The CoD: Modern Warfare Dynasty and the American Mindset.

I've never really been much a fan of the CoD games. I do play them and I have a lot of friends who play these games solely, like religious fantatics. However the reason I'm not a fan is mainly because I just don't think they're that amazing, it's been essentially the same game for 3-4 games now. Also, games aren't suppose to be realistic, but some developers strive to make their games as reaslistic as possible and market their games as such. When these games come out they fall short of anything realistic; a quick run down: respawns, poor collision detection, unrealistic damage rates, glitches & work arounds are constantly being exploited, rankings and levels remove gamers from playing on level playing fields, and many, many, many other examples. These are problems in almost every shooter, however most shooters don't aim to be realistic.

Alright, now that I've described how I few about the actual gameplay, I want to share my view on the real problem about these games and the mass marketing stategies that keep the money flowing towards big business.

Two main points to this argument, the first being the corporate ties that Infinity Ward and it's Spin-off, Treyarch, are guided by when they answer to the Activision Board of Directors. and the second being the mentality that youth's absorb by playing these games at young ages.

Before I go any further I want to say that I play shooters because I'm competitive in nature, however I play nearly every other Genre available: Puzzles, strategy, tower-defense, rpg, fighters, simulations, sports, TPS & FPS, action/adventure, quiz, mindteasers, dance, singing, whatever, and I also play lots of card games, roleplaying games, board games etc. I also play many sports and have an active outdoor life from Soccer, Ultimate Frisbee, disc golf, basektball, fishing, riflery, paintball, and other lawn games. I evenplay the occasional circle of death, beer pong, Celebrity Heads, threes, poker, black jack and anything else you can think of. I am competive in nature and I'm very versatile. I love winning but I can accept loss graciously, most of the time. The most important thing is, that I'm self-aware enough that I can seperate these activities from the real-world and understand that they are only games.

Without furher ado:
------------------------------------------------------------------
1st: The Activision Board of Directors

-consists of a plethora of corporate figure heads that range from CEOs of World Wide Media companies to Food and Beverage Companies and Cosmetic Corporations, and other corporate figure heads.

Board of Directors:
activisionblizzard.com...

Philippe G. H. Capron - He joined Vivendi as an executive vice president in January 2007.

Robert J. Corti - Mr. Corti served as an executive vice president and the chief financial officer of Avon Products (Cosmetic Corporation) from 1998-2006. Mr. Corti has served on the board of directors of Bacardi Limited (The Alcohol Manufacturer) since June 2006 and on the board of directors of ING Direct, a U.S. subsidiary of ING Groep (a financial services company, provides banking, investment, life insurance, and retirement services for individuals, families, small businesses, corporations, institutions, and governments worldwide), since January 2008. This still isn't all of his positions among other corporations.

Lucian Grainge - held positions of increasing responsibility within the Universal Music Group organization, including serving as the chairman and chief executive officer

Robert A. Kotick - Mr. Kotick is also a member of the Board of Directors for The Coca-Cola Company, among a bunch of other worthy foundations.

Jean-Bernard Lévy - Mr. Lévy currently serves as the vice-chairman of the supervisory board of Maroc Telecom and as the chairman of the supervisory board of each of Canal+ France and Viroxis. Mr. Lévy is also a member of the supervisory board of Canal+ Group and is a director of each of SFR, GVT Holdings, Société Générale, VINCI, French Europlace, Institut Telecom and l'Institut Pasteur.

Robert J. Morgado - chief executive officer of the Warner Music Group from 1985 to 1995. and the Nest Foundation, The company is best known for producing and distributing educational animated Christian and historical video

Stéphane Roussel - executive vice-president of SFR a french mobile phone company with 20 million customers

Richard Sarnoff
investing.businessweek.com... 20BLIZZARD%20INC
- Co-Chairman of the Bertelsmann, Inc en.wikipedia.org... (Which has worldwide ties to many industries from the books, internet, and many others industries and had ties to the Nazi party in germany during WWII which it later avowed in 2002 of making profits from slave labor and pushing propogranda.

