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I Can See the Headlines Now

10/28/2009|Matt "Steerpike" Sakey|Editorials, News4
Home » Home » Editorials » I Can See the Headlines Now
I Can See the Headlines Now

So IndustryGamers and others are reporting a new controversy surrounding Infinity Ward’s upcoming Modern Warfare 2: it looks like, for at least a small portion of the game, you will play as a terrorist, with the objective of gunning down civilians in an airport terminal. It’s sparked quite the little inferno.

I’m okay with this, and I’ll tell you why. But I do worry about the mainstream kneejerks… and I’ll tell you why.

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I’m okay with it for exactly the same reason IndustryGamers is: it doesn’t appear that this action is presented as good, you’re not rewarded for it, and by making such a scene interactive, Infinity Ward will be able to amp up the human experience of innocent casualties in a terrorist attack. I’d also add, beyond what GameDaily says, that games have every right to include dangerous content like this, provided they adhere to certain constraints of taste. Everything Infinity Ward does is tasteful, and in many ways the addition of this interactive scene is reminiscent of a scene from the original Modern Warfare… you might recall it… helicopter? Explosion? It was arguably the most shocking, gut-wrenching, and unexpected thing that could have occurred, right up there with Sephiroth gutting Aeris in Final Fantasy 7. The company is tapping new ground and does so in revelatory ways.

The reason I worry is that mainstream coverage won’t go into that level of rumination. They’ll just blare GAME ALLOWS TEENS TO ACT OUT TERRORIST MAYHEM and leave it at that. Now, of course, the best way to force the mainstream media to accept that gaming has every right to deliver often uncomfortable themes is to simply do so and weather the inevitable storm. This is a particularly thorny issue, being terrorism, and I hope both Infinity Ward and publisher Activision/Blizzard and preparing to get ahead of the potential onslaught. Just a little spin will go a long way.

Here’s a funny thing, though: you play as a terrorist in many games, and you do get rewarded for it, but no one complains, because the victims are the bad guys, and innocents are just considered collateral. Think about Half Life 2: Gordon, Alyx, and in fact the entire resistance, are terrorists, terrorists who destroy property, murder peacekeepers, and conduct armed insurrection. Hell, by the time Episode 2 gets going, you’ve destroyed an entire city, surely still containing innocents, despite evacuation efforts. Not a peep from the news.

It’s funny how things like semantics (or, if you prefer, spin) can change ideas so easily. One man’s terrorist is another man’s heroic revolutionary, and one man’s innocent is another’s target. It looks like Infinity Ward is making an effort to communicate the dual nature of conflict in Modern Warfare 2, and provided everyone’s prepared for the possible backlash, I applaud ’em for it. Do they take it too far? Heck, I don’t know. The aforementioned shocker in the original Modern Warfare went pretty damned far and they were lauded for it. Schindler’s List goes pretty far too. Sometimes you need to show the horror viscerally if it’s to be thoroughly comprehended by the audience. As usual, the only difference here is that it’s a game, and games still aren’t afforded the same creative freedoms as other media.

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07/18/2012 Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

About the author

Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

Tap-Repeatedly Overlord Steerpike is a games industry journalist and consultant. His earliest memories are of video games, and hopes his last memories will be of them as well. He’s a featured monthly columnist with the International Game Developers Association, and is internationally published in an assortment of dull e-Learning texts and less dull gaming publications. He also lectures on games at various universities.

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4 Responses to I Can See the Headlines Now

  • Jason O 10/28/2009

    I do think there is a big distinction between a resistance and a terrorist act. Terrorist target civilians. The whole purpose of terrorism is to spread, well, terror. The end goal may not be to slaughter civilians, but do whatever it takes to spread fear and panic.

    That said, I don’t see the resistance in Half-Life 2 as terrorists seeing as how they were not trying to blow up the city.

    I also don’t see the actions of the resistance in the Matrix as terrorism. The goal was not to spread fear. Now, they are a bunch of mass murderers, but I’m sure the distinction would be lost on their victims.

    I see this portion of MW2 making me very uncomfortable, I’m sure that’s the point. While you used the example of the helicopter crash in the first game, there was also a segment where you were bundled into the back of a car, hauled through the city, and then shot in the face.

    Infinity Ward is very good at this stuff. I would have to assume with their past history that this is not to portray the terrorists in a sympathetic light.

    The good news is that the mainstream press seems less keen to pursue those kinds of headlines now that it has become clear that the majority of the gaming demographic are actually adults. Once the media realized they were alienating most of their audience and losing viewers/readers they backed off. Not saying it won’t happen, just seems less likely.

