Fellow gamer H.E. Pennypacker wrote a lengthy op-ed (opinion editorial) about the impending title "Modern Warfare 2", how it need not be gaming's "Great Work" and his (assumed by the masculine style of writing, an inoffensive assumption I hope), reasons for disregarding the social clamor for the title.
To start I'd like to respond to:
But that makes sense to us. Gamers want to be mature. Call of Duty (or any shooter for that matter) makes our metaphorical dicks get bigger, makes us think that we are mature because our graphics are realistic ( = brown?) and we can make things go boom. In our quest to make the rest of the world think we are legit, we have hindered ourselves by being ultra-violent in craft, and douchebags in culture.
I can't say that I misunderstand the desire for gamers, or even people in general to want this. Being from a "warrior class", a class of people who fight not necessarily for the sake of fighting, but out of duty and valor - there is a deep rooted, inbred, desire for people of the world to demonstrate might. Power, honor, fame... a hero's welcome seen from the late 40's still lingers in the mind of people - we want our parade. Being thanked by strangers, adorned with blessings and knowing children consider you a hero are just many of the perks of being a real soldier - but it's not done by most for any of those things. It wasn't until the past 10 or so years that 'gamer' wasn't something closely associated with "dork' or 'nerd' much like 'club kid' was associated with 'druggie'. People today, pacifist as they try and be, indulge in the dark taboo of violence and killing, wrapped in the warm blanket of the word "game". It's just a game. Is it? Perhaps, and I won't debate semantics of it that hard but a vast majority of global history was shaped by war and acts of violence and this will not change in the foreseeable future despite any effort from others. It could be argued that violence is natural and despite the teachings of the 'pen being mightier than the swrod', people still to some degree, understand that the sword clears the land for the pen to find the paper. Japan signed a surrender only after hundreds of thousands of people were killed, many of which had nothing to do with the power struggle between governments. If anything about the game is to condemned it isn't the act of violence, but the attempt at making it real.
On the other hand, it does prompt us to ask "At what point is a line drawn? Who is to draw that line? Should it have to be drawn at all?"
Serious questions in the age of gaming we live. Should a line be drawn? Absolutely, the severance of fantasy and reality is paramount and has a line, though not often very clear. When companies work to thin the line by making attempts to capture reality I do two things - laugh and get concerned.
I laugh because what I hear is that a company intends to capture the uncertainty, fear, loathing, stress, and regret and bottle it up in a $60 purchase - an unattainable goal given that people spend hundreds of dollars to NOT feel those things through professional help, not to mention people generally don't seek those emotions in pure form so it's almost like stating that a company seeks a bad business model. I get concerned because I know that they're attempting to capture the decision making, field intensity, and visual aspects as close as they possibly can while retaining 'entertainment value'- and I fear that one day, there will be a game that depicts what it is to watch someone you go through basic, airborne, air assault and SERE with drop at your feet, bleeding from their neck and chest as you can't do much more than watch them die - or depicts soldiers being dragged through city streets tied to the back of a vehicle.... as a means of being tortured, killed, and raise enemy morale. These are very real things that have happened and I've been fortunate enough to not live through all of it, but I've been unfortunate enough to live through some of it. There are things soldiers can't un-see or un-feel... and working to make a war game real is something that must have a clear boundary. When a company states that they're working to remove that boundary, we as a society have a responsibility to bring them into question.
To think of it another way, if you recall the big fiasco with Little Big Planet and the audio for a certain level being taken out because it featured lines of the Quran because a relatively small group of individuals found it offensive to their culture and sacrilegious, yet shooting unarmed civilians in an airport receives only the 'option' to skip over it. Does this state something about society's sliding scale of what is and is not acceptable or a deeper politico-social development (or lack thereof)?
Either way, it seems that the quest for battlefield realism isn't much more than affixing ample jiggling bare breasts on a carton of milk to bolster milk sales. Sex and Violence sells and companies have no responsibility to their clients in terms of what they're willing to sell us. It becomes our responsibility as consumers to allow or deny it and with ESRB as a scale of acceptability it is the job of parents to reign in and control the contents of their home. Aside from that, we can do nothing else and need to point as many fingers at society and how we police after ourselves as we do the game titles that we get a hold of. What is next comes down to a question of self control and our willingness to once again, let someone fix our problems for us.
Our insistence on murder has made us lose sight of what is fun. Think about your favorite movies. I'm sure you have some of those were you say "Oh so and so is so bad ass that move is awesome!". I would bet that the ones that you really hold close to your heart are the ones that put a smile on not just your face, but a smile on the people around you faces as well. I've never been around a person watching Raiders of the Lost Ark that doesn't have a big ass smile on their face after the giant ball chase scene. The same goes for Rocky, Star Wars, Forrest Gump. Those movies touch the very soul of the person in a special way. These movies are just plain fun and enjoyable no matter who watches them.
