New Call of Duty Game Poses Ethical Challenges to Gamers

My son introduced me to the Call of Duty franchise on his XBox. I found the historical content of the WW2 games more interesting than the games themselves. OK, I liked the one about shooting Nazi zombies, that was fun. But as the games become more visually complex and even aesthetically pleasing, the simulation of violence became more and more troublesome for me as a parent, and I started looking at the age ratings for the games he wanted to get.

If he was still living with me, I'd probably say no to the latest installment, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which is getting a lot of buzz for posing ethical problems which may even put off some gamers. The buzz seems to focus on a sequence when the player is called on to join in massacring civilians at an airport in order to infiltrate a terrorist gang. Chris Sullentrop writes on slate.com that "It's the most anti-war war game I've ever played, a murder simulator that won't let you forget the nature of your actions."

The always interesting David Aaronivitch, writing in The Times, is less sanguine about the ethical dilemmas the game will pose:

"With the new Call of Duty, the airport scenario has led to an on-screen warning that precedes the bloodshed. “Some players,” it says, “may find one of the missions disturbing or offensive. Would you like to have the option to skip this mission?” How many of the 1.23 million people who bought the game in Britain this week in the first 24 hours of its availability — collectively paying £47 million in the process — do we imagine, opted to skip? My guess is round about none. How many of them were actually under 18? Or buying for people under 18? Though the supposed retail price is £55, my local HMV was offering it for £9.99 if you traded in an old game, so money wasn’t necessarily a problem."

Is there anyone else out there worried about all those disaffected kids in black raincoats, sitting in their basements shooting civilians in an airport? And is there anything just a little hypocritical about the game designer's apparent refusal to include children among the civilians that the gamer can massacre, or should we feel comforted that there are still some boundaries that apparently can't be crossed? Shooting Nazi zombies is so uncomplicated by comparison.