So I guess some spoilers for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 got out. Big spoilers. The kind that make us gamers very, very upset. This post will discuss one of them: the one that’s been making the rounds today. To avoid Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 spoilers, stop reading now!
GamePolitics has the story about leaked game footage which appears to show a sequence in which the player guns down innocent civilians. Kotaku has confirmation from Activision that the leaked footage is indeed real, and that:
“The game includes a plot involving a mission carried out by a Russian villain who wants to trigger a global war. In order to defeat him, the player infiltrates his inner circle. The scene is designed to evoke the atrocities of terrorism.”
It seems that as the story makes the rounds, it’s not the mainstream media that’s upset by the violence this team (though they most certainly will be once they catch wind of it). No, in this case it seems to be the gaming community crying foul, and I find that rather curious.
GamePolitics pretty much sums up the argument:
What makes the footage so striking is the level of visuals in Modern Warfare 2, as even in blurry online footage the action looks almost real, taking this a level beyond the cartoonish violence of games such as Grand Theft Auto.
Wait… really? ‘Cause these still both look like video games to me:
Grand Theft Auto IV
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
And graphics whoring aside, isn’t this the same argument anti-game activists have been using for a decade now? We’ve always called out the media on their double standard, on the inherent absurdity of this idea that games can be “too realistic” but somehow films (live action!) cannot. And now, suddenly, we’re backpedaling?
Look: we all defended Grand Theft Auto IV, a game in which you mow down countless civilians. It’s a game so realistic, IGN’s Michael Tomsen commented:
It was a bad day personally, but I was unprepared for just how evocative and beautiful Rockstar’s fictional homage to New York City would be… I was inhabiting a world precariously close to a real place where a very specific person, whom I cared about a great deal, could actually be.
Kotaku’s Michael McWhertor agrees:
Rockstar has upped the ante, creating a startlingly realistic reinterpretation of New York City as backdrop to a violent crime epic.
Grand Theft Auto IV is a brutally violent game set in one of the most realistic depictions of the modern world to grace consoles this generation, and the gamer community welcomed it with open arms. Team Xbox even enthused:
But perhaps the biggest innovation is the notion that you can create a game that’s as valid a piece of art as any book or movie. Is this our “Citizen Kane” moment?
What is Modern Warfare 2 missing that Grand Theft Auto IV had? Why is Modern Warfare 2‘s civilian-shooting being called out for going too far, while Grand Theft Auto IV‘s civilian-shooting is our industry’s “Citizen Kane” moment? If this were your local TV news doing the freaking out, I could understand it. There, there’s precedent. But for gamers to espouse this obvious double standard is just retarded.
As noted in the Activision statement, “The scene is designed to evoke the atrocities of terrorism.” Hey, all you folks complaining that games need to grow up? This is part of that: games expressing ideas and making you feel things that you might find uncomfortable, forcing you to confront concepts and experiences you’d maybe rather not think about. If you think the scene is in poor taste, you can skip it: Activision has confirmed that. But if you want games to grow up, you need to grow up with them.
October 29, 2009 at 9:53 am
In case you haven’t seen it, Shawn Elliott’s response was interesting.
I have to say, the MW2 thing rubbed me the wrong way too. Obviously I can’t really judge until the game comes out, but I’m not sure this scene is a good call.
The real problem is the whole marketing tenor of the game is that of a balls-to-the-wall military action fantasy. It’s Executive Decision or The Delta Force. It’s not Saving Private Ryan or Full Metal Jacket. There are things that will be poignant in the latter, while in the former, they would simply be crass and tasteless. This scene from MW2 feels that way.
And it’s probably not entirely the fault of IW. I’m sure if it was totally up to them, the tenor of MW2 would be a serious, mature thing. But given how much Activision wants MW2 to sell a bazillion copies, a sober, grim statement on terrorism in the modern age isn’t going to happen. Should IW continue anyway, knowing full how Activision is going to promote the game? I honestly not sure, I guess we’ll see in a few weeks.
November 1, 2009 at 8:31 pm
I don’t know. While I think game content maturing is a good thing, I don’t think this is an example of that. From what I know of the scene — and, admittedly, it’s not that much since I only watched a segment of the leaked video and what I gleaned from various news reports — the content is not mature. It’s an immature stab at mature, thoughtful content.
From what I know of this scene, it’s an undercover CIA operative trying to gain the trust of a terrorist boss-man. Or something like that. In order for the character to preserve his cover, he has to do this abhorrent thing and mow down a bunch of civilians in an airport. Okay. One major problem: this would never happen ever. Any intelligent American operative put in this situation would never, ever, ever go into an American airport and killing dozens upon dozens of civilians in order to establish undercover credibility. Maybe there’s a situation in US History that proves this wrong, but there isn’t one to my knowledge. It’s a completely inane situation. And the game puts the player in this position.
Jack Bauer in 24 is constantly put in these kinds of situations; he has to walk a fine line between preserving cover and killing innocent people. I don’t cite this example because I think 24 is high-class drama or intelligent television or anything, but it’s an incredibly popular show which attempts to be “edgy.” And even this show would never task Jack Bauer with killing a civilian in order to further his goal. Why? Because it would be completely unforgivable. Jack Bauer always finds a way out of a situation like this. This is where I am hesitant to talk about the whole Modern Warfare 2 thing in advance of my actually playing it, but if MW2 doesn’t allow for the player to avoid killing civilians in this scene, then I think the game is simply pushing itself as Clancy-esque terror trash. It’s not mature, it’s controversial for the sake of causing controversy, no more.
As an aside, I think the comparison to Grand Theft Auto 4, while relevant, isn’t a totally fair one. If a gamer is making a distinction between the violence in Call of Duty versus Grand Theft Auto then, yes, that’s simply absurd. However, Grand Theft Auto doesn’t, to my memory, ever completely endorse the player’s killing of civilians. It’s actively punished by the game systems, in fact. Players generally go on civilian killing rampages of their own accord, and I think that’s an important distinction to make. Rockstar allows for it, but it’s not without in-game penalty.