MW2 "controversial for the sake of it"
BBC Radio 4 discusses Activision's game.
BBC reporter Marc Cieslak has told Radio 4 that he was "saddened" after playing Modern Warfare 2 as it disproved his belief that the games industry had "grown up".
Host Justin Webb lead the discussion on Modern Warfare 2, which was introduced as "not just any videogame", before a soundbite of the infamous airport scene - in which players are asked to shoot unarmed civilians - was played (filmed in HD for Eurogamer TV
- spoilers within).
"Oh not at all," responded Cieslak when asked if he'd been "damaged" by Modern Warfare 2. "I've played an awful lot of games and watched an awful lot of movies.
"I wasn't shocked by it but I felt a little bit saddened. I thought the games industry had moved beyond shock tactics for shock tactics sake And that's what I thought about this level: it's controversial for the sake of being controversial. I didn't think it necessarily needed to be included in the game."
Cieslak said he found it "unusual" that "it didn't occur to [Activision]" that Modern Warfare 2 might cause this level of controversy when the company was making the game. Justin Webb quipped that "perhaps it did".
Modern Warfare 2 goes on general release today.
Eurogamer's freshly-published Modern Warfare 2 review has the verdict.
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Comments (71) Latest comment 2 years ago
Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!
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As it is though, it looks rather more like a rather tacky and gratuitous stunt to get some column inches and sell more video games.
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ROFL - Best insult ever!
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/ fixed
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I see your point but I'm not sure it matters what their intention was, only the final outcome.
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If you were playing a game where you were hunting down paedophiles, would it be okay to play a scene as one of them if you were going undercover?
Or is killing okay because we're so desensitised to it now?
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One important thing I'd like to stress here is that the contents of the scene aren't the debate here. It's not about whether or not it is shocking, violent or gruesome, it's about whether or not the scene in itself adds something valuable to the entire game or is put in simply to shock and get (media) exposure through that.
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But, if you're someone simply trying to hunt out the new "video nasty", and you pull that scene out of its context; then it would be a very poor and slanted standard of argument you would make.
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Mention Grabbed By The Ghoulies
Use the word ROFLcopter in a sentence
Start a sentence with "First"
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*wets self in anger*
On point though, even though I felt the scene left me feeling emotions that I've never before felt in game, I do think it was a little over the top. The same emotional impact could have garnered from seeing a small crowd of civilians being shot, to have you literally wade through an airport mowing down hundreds of civilians just seemed over the top and made the scene seem more like a stunt done for shock value than have any real meaning.
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Anyway, on from my last comment, but I think that we either want be effected by our games, some times, or we don't. Yes, it's true that there's been desensitization, but, I so far think that IW should be commended for the way that they've tried to overcome that, in the game beyond the airport. I found a section shortly following the level in question to be a fair bit more harrowing than that. But none of it was distasteful, nor crude or blatant. As great fun, and just, frankly cool as it was to play, it was also...I don't want to spoil, so I'll leave it there. All of it belongs, not included just for the sake otf it.
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I don't mind these sort of debates where people discuss if it's appropiate, what i don't like i when people outright shun the game for choosing to go down this route.
There's a difference between saying should allow you to kill civilians and saying ban this game because it lets you kill civilians.
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The coverage (and familiar shite-hawks squawking) seems no less immature than the subject.
(@Ignatius_Cheese )
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Now, I seem to have missed the part on the airport level where you are 'Asked' to shoot civilians???
You never get 'asked' at all, in fact you never get told to do anything, or are even required to do anything until the Russian SWAT appear later in the mission....
Surely this comes down to choice, if you are disgusted with what you are seeing, don't look, point the camera down at your feet or something.... but certainly don't shoot them..
One point... NO BODY IS FORCING YOU TO PLAY IT!!! or buy it for that matter. Seems to be the one thing these band wagon jumpers have forgotten, no matter what they 'Claim' to think/know about the games industry.
And on that subject, what is the point of moaning about content 'After' the fact? These people have known COD was coming, they know it is a violent subject matter, why weren't they questioning about the content before it came out??