Régis Turrini - Served as a judge in the French administrative judicial system, was an associate at two law firms in Paris and was a managing partner of the investment bank Arjil & Company. r. Turrini currently serves as a member of the supervisory board of each of Maroc Telecom (The the main telecommunication company in Morocco. The acronym for the company is IAM, IAM is controlled by Vivendi which has a 53% share of its capital.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Most of these directors are on the board of the Vivendi group, Vivendi SA (formerly known as Vivendi Universal) is a French multinational mass media and telecommunication company headquartered in Paris, France.[2] The company has activities in music, television and film, publishing, telecommunications, the Internet, and video games. In 2007, Vivendi announced that their subdivision Vivendi Games would be merging with Activision to form Activision Blizzard. Vivendi will be the major shareholder in this merger holding a 52% to 48% (pending results of the tender offer) stake of the newly formed company. Note that this is right after the release of CoD:4

I think it may have been a move to secure a promising series and advertise through it. Notice how the games haven't changed too much, gameplay wise since this merger. Either way there is no proof of anything insidious by holding these positions, mainly it just say that they are good business men, however it does place into perspective the possibility for abuse. Mainly because most American's are at least aware of the corporate nature of advertising, ruthlessness, profit, and bottom lines. Some are also aware of the corporate America and its need to inspire war to increase profits, and it's need to control the flow of the government through backdoor sponsorship of elected high-ranking officials.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2nd: The American mentality

America has been a war-like country since the end of WWII, this was a war we were forced into... however since that time we've participated in many wars that didn't actively affect us and could be best described as pre-emptive strikes, at times. Immediately after that time of WWII, when America went to war there were a majority of American's in protest of the conflicts.

This action has been in decline ever since, specifically due to several reasons: people are to busy to participate in protest, don't fully support a cause's reasons, too weak minded, don't have the proper resources or time, are poorly informed, completely misguided, or they just don't care, but most importantly most American's support the war machine nowadays. Could this be caused by the increase in shooters being played across America by its youth?

I recently watched a movie/cinematic documentary called "Battle for Haditha". The film is inspired by an incident that occurred three months after the Battle of Haditha in the Iraq War. On 19 November 2005, 24 Iraqi men, women and children were killed in Haditha, a city in the western Iraq province of Al Anbar. At least 15 of those killed were noncombatant civilians. All are alleged to have been killed by a group of United States Marines. (en.wikipedia.org...) The actions in the movie where horrific and really showed another side of the American war in the middle east. Sadly this movie only documents one incident, when there have been many incidents showing similarites. There have been 100,000+ civilians killed during the Iraqi war. (www.iraqbodycount.org...)

The one thing that really struck me during the flick was the similarity between the recreated mindsets and demeanor of the Marines that carried out the hideous crimes and the mindsets of the over-zealous CoD gamers that flood the web with their gameplay. It wouldn't take but a few clicks of a mouse and no more than 33 seconds of data entry to find a clip of a CoD gamer loosing his marbles over a blown k/d, or a kill-streak that was ended early. In fact the topic is being exploited by the internet phenomenon, "Trolling". People love logging in to their favorite game, just to get a rise out of people and see how they will react. When you break it down, we see one group of people actively antagonizing another group of people, mainly because they don't have anything better to do. This is something we see all across the internet, afterall it's the American way.
( I don't mean to make a broad generalization about all CoD gamers, because I'm not that blind, I'm sure there are many who feel the same as I do and live in reality, but you all know the people I'm talking about)

If the government realizes that there are large portions of the population, that feel like the young CoD gamer, which will be our future; they are free to do as they please, because most people will not protest and will support and fight for their illegitmate wars.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

