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.