to use their brain or anything. Black and white, that’s what’s comfortable and safe, let’s not actually ponder what things are really about.
Not over-educated, blackout, over-saturated in liberal propaganda.
Amen to the original post, but I agree with SociallyBlackedOut too. I’ve played The GTA series, MW2 and Black Ops first of all, but I just feel weird and gross about how GTA (and rockstar in general) gets a pass for being “tongue in cheek” while dumb stereotypical tropes are repeated over and over again. Maybe if they EVER had a woman character portrayed other than “dumb slut and/or manipulative gold digger”, and “naiive woman in distress,” then I could see the value of their tongue in cheek humor in reference to that stereotype. But it plainly seems to me like juvenile anger toward women disguised as spoof. That’s only the most obvious offense by rockstar, the key is that it’s about what gets repeated into your head, not some minor plot point (think about what CJ says over and over during gameplay as opposed to cut scenes). I just think it’s important to acknowledge that while we play and enjoy these franchises, it makes sense to feel somewhat dirty after.
Those following along at home might care to note that the GTA franchise started as a UK parody of US films and society. You proved their point by giving them your money.
I feel like it’s up to me, as a consumer, to not take a video game so fucking seriously. Could producers of military shooters write more things into the story that ‘work overtime’ to assuage the notion that war is bad, man – or that maybe the motivation for the war in the VIDEO GAME isn’t so morally clean cut? Probably. But I think the more troubling notion is an overall sense of (for lack of a more succinct piece of vocabulary) xenophobic oppression from American developers, or developers marketing a game for an American audience. I hear a lot about how frightening it is, the Team America attitude, but I don’t see many games being made to counteract the notion.
More or less I agree with the sentiment that I’m interpreting from your OP, Seitz, at the feeling of powerlessness people have now. People allow things like video games, political rhetoric, dogmatic interpretations, et cetera solely dictate how they must react to a given situation. There is no situational awareness, or objective fact finding. It’s all trust/faith/supremacist based reaction.
That and the feeling that other people, or things, have more power over how they should behave than they do themselves.
I can’t decide which of the two is more disheartening and which is more frightening.
#6 you kill U.S Infantrymen in that bullshit abomination Modern Warfare 2.
It is pretty corporately irresponsible for these companies to be presenting stories about gung-ho mass murderers. *boots up Skyrim* Now watch me systematically hunt down and murder every individual that uses the letter “e” while explaining how its perfectly acceptable for there to be a mod to kill the kids in Skyrim.
Dan, in regards to #4, I think you unintentionally came up with the best game idea ever, a Team America: World Police shooter needs to happen.
+ infinity
This article sounds like the ramblings of a Phish listening, Birkenstock wearing, nonbathtaking hippie.
Agreed, Killington. Mr Seitz, did you submit this from a Starbucks wifi hotspot near your Occupy tent? Anytime I read the word “jingoistic” used as a pejorative, I know anything that follows is lefty BS.
I do not think that word means what you think it means.
Ollie North is an Murican hero.
way to read way into things, is Bleacher Report hiring?
Back in college I thought video games turning into violence in real life was horseshit. Then I really got into GTA. We played it all the time, and my MO was to steal a paddy wagon and just go to vigilante missions all day. It was great fun. So one day I’m playing some vigilante and then I realize, oh, hell, I have to supervise at my after school job at the middle school with the hot blonde chick. So I go pick her up and we are driving to the school and I pull up behind a Schwann’s truck. Without even thinking I started to get out of the car and Blondie was like “What are you doing?” and like a machine I just said I’m going to go steal that truck and then go kill some bad guys.
Then I realized what was going on and explained it to her and we had a good laugh. But seriously, I can see how it would translate. I like to think I’m a pretty reasonable person but when I A) had been playing for about 5 straight hours and B) realized I was late and ran to my car so we didn’t miss our shift and C) was somewhat distracted by Blondie and being late I showed signs of crossing over a video game into real life.
I’m not saying its a problem. I just see how it could be.