Slashdot Mirror
Leaked Modern Warfare 2 Footage Causes Outrage
eldavojohn writes "Game Politics makes note of criticism over leaked footage from the upcoming Modern Warfare 2 release. (Spoiler warning.) Footage shows the player engaged in killing civilians with terrorists (relevant video begins at about 1:50, second source in case of DMCA). Several game sites are asking if this is taking things too far. Probably just advertising at work, but the footage is indeed controversial — the question remains whether or not it is out of context."
someone is managing the launch of this game really well....
and this is different from running rampant in grand theft auto killing innocent citizens .... how ... ?
This is just a ploy by Infinity Ward to make everyone forget about the dedicated server fiasco!
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Sounds like naming it "Modern Warfare" was spot-on.
For an official statement, G4TV quotes Activision (when asked about the footage being in the game) as saying:
Yes it is. The scene establishes the depth of evil and the cold bloodedness of a rogue Russian villain and his unit. By establishing that evil, it adds to the urgency of the player’s mission to stop them.
Players have the option of skipping over the scene. At the beginning of the game, there are two ‘checkpoints’ where the player is advised that some people may find an upcoming segment disturbing. These checkpoints can’t be disabled.
Modern Warfare 2 is a fantasy action game designed for intense, realistic game play that mirrors real life conflicts, much like epic, action movies. It is appropriately rated 18 for violent scenes, which means it is intended for those who are 18 and older.
Sure to raise controversy, sure to garner eyeballs and sure to sell copies it looks like. Just the right amount of controversy I guess.
My work here is dung.
Terrorists mix in amongst civilians and some say even use them as shields, and a military response never has pinpoint accuracy despite the best technology.
This is happening all over the world in modern warfare.
The weirdly sanitized worlds of war games causes me more outrage. If real war is hell, why cant games have elements of that?
Anybody who whines more loudly about a game that involves killing civilians than they do about any of the real wars that involve really killing civilians goes on my bad list.
I heard there's a game where you can carjack people and then run them over with their own car, leaving blood streaks on the road. You can then pull your car up to a prostitute, pay for her services, then get out of the car and cave her skull in with a baseball bat and take your money back.
Kinda makes the getting shot with a gun seem a little nicer by comparison.
the words of Robert E. Lee:
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Post-Modern Warfare
Modern Warfare
Romantic Age Warfare
Victorian Era Warfare
Industrial Revolution Era Warfare
Age of Enlightenment Warfare
Age of Discovery Warfare
Ottoman Empire Warfare
Middle Ages Warfare
Dark Age Warfare
Roman Empire Warfare
Ancient Greece Warfare
New Kingdom Warfare
Old Kingdom Warfare
Mesopotamian Warfare
Obviously this sort of thing is a modern problem due to our culture of violence. It's only recently that our soldiers and the people they were fighting resorted to detestable acts in the furtherance of their causes.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
I seem to remember most of Prototype was running around killing/eating innocent people, who would shriek and occasionally beg as you ate them, also the player (Alex Mercer) was a bioterrorist who killed millions... where was the moral outrage there?
Sometimes the player character isn't the hero. Get over it.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
They need a better gimmick if they want me to buy it. No server = no buy!
Those might not be "Terrorists", they could be "Freedom Fighters". Those so-called innocent civilians very well could be part of the oppresive regime that is due for a change in the name of liberty and freedom. Let's not rush to judgement until we find out if which side of this conflict is going to bow to Western authority.
Wouldn't it be more accurate if it showed that some of the terrorists worked for the government and were engaged on false-flag operations ?
It would also be more accurate if the government you were trying to install in a foreign country comprised of drug lords and war criminals.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/wpc/ResignationLetter.pdf
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=1
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/05/world/asia/05afghan.html
I suspect that the DOD has a hand in putting things like this in popular video games (not to mention TV and movies). It is a great way to make such atrocities seem acceptable to a young, susceptible audeicne. These types of things have been in games for awhile. These types of messages have been in TV shows and movies for a long time. 24 turned into an advertisement for torture. The DOD has long been in the TV and movie business, giving producers equipment and information for positive messages and propaganda.
The last expansion of World of Warcraft had many quests to torture people for information. They also added a quest chain to spread disinformation about a group of dissenters in Theramore, then assassinate their leader. It reminded me of the FBI operation known as COINTELPRO.
You can call me a conspiracy theorist all you want but you can find plenty of proof with a few simple google searches.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Just someone who is willing to do what is necessary, even if it is distasteful.
