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robdor, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

It’s a game.

Absolute_Axoltl,

It being a game doesn’t change anything. A film can be pro-war propaganda and it continues to be a film.

TwilightVulpine,

This sort of response shows that even some people who care a lot about games, think little of them. Like they are all inconsequential playthings.

Can you imagine anyone saying "it's a book" to try to say that they don't matter?

eltimablo,

Can you imagine anyone saying "it's a book" to try to say that they don't matter?

Atheists do it all the time when talking about the Bible

Bitrot,

In comparison to “the inspired, living word of God”, only the edgiest would argue it hasn’t been an important piece of literature.

eltimablo,

In my time, I've encountered edge sharp enough to cut the very universe itself.

TwilightVulpine,

Sure, but that is a whole different argument. When atheists say that that the Bible is "just a book" it's not a dismissal of the value of literature, it's saying that they don't need to be bound to what it says, that to them it's no more than any other book.

robdor,

Yes

sobersquid, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

Perhaps my memory is clouded, as it has been a long time since I had played a Call of Duty game, but I believe there was a time when most of it felt anti-war, in that you would die frequently and often, then be shown a quote that was about how there are no winners in war, providing a sharp contrast between the actions you were taking and the grin reality of what was occuring. After I believe Modern Warfare 2, the CEOs of Infinity War stepped down, and since then the quotes stopped being more anti-war, and much more pro-war, highlighting heroism and such in the quotes. I always viewed it as a studio change and just stopped playing after that, feeling the games were just missing the mark and farming more and more of that sweet multiplayer money.

glockenspiel,

Citations Needed had a mini series where they discussed why this happened. The US government will give material support to movie and game studios in exchange for some creative control over the content. That’s why so many movies with military equipment in it are rabidly pro-war; the studios don’t get access to the real equipment without the government’s support, and they don’t sign off on extremely critical scripts.

COD and similar games don’t just pop out of a void and still strive for some semblance of realism. That is a huge selling point after all. So the government gets involved, even if in little ways. Same way China gets to censor movies, either by omission or fundamentally changing things, around the world.

orca,
@orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts avatar

This is the same reason TV shows like NCIS get 500 seasons.

oddspinnaker, (edited )

Ooooh, I feel dumb that I didn’t pick up on this before.

I knew about movies (Top Gun and all) but not other things, for whatever reason.

comicallycluttered,

The beginning of the “campaign” in Battlefield 1 was really good about this.

SPOILERS AHEAD ^(I know there are spoiler tags, but they don’t work on my app.)

Opening begins with the following:

Battlefield 1 is based upon events that unfolded over one hundred years ago.

More than 60 million soldiers fought in “The War to End All Wars”.

It ended nothing. Yet it changed the world forever.

What follows is frontline combat.

You are not expected to survive.

You’re then thrown into the start of a regular battle. This is the game, right? Cool, let’s shoot some bad guys.

Nope. Doesn’t matter how good you are, you will die. After you get killed, the name of the soldier and how many years he’d lived are shown on-screen.

Then you switch perspectives to a different kind of battle (eg. artillery, air, tank, etc.). Same thing. This goes on a few times.

Eventually you reach a point where it’s just you, face to face with a lone German soldier, your rifles pointed at each other. Both soldiers just lower their guns, realizing the futility of it all.

Intro ends.

The rest of the game is the typical military FPS stuff we’re used to, but that intro was pretty great about how war has no winners when it comes to individuals on the battlefield. We all lose in the end, whether we live or not.

thoro,

Yeah there was a little bit of that in the original WW2 games: CoD 1-3 and the expansion games and console exclusives.

Rentlar, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda
Bitrot, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

You didn’t play long enough, eventually there are miscellaneous Cuban enemies too.

If you aren’t going to finish the game, I’d recommend at least watching the ending. The “good” ending modifies the typical narrative and the “bad” ending ends up being much more fun.

Binthinkin, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

COD and now that Fallujah one are such garbage and disrespect those who were there. The cocaine jacked asshats of the COD franchise need better stories so they just lie.

MinusPi, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda
@MinusPi@yiffit.net avatar

Did anyone not realize this?

TwilightVulpine,

A lot of teenagers with poor history education probably never did.

Commiunism, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

I think they were/are getting funding from some US military defense sector, the same one that was funding a lot of pro-american propaganda films. So even without taking the actual campaign/story of COD games into consideration, it’s definitely in their interest to make a propaganda game.

intensely_human, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

I mean duh. It’s art that makes war fun.

cyborganism, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

Yeah. I never played any other CoD games than the WWII ones. CoD 1, 2, the Pacific one (world at war?) and the latest WWII.

When I saw them release the modern warfare one after the invasion of Iraq, I thought it was so distasteful I never bothered to pay any other CoD game because I knew it would be uncomfortable.

IWantToFuckSpez, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda

It’s always been like that https://www.eurogamer.net/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-accused-of-rewriting-history-to-blame-russia-for-controversial-us-attacks

Also there is literally a former CIA exec in the exec suite of Activision.

https://www.activisionblizzard.com/leadership/brian-bulatao

And the Homeland Security Advisor to Dubya was also an exec at Activision

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frances_Townsend

How many other game companies have executives with close ties to the military?

Maajmaaj, do gaming w ‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda
@Maajmaaj@lemmy.ca avatar

Back when I enjoyed call of duty, I never played the campaign, because I knew it was fantastical horseshit. As a vet, I find it disrespectful to the ones that passed away to attempt to change history via propaganda in this way.

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