The Controversy Surrounding Call of Duty: Modern Warfare Two

Tuesday’s launch of Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare 2 was the most successful launch in the history of entertainment.  They made a whooping $310 million dollars in a single day.  A total of 4.7 million copies were sold between just the US and Britain.  The game was released throughout the rest of the world, but those figures have yet to be tallied.

The game is based upon an imaginary war between the US and Russia.  The player acts as either an American or British soldier taking on missions.  It’s a first-person shooter game.  The game can be played individually or with a multi-player online function.  It is the sixth game in the Call of Duty series.  It’s a direct sequel to the fourth in the set Call of Duty:  Modern Warfare.   

The graphics in the game are excellent.  In fact, they are so good that it’s shocking, literally.  Today’s games are a far cry from games of the past.  In the early days of video games, a “bad guy” being shot looked like a stick falling onto the ground.  If the “bad guy” was laying on the ground, he was dead.  It was understood.  Today, in a number of video games including the new Call of Duty, a dead “bad guy” looks, well, startlingly dead.  He’s laying in a pool of blood and there’s a very realistic atmosphere to it.  Additionally, people are playing them on high-definition TVs with surround sound.  It creates a dream situation for gamers.  Unfortunately, it intensifies it for opposers. 

Far and away, the single most controversial episode in the game involves an airport scene where the player has to decide whether or not they want to participate in a mass killing to keep their cover with a Russian terrorist group.  The victims are civilians in an airport terminal.  Many people in both the public and the media are outraged by the scene, claiming it to be disgustingly violent and trivialising terrorism.  Some went as far as accusing that the scene was added specifically to create controversy.  Controversial games are reported in the media, thereby garnering free publicity. 

On the other hand, the game contains a special warning prior to the player entering this scene.  Also, there is an option which allows it to be skipped altogether.  Video game creators are caught between a rock and a hard place, to an extent.  Adding scenes such as this one are bound to disturb and anger some people.  Excluding the same scenes can leave some purchasers asking for more and feeling cheated by the game.  If Call of Duty decided against using this scene and taming down the game, it is possible that they could lose part of their fan-base which craves this type of entertainment.  Their competitors are certainly creating equally graphic and inhumane scenes.  Anyone who’s played the latest Grand Theft Auto can confirm.    

The game itself carries a warning label, too, on the outside of the box.  It’s rated M for mature which means that persons under the age of 17 are not allowed to buy the game.  At 18 years of age, some of the boys playing the game could be living through similar scenarios in real life with a military career.  Label ratings are enforced by the video game industry as a whole, but it’s an impossible task, when the purchasing is done by the parents.  A number of the parents buying this game and others like it are oblivious to its content.  This simply cannot be blamed on the video game or its manufacturer. 

Defenders claim:  it’s fictional and equivalent to watching a gory movie, it contains warning labels, it is adult entertainment and adults are free to choose what they want to play.  Opposers claim:  it is unnecessarily violent, it is much more involved than simply watching a movie, it creates a virtual world where rules that apply in reality are not adhered to, sending poor messages to both children and adult players.  It seems to me that everyone is right.  It is unnecessarily violent, but it is adult entertainment.  If you don’t like it, then don’t participate.  If you don’t want your kids to play, don’t buy it, although no one is with their kids 24/7 and they probably would play at a friend’s house. 

Perhaps the true problem lies in the old adage:  Ignorance is bliss.  When I was a kid and the “bad guys” fell to the ground, me and my friends thought it was great.  We had no idea that one day there would be high-tech games like this on the market.  We were content with what was available.  As computer technology expands, each new game on the market is going to have better graphics and more realistic surroundings.  The gaming companies will continually try to one-up each other with different scenarios and storylines.  The fact is that the Atari days are long gone and it’s only going to continue in the direction it’s going, like it or not, especially when the companies involved are making $310 million dollars in a single day.