In the real world you DO run in to situations where the idea of "greater good" has to be considered. You do something that taken in isolation might be purely bad, but looked at from a larger context was necessary to prevent an even greater evil. It isn't always a simple choice, and sometimes there isn't a right choice, just maybe a less wrong one.
Nothing wrong with a game wanting to have the player in that situation. That is, in fact, the sort of thing that special forces or CIA officers may face.
If that kind of thing doesn't appeal to you for entertainment, nothign wrong with that, don't play the game. But I can't see why people would get mad.
According to the article, there will be unskippable warnings that suggest that the upcoming content may be disturbing. I understand where they're coming from on this, but if it's rated M on the box, I expect M-rated content. Don't spoil surprises for me with specific in-game warnings. If it's really that bad, give me the option when I start a new game to skip "objectionable content" and then don't bother me again with it. A mid-game warning breaks the fourth wall and lets you know something is going to happen rather than just shock you with it. It loses emotional impact that way.
Call of Duty is arguably my favorite series of games (at least the installments made by Infinity Ward), and part of what made Modern Warfare so powerful was the unflinching portrayal of war. A portrayal where even the good guys do bad things from time to time and the consequences of actions are brutally rendered. Would the game have been nearly as powerful if you'd had the option to skip the sequence where you crawl out of a downed helicopter and died of radiation poisoning from a nuclear explosion because it was "potentially disturbing"?
This sig is false.
It is called Modern Warfare. Terrorism is a very big part of modern warfare. Terrorists that know you'll do anything to avoid civilian casualties pretty much have you under their thumb. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if the campaign involves making some hard decisions like getting a few civilians killed while taking out a pack of terrorists.
People need to quit saying they want a "realistic" game, but just remove all the real stuff that we don't exactly like. No, you want realism, here it is. deal with it.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Before jumping to conclusions I'd like to see the context for this scene.
This scene is meant to visualize players reaction to No dedicated servers for MW2. Young russian gamer mows whole airport full of fat Americans with LMG in frustration.
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
I think at least some of the people that want realism are referring to the physics mainly. In any case, I don't particularly enjoy games because of how much they resemble reality. Same for movies. I know the difference between a real war and a game, and I'm glad there IS a difference.
diegoT
Did you watch the video? It's a squad walking around a shopping mall slaughtering everything that moves. A crowd of people just standing around, someone trying to pull a friend to safety, screaming bystanders trying to run away..
Anyway TFA says that the scene depicts some evil russian squad, not the "good guys". You're supposed to be horrified at the carnage and then want to stop them, which is apparently the objective of the single player campaign.
Never played Counter-Strike have you?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
I wouldn't care if the game had the player go-around killing kittens and little girls in pink dresses.
The key is not to suppress free expression, but instead simply vote with your dollar or euro (don't buy the game).
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
The key is not to suppress free expression, but instead simply vote with your dollar or euro
I vote with doubloons you insensitive clod!
Did you watch the video? It's a squad walking around a shopping mall slaughtering everything that moves.
Ahhh, Blackwater.
"The bigger the lie, the more they believe." - Det. Bunk
For christ's sake, it's a game! You aren't killing anyone. Nobody is dying. Nobody is killing you. It isn't real. Driving fast on Forza or Pole Position does not make me want to speed IRL, shooting cartoon people in TF2 doesn't make me want to shoot cartoon people IRL, and stealing endless amounts of cars in GTA doesn't make me want to steal cars or be a 'banger' IRL. There are no moral decisions because you aren't really a soldier, those aren't really people, and those aren't really guns. For fucks sake.
My wife can't bear to watch the History Channel when it has any war time footage running simply because it bothers her to see people suffer or die. Accordingly, she changes the channel. Pretty simple concept and it serves her well... People that think the game is too extreme should move on and buy something else more to their limits/liking. If parents chime in and fear for the safety of their children's minds, it isn't much different. We need to realize the ills of war and making an interactive game of it is not any worse than watching the evening news or video clips depicting current events which is even easier to access than this game. Manage the content your children see as best you can and be prepared to answer questions as best you can. Burying one's head in the sand only makes the world a "safer" place by being uninformed and unrealistic while evil prospers in a wide open playground. And then there's the whole free speech debacle that I won't even go into... Ugh.
So your thesis is that everything fictional is acceptable, not only from a legal perspective but also such that it may not be criticised or the subject of moral or ethical censure?
I don't think you understand free speech. Free speech doesn't mean "free from all consequences", it means "free from legal consequences". If you say something which disgusts me, it is not inconsistent with "free" speech for me to express my disgust and encourage others to do the same (in fact, it is consistent with my corresponding right to free speech).
People saying that this footage disgusts them is not only legitimate, it's healthy and (IMHO) reassuring.