My message is, if you are a gamer, remember what your are supporting when you play these games religiously, especially the ones in support of US black op and invasion scenarios. This includes the battlefield series by the other gaming giant, EA. Don't become enraged by things that really aren't so important, play to have fun, but realize when it's time to turn the system off and walk away. Realize when you being feed the same garbled crap for the 5th time in a row. Realize that you are supporting big industry when you pay the full $60 to play a brand new game then pay $15 for add-ons and supporting content (You can now buy black ops for $8 in certain places, like gamefly). These big industries put this money towards globalization and it does not go back into the American economy the majority of the time (this affects us in the long run). Realize that when you hear the words pride, courage, honor, integrity, and intestinal fortitude, that these words shouldn't inspire feelings of agression, war, and rage. Realize that you should only ever fight for your life, or in the defense of people and loved ones.

I honestly believe if you watch the "Battle of Haditha" it may be hard for you to stomach playing a shooting game within the next few days. It is certainly something that sticks with you.

I think this is a subject we can all sense, but no one has put words to it.

You know, its funny. The two guys I used to work with played COD religiously. I mean all the time. I was in the U.S. army for 8 years and was deployed twice to Bosnia and then Kosovo. I love video games but I always hated COD. When they found out that I was prior service they begged and begged me to play with them, saying things like, "Dude, you would be so good at playing COD, you used to be in the army!" As if we were over there having thumb wars, and those two things were one and the same. I just dont like the games because they have a cult like following and like you said, tend to glorify war in a way that its not meant to be.

War is Hell....
General W.T. Sherman.

Want cliffs plox. Not sure what youre saying.

I play COD4. I prefer COD2. I started with COD1.

1&2 were different due to #2 being less klunky. #4 was made for consoles, and as such it lacked the fun of #2.

Not played any since worth mentioning, as they are as fubar as having an xbox but using a kb and mouse.

Anyone who says they're realistic is a numpty. Anyone who says "You've been in war, you would be good at it!" is a cretin. Anyone who says it desensitises you to war is a fool.

So... wait, I'm not American... does this invalidate me?

Oo

reply to post by mainidh

No, I am not dumbing down my thought process and this article to compensate for your lack of comprehension skills. Cliff notes are for people that just breeze by, this is something I consider to be serious, and maybe you should too based on your demeanor.

It may not have desensitized you, but it has to many others who can't separate reality from fiction, and by no means can you say that I am a fool...... I take it, you didn't read the thread in it's entirety. And no, the effects of these games aren't strictly limited to American's, did you really think I was saying that, based on the context? I am focusing on them on America, but obviously this can be transferred in different ways...

Also it's the FPS craze as a whole that is having adverse effects on people, it's the culture they involve themselves with, it's the things they talk about, it's how they act when things don't go their way. I think in all honesty you may be one of the people I'm talking about who's been absorbed by that culture, and that's why you can't see me point, but that's pure speculation. I just lean in that direction because you seem to be getting defensive when no-one has attacked you. Thanks for shopping at the one-stop troll-shop.

reply to post by Cancerwarrior


Thank you for your service to our country and being wise enough to see war for what it is... hell.

I guess I didn't mention that in the thread, but I have the utmost respect for our countries service men and the armed forces; however, I by no means support these wars we've forcibly engaged ourselves in. My father served and died from wounds in Vietnam, my sister was the youngest marine Major ever, I have many friends who serve and I spent three years in military school where I became immersed in a culture similar to the armed forces, but by no means, the same. The idea of the Army is a very patriotic and noble idea, I mean I still salute the flag or cover my heart when I hear the national anthem, even if it's a TV ballgame. I just don't agree with the command actions, or the current goals of the US Armed Forces HQ.