Something to note here is that even in movies like Die Hard, thee is a clear line and definition of good and evil. Die Hard was not team based, there wasn't a group of 'good guys' - Bruce Willis took on a terrorist group and single handedly killed all of them with more than a catchy one liner. Movies like American History X depict a very demented but real mindset of some people, yet the move made a positive point with such impact that people couldn't help but take notice. When Ed Norton's character 'curb smiled' the man for attempting to steal his car and looks up with a huge ear to ear grin during apprehension, the audience was supposed to be disgusted. They were supposed to think "That hateful ***!" Not only did he brutally kill a man far beyond what the man deserved, it was backed by racial intent - and then to be happy let alone proud of it? Intensely offensive, but the story was about a man who learned of his own ignorance and worked to keep his younger brother from following the same path - the moral of that movie was "Beliefs become actions become heirlooms. Be mindful of your beliefs and actions." In this case, we can say that the movie served a valuable purpose. While some might argue that the purpose of showing civilians in an airport being killed drives the point of terrorist suppression, it is an aspect of reality that many people are very uncomfortable with given the events of the past 10 years. Sure, when "The Longest Day" was released in 1962, it was 18 years after the actual events. Post-Vietnam War movies like "Deer Hunter", "Taxi Driver", and "Coming Home" didn't glorify war but rather condemned it, depicting the turmoil and hardships that the returning soldiers faced and these movies were released as early as 3 years after US military involvement. Recent games have disbanded the time between actual events and depicted one in a tangible sense. People still, even after 9 years, feel hurt and anguish after "9/11" which is then compounded by memories of the 1995 OKC bombing, 1993 WTC bombing, and the 1972 'Black September" Olympic bombings.
In its defense, the main proprietors of games like GTA and MW2 are younger, sometimes teenagers. They're not as connected with the real 'adult' world because they do not live in it. This isn't to say that they're not mature, but the reality of it is that they lack the real world experience to know the kind of impact events like terrorism and war have on the whole of society - they're told about it, they observe it, but hear and observe in a relatively safe environment made by those around them. They've nothing to compare what they're told is wrong to actual experienced events of wrong - there is no degree, and thus a black and white world exists where there is none. On top of that, the maturity of the mind isn't reached until the age of around 25. During this process, young teens to young adults still have a tendency to think impulsively and act in a compulsory way... these kinds of games rely on this as a mechanic, thus the game has a 'natural' feel.
In context to a 'mature' mind... I'll admit that aspects of the game are fun. I enjoy the act of hunting down and killing an enemy with a known agenda that I strongly disagree with. I spent years in the military working in Military Intelligence... it was my job to discover, interpret, and disseminate information from enemy ranks, devise a plan of action and advise those avenues with concerned parties - but I can take what I see in a game and contrast that against what I know is right and what I know is wrong... against my code of ethics and morals, which until I was about 27.... was transitory and situational as was the case for many of my friends of the same age. I also observe this with my brother who is 8 years my junior and my sister who is 10 years younger. They have sliding situational morals and ethics while somehow maintaining a black and white world view - which is a false construct.
The hell of it is, COD fans are saying that Mario needs to die! If anything, Mario needs to go toe to toe with Modern Warfare 2 and say "This is what gaming is really about! Its about pure unfiltered fun!" The public is going to scared stiff when they try to join into the current gaming culture. They are gonna hear words that they will want to bathe themselves. THESE PEOPLE ARE BAD MOUTHING MARIO! I know some of you reading this will say "*** mario, hes 4 ***" but the rest of the world stops and daydreams when they hear the words Mario, plumber, Itallian, Mushroom within two sentences of each other.
In all actuality, Mario represents classic timeless gaming. The mechanics are so simple that they need no change. It's timeless in that it is so simple that anyone can play, it requires no thought and it's comfortable in that sense. Still, different game types are different things for an array of people. Personally, I find the multi-player aspects of shooters boring. Sure, the games are designed around the concepts and the abilities of the player are limited to the world they're playing in - but 9 out of 10 times people use asinine tactics that would have them and the people around them coming back in a pine box and they know it. The goals in such games are contrived and convoluted, spurring players to do things for the sake of doing them. it's wasteful and impractical, but it's popular and sells well so why change it if there's no incentive to do so? the other aspect of shooters that is appealing to many people is that it's fast paced. They're not forced to pay attention, read, or think beyond which way to point the gun (which sometimes I wonder if the game didn't point it for them, players would even get that wrong). Yes, I'm slamming the MMO FPS community... it's not a commodity in terms of social skill therefore it's not a gaming trait of which I admire. Get all 5 endings in Silent HIll, complete 100% of the castle in Castlevenia SOTN, or stay neutral in KOTOR... those take planning, and dedication beyond continual bursts of lining up a headshot and have lasting impact outside of the titles or series because an MMO of any kind is only as good as the support from a developer. Once that developer shuts down that server or another developer created a better game, your goals are pointless and that "work" is fruitless. Be that as it may, MMO FPS games are dear to many players, and I can't take that from them. Mario V MW2 is a silly battle waged by silly people, but who am I to say it has no merit is it only has no merit with me?
If Modern Warfare 2 endangers the creation of more games colorful and fun games that lack *** followers, then I hope it comes out and its just like COD4 with new guns.
This is where I must part ways. I don't foresee MW2 staving the creation of more games colorful and fun. If anything I think games that appear on XBLA, PSN, and the App Store are going to increase despite the 'record sales' of MW2 for the simple reason that many people that play FPS, MMO FPS, and FPS RPG don't have anything timeless to cling to. They may argue Doom, Wolfenstein, or Halo 1 but if they were truly timeless these games wouldn't be games people only remember - they'd be games people play. To get a good idea on if a game is really good and truly timeless... look on your game store's 'pre-owned' rack. I'd bet money that in 1 to 2 months, MW2 will be in abundance like Borderlands.... the pre-owned shelf is a great indicators as to the true value of a game not initial sales. Why? Marketing and advertising are like large breasts at an all exclusive club - they only get someone in the door, what is under the hood keeps them there.
Nice blog. Very insightful and interesting.
That was a good, thought provoking blog post sir. Well done.