Furthermore, you seem to suggest that the player has no level of investment or involvement in the events that occur inside modern games, which is patently wrong.
Read Pynchon.
what do we do if large numbers of people do buy the game and grow up thinking this type of thing is 'just how the world works'?
People aren't a blank slate waiting for the media to tell them how reality works. Thousands of years of evolution have left the vast majority of us with an innate moral sense that largely precludes killing except in very unusual circumstances. The few psychopaths who decide that killing is OK because they saw it in a video game have things wrong with them that simply keeping them away from video games won't fix.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Seriously, what the fuck? Are you telling me, than you've never read, enjoyed, or engaged in ANY kind of fictional endeavor, game, novel, comic book the involved a crime, or something tasteless or horrible? Are you telling me that by playing monopoly, I will become more likely to want to financially destroy people? Are you saying that because I read Frankenstein I will want to 'play God' as it were?
No, that's not what I said so I won't respond to this point.
People playing video games KNOW they are playing video games. They voluntarily purchase the game, or they voluntarily take up the controller at their friends house. They have not been conned, or duped. They are not under any kind of direct emotional manipulation to fool them otherwise.
Where did I say anyone was FORCING anyone else to play anything? I was merely observing that to condemn something like this brings out the knee-jerk "free" speech brigade, of which you appear to be a flag bearer, who demand speech which is not only free from legal consequences but free from criticism or condemnation. I KNOW that they KNOW they are playing video games. In a few years time, I will still find it disturbing if a human being can sit there with a virtual but totally convincing image of another human being who is at their mercy and choose to kill that virtual human. That is my opinion, and I don't think that my expression of it or others' distaste at the notion of this part of this game in any sense impinges on anyone's freedom of speech.
If you are so cognitively and emotionally weak that you cannot separate from reality behavior in a fictional setting, the content of that setting is far from the problem.
If people didn't engage emotionally with the actions they carry out in games, why would they contain elements plainly designed to provoke an emotional response? Put differently, if there is such a separation, why not have the player kill anonymous non-civilians in this game, or aliens, or robots? Because people emotionally respond to realism, and terrorists killing civilians in an airport is pretty realistic and believable. Would you be concerned about a kid that constantly drew pictures of themself hurting others? Or an adult who spent their whole time watching the most sadistic and violent porn possible? Apparently not, because they 'know it's not real'. Note once again that 'concerned' does not equal 'should be legally banned'.
Furthermore, if you think video games somehow apply to the crowded theater caveat of free speech, you are without a doubt, a complete fucking moron.
I don't know what the fuck you're fucking talking about, so apparently I am indeed a fucking moron. I do gather that you are assuming that everyone on this site in American, which would probably put you in the same category. Hail, fellow fucking moron.
Read Pynchon.
Better choose Carmaggedon where the killing of pedestrians was sort of necessary to boost your time.
And man that was fun.
"Freiheit ist immer auch die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden" - Rosa Luxemburg, 1871 - 1919
And if you do not have the moral capability to understand that, then I suggest you seek help, as everyone else is stating.
This tends to be the common answer. If anyone suggests that video games affect your real life, people think you're a "mental case."
I have shot a real gun, and I've played video games. I'm quite sane (well, I think so, anyway!)... aside from being on Slashdot talking about philosophy, which is one of the more insane things I've ever done ;)
The idea that virtual reality - books, TV, vieo games, movies, etc. - have no affect on the person is a strange one that seems to go back to almost Greek philosophy (the "spirit" is removed from the flesh and thus it doesn't matter what you do in your flesh). I don't think it's correct. Whether or not violence in video games directly correlates to violence in real life is, of course, not what I'm really trying to argue. What I'm trying to ask is what effect "virtual violence" (or virtual sex, virtual romance, virtual adventures, virtual anything) has on a person in real life. Does it change their behavior, their views and opinions, their morals, their ethics, their way of life, etc.
I know taking a life in real life is different than a video game. I also know that virtual reality can affect people to the extent that people kill themselves over it or use to make people very, very angry. WoW is not the only example, of course, but there certainly have been some high profile ones.
"Virtual murder" is very different from real life murder, certainly. But I'm not sure that enjoying watching/doing "virtual murder" is a good thing...
I don't particularly find enjoyment in killing birds, deer, or squirrels, especially for the sake of killing them. I do understand the draw to competition and challenges though... hunting, target-shooting, sports, etc. I personally love playing sports and definitely understand that. And I understand the draw of a game's storyline/"want to complete" as well, having played Baldur's Gate I/II, Neverwinter Nights I/II, Oblivion, all Monkey Island games, and many others...