‘Call of Duty’ Doesn’t Just Depict Bad History—It’s Pro-War Propaganda
I just started playing COD Black Ops Cold War because I got it through my PlayStation Plus subscription and wanted to try it out. I've previously played some others like Modern Warfare (1 and 2) and WWII. While it always felt a bit over the top and propaganda-ish, I really liked it for the blockbuster feeling and just turning your mind off and enjoying the set pieces. However, Cold War has a section in Vietnam and I suddenly started feeling really uncomfortable and just turned the game off.
In WWII you can easily feel like the "defender", and even Modern Warfare felt like fighting a very specific organisation that wanted to kill millions. Here however it just becomes so hard to explain why I'm happily mowing down hundreds of clearly Vietnamese locals that I was unable to turn my mind off and just enjoy the spectacle.
I turned to the internet and started browsing and found this article and I really agree with what the author is saying.
I don't know if I will be continuing the campaign or not, but I just feel that I don't want to support these kinds of minimizations of military interventions.
I just wish there were more high budget / setpiece games that don't glorify real life wars. Spec Ops The Line was amazing in that sense, but it's also quite old already.
I would love to hear your opinions on this subject.
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.
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:
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.
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.
This is the same reason TV shows like NCIS get 500 seasons.
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.
Yeah there was a little bit of that in the original WW2 games: CoD 1-3 and the expansion games and console exclusives.
Activision receives preferential access and funding from the DOD. Much like with films and sports presentations, Call of Duty is a PR arm of the military industrial complex.
The upside is I don't see how its improved recruitment numbers.
At one point in time I certain it has. Right now people seem more skeptical, which is pretty fair since anyone joining now has lived their entire life during a pointless war.
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?
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.
I mean, yeah. CoD has always glorified it. Even more so in recent years as they push for multiplayer and the massive payday that came with that. The earlier games often had a "war can be bad too" bits. The Russian bit in CoD1. The nuke. "No Russian". But otherwise it's a Michael Bay movie in game form.
Spec Ops The Line was the only game I can think of that bucked that. Even the publishers had no idea what it was, despite the antagonist literally being called Konrad.
Old game, but Cannon Fodder was an anti-war satire, and also self-aware about the ridiculousness of making a fun game in the context of the horrors of war.
Yasumi Matsuno's career was also built on quite rich and sophisticated crypto-Marxist critiques of superstructures and warfare, although he slid it under the radar via medieval fantasy. Tactics Ogre is probably the most famous Japanese game about genocide and class struggle. Probably the double whammy for why Western games criticism tried so hard to make it flop.
I found Red Orchestra to be more of an anti war game too. The way people die, you can die quickly w.o. knowing what hit you exactly, strong supression, having to respawn in another wave in the single player campaign constantly etc. really make you feel that real war sucks.
The first CoD definitely showed the horrors of war. By the "Russian Bit" I suppose you mean the part where a Russian soldier tries to retreat and is shot by his commanding officer. Or maybe you mean where you have to wait for the soldier in front of you to die so you can pick up a gun and boots. But every CoD since that game has been more of a game and less of a history lesson.
Yeah, that bit.
Even though it was based on events from WW1, stolen under cinematic license for use in WW2 by Enemy at the Gates, and then subsequently stolen again by Infinity Ward.
But hey, it looks good.
Hello. I am a game developer of 10 years. For about 1.5 years I worked on Squad, from early 2016 to late 2017. I quit for this exact reason.
I thought it would be a game about honoring the act of war not glorifying it. Especially since we had veterans at the studio on the design. Instead, it was a game about making it feel as realistic as possible while still being fun. 51% gameplay, 49% realism was the motto.
Squad doesn't do anything narratively. It just sets two factions on a map and says fight. The mechanics feel great, the sound design is the best it can be, and the vehicles give this strong feeling of weight. It's a great game... that they then took my work, split into another company into a defense contractor, and made a real-life military simulation. Not like Arma but an actual military training tool.
Squad does the same thing, makes you feel okay with fighting and making fun of an opposing force that is just trying to preserve it's own way of life. It's not there narratively but in the community which Squad specifically as a team did nothing at the time to stop the racists and created a pro-war community. In fact, in a lot of ways they cultivated it.
So I have a lot of opinions about this subject, pretty scattered but I will leave you with my greatest accomplishment on Squad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7RMnYm_6rNE
I haven't played Squad in a bit, but thanks for the work you put into it.
I will say, Bohemia Interactive (ArmA studio) also makes military training tools. If you make a fairly realistic multiplayer milsim style game, it's easy to roll that into something militaries will spend a lot for. I don't think this is "wrong" but it is morally gray. It does provide low risk training, which could save lives, but it's also training to kill people, and maybe not "the good guys" if there is such a thing.
