If you play games like Far Cry 2 or Call of Duty at all, this is a fascinating and thought-provoking article that brings up some issues with the games we should all probably think hard about.
War Crimes
– March 9, 2009
If you play games like Far Cry 2 or Call of Duty at all, this is a fascinating and thought-provoking article that brings up some issues with the games we should all probably think hard about.
About the Author
Richard Clark (Co-Founder/Editor-in-Chief) has spent his entire life writing, reading, listening, and playing. He has a Bachelors in Theology from the Baptist College of Florida and has a Master of Arts in Theology and the Arts from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He lives in Louisville, KY where he is the classroom technology manager at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. In addition to writing at Christ and Pop Culture, he is also a staff writer for Kill Screen Magazine's website and has written for various other outlets such as Paste, Gamasutra, and Collide.
Email: deadyetliving [at] gmail [dot] com. Twitter: @deadyetliving. Xbox Live: deadyetliving 
Fortunately, none of these games portray Actual War. And don’t attempt to. I didn’t actually find his argument to be very compelling. It’s the same-old Videogames Are Teaching People that Violence Has No Consequences drivel. He does take a lot of time to describe how the two games critiqued fail at representing real-world conventions, but in the end, that’s not very meaningful. It’d be like comparing Mario’s activities (which seem to include curb-stomping Goombas—slang for Italian-Americans involved in mob activities, if I recall) to those of real-life plumbers (who rarely, I’m told, engage in such blatantly vigilante-type action).
I suppose the article could be interesting until one realizes that he’s just talking about games and that his criticisms might as well be leveled against chess (which also simulates, to some minor degree, warfare). I don’t know if any of you have played FPS mods that try to instill a sense of realism into gameplay, but they just aren’t fun. Players don’t sustain a level of damage and then die. They just die. Or maybe they don’t die, but they aren’t any longer able to run and shoot. Falling from a height of more than 2 1/2 feet disables the player (at least momentarily) and may break the player’s legs if he is loaded up with weaponry and typical military kit.
The fact is: people play games for fun, generally, and not so much to simulate actual fight or flight situations. Which aren’t fun.
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