  • Kinderplatz 10/29/2009

    In regards to the previous posters comments on the nature of terrorism I can only say this: terrorism is subjective.  It is entirely true that one mans terrorist is another mans hero.  As a measure of proof I’ll cite two examples:

    http://www.d-n-i.net/dni/2009/10/26/on-war-319-the-first-front/

    The above article references the difficulties the Mexican government is currently having in reigning in La Familia, a local narcotics gang.  The reason they are having such difficulties is because La Familia is providing social services for the local population, drawing their loyalties away from the state.

    Within the comments section of the previously posted article a poster points toward a similar situation occurring in Guatemala:

    http://news.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1Story20090806-159419.html

    Here the same situation is taking place.  The so-called “bad guys” have garnered such enthusiastic support from the local population that protests were held in their favor when a coalition of enforcement agencies spanning Guatemala and the United States attempted to arrest members of the local drug cartel.

    Furthermore, in WW2 alone, Allied forces were responsible for the deaths of between 840,000 to 2,800,000 German civilians in an aerial bombardment campaign that can only be described as terrorism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties).  Contrary to the thinking at the time, and also specifically to modern terrorist organizations, committing acts of violence against a population does not garner their support or fear, but rather, their resistance.

    Additionally, terrorism is a tactic of war by any side, “good” or “bad.”  It is better that your enemy fears you, as this makes them, ideally, less willing to fight you.  In this regard terrorism is a completely legitimate tactic when applied appropriately.  Spreading “fear and panic” is a desired approach to conquering ones enemy, as an enemy who fears you and flees in panic is one which has already defeated.  War is not pretty, and there are no rules.  Any organization which establishes rules begs said rules to be broken in the struggle for victory.

    “I don’t see the resistance in Half-Life 2 as terrorists”

    All I have to say about this is you don’t view them as terrorists because you largely agreed with the nature of the struggle of Gordon Freeman vs. the Combine, as you were playing the role of Gordon Freeman.  I can assure you that the leadership of the fictional Combine forces most definitely considered Gordon Freeman to be a terrorist leading a global insurrection.  Ones personal sympathies help to paint the picture of conflict.

    “seeing as how they were not trying to blow up the city.”

    While they certainly weren’t TRYING to blow up City 17, their actions led directly to its destruction.  Had the events of HL2 never happened, City 17 would not have been destroyed.

    “I also don’t see the actions of the resistance in the Matrix as terrorism.”

    Again, this is because as a human, you sympathize with the human protagonists of The Matrix series vs. The Machines.  Personally, once having viewed The Animatrix I found myself sympathizing more with The Machines than with The Humans, because the humans were, frankly, total dicks and got what was coming to them.

    “The goal was not to spread fear”

    Wasn’t it though?  What was the purpose then of The One?  Simply as a liberator?  Would not this liberation spread fear amongst The Machines?  While I can agree the outright goal may not have been to spread fear, I don’t think it can be denied that it was an end result regardless of intention.

    “there was also a segment where you were bundled into the back of a car, hauled through the city, and then shot in the face.”

    I too recalled this sequence while reading Steerpikes above commentary when thinking of the most shocking moments of CoD4.  It was a favorite of mine as it left the player completely and totally helpless in the face of the events which constitute the game as a whole.  We, as players, were simply there to witness the brutality of war from the perspective of its victims, both high and low.  I felt this especially poignant as an American civilian who has experienced incredibly little of the horrors of war which occur on a daily basis around the globe.

    “The good news is that the mainstream press seems less keen to pursue those kinds of headlines now that it has become clear that the majority of the gaming demographic are actually adults.”

    This is an interesting point you raise here and one I would largely agree with.  While plenty of kids play games (how can they resist?  I know I couldn’t despite what my mother told me) the industry cut its teeth on what is now an adult audience, and as a result they are looking for adult oriented themes and storylines.

    Finally, and to bring this back to the topic, I think this will be a good thing for Infinity Ward as an artistic statement.  I think it will make players slightly sick in the stomach.  I know I cannot play an RPG without playing a lawful good character and this will certainly stretch me.  As mentioned previously the most shocking moment for me in CoD4 was the brief stint as the deposed leader of an un-named Muslim country.  My only fear is that it will likely attempt to portray modern terrorism as a collection of cold-hearted men whose only goal is chaos and destruction.  As with anything in life the reasons fueling terrorism are far more complicated than this.  And that is what I want.  A complicated game that makes me feel things I wouldn’t normally feel in my civilian life.

    I don’t mean to pick on you, Jason O.  You simply said some things that I do and don’t agree with and art, video games and war are three topics I feel strongly about.

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