You're right that Squad has harbored a lot of racists though. A lot of people seem to play to larp as a racist stereotype. That said, I've also met a lot of vets there who seem to care a lot more about treating it properly. I don't think there's a way to get one of those without the other, without being ArmA which takes too much commitment for me now.
Yeah, I mean the military training stuff is morally grey. I feel like from my point of view, there would be a much better way of handling it beforehand. Like explaining to the staff that it's a possibility your work will be used to train military staff.
I think there is a way to get a community full of people who want to treat the game properly. It's to come out and fully say "This isn't what we want to see in our community and we condemn it." It won't work perfectly but that doesn't mean you throw away the entire concept of a better community because you can't have a perfect community.
Bohemia at least heavily pushed their Laws of War DLC and their collaboration with the Red Cross
The most stark example against this is the original MW2 - in addition to the anti-war quotes everyone loves to talk about every time you die, the main antagonist is literally a US Army General (admittedly he is distanced from the actual Army by the end, using a PMC instead).
The black ops games have some twist that often provoke the the thought of whether the ends justify the means. ::: In Cold War, the main character, Bell, is actually a captured Russian soldier that they have brainwashed to fight for the US as part of an experimental program. When this is revealed, you have the option to betray your "team" and lead them into a Russian trap :::
That being said, I haven't played all of the cod campaigns, especially some of the more "historical" entries. It's more fun to play this type of game when it makes you feel like what you're doing is justified. It's important to remember it's all fiction, but hey, it's not going to be for everyone. If you feel like the game you're playing goes against your morals, no shame in switching it off for something else.
As Reggie from Nintendo once said, "If it isn't fun, why bother."
I haven't played enough to make a judgment about COD in particular, but like you said, this is from Nintendo, a company whose main franchise is a game for kids about a funny little man stomping evil turtles in a fantasy world. It doesn't even have the trappings of something that you can take seriously and use to inform your real life. Nobody would mistake it for anything close to a realistic historical account, unlike COD.
Is Schindler's List fun?
There is more to media and art than whether its fun. Art can be engaging and intriguing without being "fun". I wouldn't call Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice "fun" per se, but it's definitely a good game.
Would you define this as your "Are we the baddies?" moment?
Well, not really as I'm European and have no connection to any side in the Vietnam war.
I just feel that if your game is based on real life wars than you should be very careful to give a nuanced view of the situation. Even allowing a campaign on both sides would be interesting if executed well.
French colonization of Vietnam was what the VCP were fighting against at the beginning of the war. The Soviet Union and China got involved to help kick France and Britain out and US involvement came when it was clear France and Britain had lost the war. But other than that and the coalition troops I guess Europe wasn't involved in the Vietnam War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French\_Indochina
I knew about this. As a Belgian though, I don't believe we had a lot of presence there.
Sadly, we have done our share of horrible stuff on foreign soil (but we haven't made any videogames about it)
I tried to find one, but it looks like you're right. This is the closest I could find, and they seem to be based in Paris.
Certainly we already had this conversation like ten years ago right? Call of duty has never been anything but that, you really can’t make a war game that is both fun and anything but pro war
I don't think this is a conversation we can have once ten years ago and forget about it, as long as the franchise is still going.
I think you’ve mistaken being pro war with being unpopular or being abolished or something
I don't even know where you got that from. What I'm saying is that there is plenty of reason to keep talking about it.
I never played much CoD so I might be wrong here but there is a difference betwesn debicting war and rewriting history in favor of the US and I think that's what the author wants to point out, the US loves to be debicted as the good guys even if it's anything but true and their collaborations with Hollywood show that really fucking well.
Yeah well, the propaganda has gotten even more blatant and it's still the worlds best selling game every year. So I think it's totally reasonable to continue having this conversation.
Don't they recieve funding from the us armed forces? No shit its pro army 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.
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.
I installed all 100+ gb on my PS5, played 2 or 3 matches with a friend online, laughed a lot at how gruff-guy, teenage edge-lord it all was, then promptly deleted it in order to see if Destiny 2 was any better. (We're still playing Destiny 2, but have all but given up on ever understanding what the hell we're supposed to do in that game or how to even go about doing it.)
@knokelmaat As someone who used to play call of duty I don't think anyone plays the campaign and thinks its anything more than fantasy.
You forget that literal children play these games
And also US puts out enough propaganda about their role in wars that enough grown-ass adults have very idealized views about them.
The US Army would disagree, and I'm certain they know better than you. They literally use CoD in their recruitment campaigns.
@Silejonu @knokelmaat The article that you linked does not support your argument at all. It mentions that the US Army tried to make a video game to recruit people but its a game no one has heard of. Most of their budget is used to sponsor esports teams and streamers. That is not relevant to the propaganda in the CoD campaign.
