Editorial: The Modern Warfare 2 controversy

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the fastest selling game of all time. That’s some achievement for a linear first-person shooter with a short campaign and a multiplayer mode which has been lambasted with fury by hardcore FPS gamers angry at the lack of dedicated server support and low maximum player limits. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the cinematic, action packed violent insanity of the campaign mode. Special Ops and the multiplayer less so, but Modern Warfare 2 is unmistakeably a highly polished and hugely enjoyable game.

The level of fuss surrounding its release has been astounding. The mainstream media have been racking up the column inches on it with editorials from too many journalists who have never actually played the game. People are quick to condemn and the usual array of moral crusaders have jumped on the bandwagon and decried MW2 as the final straw in the fall of Western civilization.

Haven’t we been through this before? From Elvis and his hip shake, which was to incite sexual orgies on the streets, to the video nasties of the 80’s which were to turn our children into killers? The last few years has seen videogames take up the mantle of debaser. The outraged media wound up by ignorant MPs and non-gamers with too much time of their hands have wailed about several violent releases and the supposed effect they’ll have on our over criticised youth.

Before we go into the specifics there is one point worth making. The game is rated 18+ in the UK. This means retailers are not allowed to sell it to anyone under 18. Of course kids can get someone else to buy it for them or order online if they can borrow a credit card. That’s why it is up to parents to make sure their children don’t get their hands on a copy. You can’t blame the developer if an underage kid plays the game just as you can’t blame a drinks manufacturer if they get their hands on some alcohol. We don’t want to live in a society where everything has to be made suitable for children. This is accepted when it comes to movies, alcohol and even porn so why not games?

There is still a generation of people who think of games as for children. Just as there are people that think a game like Modern Warfare 2 will be played exclusively by young males. This is simply not true. The demographics tell us a different story and while the biggest category that plays the game may be males aged 18-25 they are far from the only category.

Moving on let’s look at the specific cause of most of the furore. The Russian airport level has caught the attention of everyone. You pose as a terrorist and take part in a mass slaying of lots of innocent civilians and some airport security. When you play the game you are offered the option at the start to play it without this level. There isn’t much to it in gameplay terms, the first part doesn’t even require you to fire your gun you can just walk through watching the others as they churn up a crowd of screaming civilians. In terms of plot it serves as the evil Russian villain’s plan to spark a war because he intends the US to take the blame for the slaughter.

Of all the violent games I’ve played over the years this fails to stand out. If there was no fuss made in the media most people would have played the level and thought nothing of it. To get right to the heart of the argument I have shot policemen, decapitated people and beaten other people to death with the head, had sex with a prostitute and then beaten her death with a baseball bat and taken my money back. I have ripped out the spine of my opponent in a fight, I have set fire to a bunker full of screaming Germans and I have sent an Italian plumber to his doom by firing a red turtle shell at his speeding car. None of those things made me violent. Just as listening to a suggestive lyric or watching a horror movie didn’t catapult me into action in the real world. The truth is the vast majority of people have no trouble distinguishing between reality and fiction and people who do will get themselves into trouble with or without videogames.

There are still people who will argue that children are more suggestible than adults and this is true, which is why we have the age rating system. They’ll even point to ropy studies that suggest a link between videogames and violence. The truth is there is no proof that violent videogames lead to real life violence even in kids. Just like adults most kids are capable of distinguishing between fantasy and reality. Some kids will do violent things with or without videogames. Just because they frame it in such a way as to reference a game does not mean that the game made them do it.

At launch Harry reviewed the Xbox 360 version of Modern Warfare 2 here on the site. Because he mentioned the fact he found the political overtones and some of the content distasteful he got a polarised response in the comments from people agreeing or strongly disagreeing. Now reviewers give their opinion for a living so the idea he shouldn’t mention the politics in a game review is just daft but of course you don’t have to agree. The game does glamorise the military and it does have right wing overtones but that didn’t stop me from enjoying it and politically speaking I’m a bit left of left wing.

The idea that the media can get so worked up and all these religious leaders and MPs can come out and say it is disgraceful just conjures one word in my mind – hypocrisy. We are engaged in wars in foreign lands where we send out troops to die for reasons which are unclear in real life. There have been British soldiers actually dying in Afghanistan and Iraq regularly for the past few years. Do you think that might have an effect on our impressionable youth? Surely it would be an idea to condemn the real violence before we go on a crusade about fictional violence?

While we’re on the subject if the real worry about all of this is the effect it has on our youth then what about the cult of celebrity? Girls starving themselves to conform to magazine images or TV programs that tell us that plastic surgery is aspirational and the pursuit of money is a worthy life goal. These things are having a tangibly detrimental effect on society, violent videogames are not. The bottom line is, if you find it distasteful just don’t play it and don’t allow your kids to play it.

The controversy is something that developers and publishers love. They tend to avoid publicly admitting it for obvious reasons but the one guaranteed effect of a deeply controversial level is loads of free press coverage. The outcry is also more likely to drive people to want to play the game just to see what all the fuss is about. The high sales figures would suggest that it’s working.