Being a person who has worked on some of those CoD games, I can assure you that the only reason they are rinsing and repeating is yes the violence and mindset it creates in our youth, but also because of the money. Not only that but it turns all the little bastards into bigger degenerates. Particularly if you notice how many of them act on multiplayer. They're formula will never change unless the money flow changes. That is it. As for the teams and who leads them, they are straight up Succubus. If you've ever heard the term "crunch" before, this was their motto. They couldn't schedule a fruit delivery properly let alone a huge project. Forcing the underlings who actually build the game to work for 10-12 hour days for 6-7 days a week months on end to "finish the game" all for a measly bonus. Thankfully I don't need to inflate my ego and don't really give a # about money so I left as you can probably tell from my attitude towards the place

I just wanted to add to the "formula changing" term, an example would be Guitar Hero. They never changed the formula, and kept putting out a new guitar hero game every 3 months in the year, it was ludicrous. But then again that was in the death throws of Guitar Hero vs Rock Band

reply to post by Bonified Ween


Thanks for the insight of the inner-workings. It's good to know that I'm at least in the right ballpark.

I also believe I could fill a page with all the games that have just simply been regurgitated over the years simply so the company could make more money in the simplest fashion. Which is really sad, and is the main reason we've seen so few games that have really gone through the fine-tuning process during the developmental stages. Now we just see new maps, new voice overs, maybe a few new guns, maybe a few new "perks" accomplishments, but nothing completely original or inspiring. I feel really sad for the people who dance in their seats waiting for the next spit up.

Also I work at a Country Club, and I can completely agree with you about the decision makers who couldn't put their feet in their pant legs if there life's depended on it. Most of the wealthy are completely incompetent when it comes to simple tasks, or even tasks that require just a little common sense, yet they make decisions for the people that do. I am biased towards this idea, I do not like how the hierarchy of this stage sits. I would love to see a transition of money towards people that are actually deserving and would do good things with the money instead of always worrying about the 4th quarter profit margin.

reply to post by Cancerwarrior


Not to mention the younger kids who shouldn't be playing the game at all, who actually kill people pretending real-life is CoD. True story.

i play often and yeah peoples attitudes on multiplayer are broken i always try and keep it real thou and if people are acting like jackboot interweb punks running a lobby i feel obliged to challenge their sean hannity type attacks
and i always pwn those n00bs lol
great thread by the way

My only problem with what you're saying is that it applies to Sci-Fi shooters just as much as the "realistic" war fighting games. Play a Halo death match or Gears of War online sometime. I honestly cannot play either of those games online with random matchmaking anymore. It went from being a fun gaming passtime to being a PITA dealing with profane, angry, tantruming prepubescent children. The last Halo game I played with online random matchmaking was Halo 3... I got sniped a couple of times by the same dude before I caught his pattern. Spawn -> sniper rifle -> same crow's nest -> wash, rinse, repeat. Once I recognized that I took a lazer sword up to the crow's nest and slaughtered the guy. Then I waited. By the fifth time I killed him as he ran around the corner to his little perch he began protesting in his high pitched little voice, cussing me out, calling me racist epithets, etc. He said he was going to file a complaint against me for "cheating." That was the last time I played Halo online with anyone I didn't personally know or my friends didn't personally know. I had a similar experience with the first gears of War. I had played Gears several times a week with some buddies after work, got pretty good with it (especially with sticky grenades) and decided to try random matchmaking to pick up some Acheivements. After we played a few rounds I had one dude who sounded like he was all of 10 who I killed multiple times with long distance grenade throws (The kid did not know how to freaking strafe and always ran in straight lines...) Same thing... "You're a blankety blank cheater, *racist comment*, *Questionable Parentage*, etc." It killed the fun.

To be real blunt here, the problem isn't corporatism or the violence of society as a whole. The problem is kids playing online games against adults. To a 12 year old beta, scoring a Killtacular is some sort of a holy grail and anyone who interferes with that goal generates legitimate, RL rage. To a 30 year old who's just spent his day at work, has the kids quietly snuggled into their beds, and is looking for the enjoyment a couple hours of mindless gaming brings while his wife reads a book on the couch next to him it is all about relaxing and having some fun. Age, responsibility, and maturity bring an understanding of priorities which most 12 year olds are incapible of grasping.