Young and impressionable kids? I started playing the original MW2 when I was 11.
Did you think it was real?
You thought it depicted reality?
Even if you know it's fiction you get the feeling that you are on the "good" side, which may colour your perception on the US military interventions.
True. The teenage mutant ninja turtles colored my perception of giant crime fighting amphibious creatures when I was young...
Why are you giving an example that is not based on a real war or context?
Of course this doesn't influence your opinion of real life as the subject doesn't refer to real life (as you so clearly describe with the "giant crime fighting amphibious creatures").
Because it's the same thing.
Are you unable to distinguish fiction from reality? Do you also believe GI Joe was real? Does Grand Thieft Auto make you want to steal cars and beat up prostitutes?
It's a video game. You have much much bigger problems to worry about if you're having trouble disconnecting from it in your mind.
Are you saying that fiction has no influence on how we view the world?
I'm sorry, but that is just wrong. Using fictional works as propaganda is a thing, so it most certainly has an effect on the public.
Other research papers after a quick search, these indicate influence between fiction and beliefs/opinions of the consumers:
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1532673X12453758
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/abs/its-the-end-of-the-world-and-they-know-it-how-dystopian-fiction-shapes-political-attitudes/3853105561CB840EAB79258DC2575849
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45847098_The_influence_of_television_fiction_on_political_attitudes
You're making a solid and valid point OP. The other guy is being a fuck. I wouldn't pay him much mind but I do admire your willingness to explain your angle!
Thanks, this message means a lot to me!
You still never answered my question.
You thought it depicted reality?
No I'm saying it's a videogame.
All this was hashed out 20 years ago, man. You're late to the party. Sorry.
Ok let me spell it out:
I know this is a videogame.
I know the difference between games and reality.
I do however know that people get indirectly influenced by the media they consume. (See my other comment for scientific sources on this).
Playing violent games does not make you violent.
It's the tone that matters. The Last of Us is very violent but never makes it feel cool. Uncharted is very over the top and enemies are just nameless, raceless grunts. The story in GTA often makes it clear how fucked up the crime world is.
That is my issue with the Vietnam scene I was playing earlier. This was not like Uncharted based in a completely fictional conflict. This was based in a real war that the US participated in, killing real people, and you're just there being the awesome hero killing locals by the dozens.
I know this will not change your mind.
This is my last attempt at being reasonable and trying to understand each other.
I know you will answer with some short personal remark or minimize all the points I have made instead of having an actual conversation.
I hope you prove me wrong, otherwise this will be my last response to you.
What a brain rot take. They are children, my guy. I know you think you're the smartest 12 year old in you class, but not everyone is as clever as you .
Or maybe this is just you telling everyone that you know don't know how propaganda works.
You apparently have much much bigger problems, my guy.
I'm not your guy, buddy.
I'm your buddy, pal!
You can't act like media doesn't help inform your biases. Sure, your opinion on nonexistent crime fighting turtles may not have changed, since that is complete fantasy. But your view on crime itself?
I saw Batman as a kid, and, though Batman obviously isn't real, crime certainly is, and so are urban decay and bad neighbourhoods in cities. Seeing Batman take out goons and thugs made be believe those goons and thugs existed, and that I'd be in danger if I went out at night. More scared, in fact, because I knew Batman wouldn't save me, since he isn't real. The Batman films made Batman feel necessary, and his absence made the world scarier.
That’s not incompatible with the thesis, fantasy can and does have a point of view
Exactly. For an extreme example, to "fantasise" about CSA requires a very warped POV.
I know people who thought the infamous "no russian" mission was based on a real thing.
Did anyone not realize this?
A lot of teenagers with poor history education probably never did.
Duty Calls is the best game in the series
I think at this point, the only way they get media attention is if they do something outlandish like this. The adults get huffy and make posts like this, the kids don't care at all and call them boomers, and all press is good for them. It started with "remember, no russian" and it's the only reason I ever hear about COD anymore.
Every movie and game depicting american guns needs clearance from the DOD and is therefore war propaganda. Often that is very obvious. It's the reason I had to stop watching marvel movies. Too much pro military shit
Im going to correct and elaborate here.
Just taken at face value this claim is wrong. What you're thinking of is that you can often get military hardware in media, as in tanks, soldiers as extras, uniforms, 3d models of vehicles, etc. Directly from the military/dod. These are things which often cost millions of dollars, you can occasionally get them for free in your movie. The caveat is generally that then the dod is allowed to vet and veto scenes and uses, the expectation being that they can kick out anything that depicts the military in a bad lens, more or less.
Call of duryllty games aren't even good.
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.
I mean duh. It’s art that makes war fun.
I agree with this, and also the game is shit so it's not hard to stay away