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I cannot understand the negative reaction to this part being in the game. The developers tried to elicit your emotions in that scene and judging by the responses here mostly they succeeded. People felt disgust or apprehension playing this part. I believe this is a big step forward for a medium which has till lately struggled to bring about the full spectrum of human emotions. Movies can do it, books can do it. It is time for games to be able to do it.
Also I do not see why this is so controversial. Compare it to GTAIV where you can do exactly the same thing JUST BECAUSE YOU WANT TO not because the game asks you to.
I am not a big MW fan but I congratulate IW for having the balls to think of an idea and go through with it.
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I hope you don't hype every new game up this much. Are Activision paying you or something?
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Having these conversations is a good thing, it's not like the BBC are saying people shouldn't be allowed to see it and it should be banned. It was the same with Resi 5 and the racism debate, intelligent debate is only good for the growth and maturity of the industry.
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I'm saddened by the facts that other industries feel threatened by games and are so childish that all they see is violence and not motivations. Truly pathetic.
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if i was in an airport watching people get shot then yes i imagine i would be pretty damaged.. if im at home on my sofa playing a video game where people are getting shot at an airport then.. NO OF COURSE IM NOT DAMAGED YOU OLD MORON! ARGH!
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Mr radio 4 Twunt
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I'm so out of touch...
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Don't go on the radio to talk about a video game that you admit only having played for ten minutes. Oh, and don't talk about how "newspapers like the Daily Mail will rant about children playing this game" before ranting about children playing this game in the very same breath.
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If you don't, you aren't really playing a game. You're playing a particularly horrific strolling simulator. If it were the case that you were being held captive by terrorists and walked through with hands bound while the terrorists shot civilians, it could have the same moral impact and not change the overall scenario.
But by giving you a choice to shoot civilians in a game where you are conditioned to pull the trigger - yes "it's only a game" and no this won't "make you a killer" in itself, but it is getting into dangerous moral territory.
Were this included more to be genuinely challenging rather than just to grab headlines it might be different, but it seems to me that it did the latter.
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It's news because it's got terrorists in it. And really, Activision would have planned this media reaction for the past year, but will deny it until they are blue in the face. It's going to be worth millions in free marketing due to the airtime, articles and outraged headlines. So it was completely cynical and deliberate, end of story.
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Edit: I killed every civilian I caught sight of.
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I think the real world setting and time period is a factor in the debate though. HL2 and AvP are clearly fantasy. I agree that the actions of the player are comparable, but they are not identical.
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You are better than this EG.
and I am too... so this is my last post in a MW2 article.
/signs off.
(but not without the obligatory derogatory comment about the Activision boss - who touches Goats, in an uncomfortable place... which may or may not have been manufactured by a german car company).
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Ah... sweet irony.
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If they had this kind of stuff in a film/tv everyone would be praising it for how it shows the horrors of modern warfare.
People who don't understand or value videogames should stop commenting on them.
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A game is not a moral generator. It doesn't tell us what we should or should not do. Though, it can bring forward views of its creators. It gives us a chance to try something else. To reflect on what we might do. Even if our character doesn't, or cannot actually carry out those actions during the game. Hopefully, it's also really good fun, in to the process.
I've encountered nothing barbarous, in IW's narrative in either game. If there is to be creativity, and stories to be told and adventures of any point to be had, then there needs to be some degree of expression - I saw a great comment yesterday, about the horrors that the evil plumber Mario, traditionally visits upon innocent bricks and wandering turtles, all while causing shrooms to appear in his wake, for consumption! - Even the ratings boards must agree with IW's business to tell its story, and present what it has.
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And I sympathise with the need for sleep, having a six-week-old
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Unless he can point out the mass of compelling evidence that led him to believe that the games industry had grown up, I'd suggest he's either seriously deluded or making it up purely so he could say how "saddened" he was on Radio 4. Seriously, what on Earth would make you think the industry had grown up?
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Oh please it's not like this game is the voice of the industry. By that logic the film industry is just as immature. It's the journalists that need to grow up.
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I'm not condoning or condemning it at all, that's just my own stance on the subject.
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Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!< br />
*hey there boy, what're you in for?*
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I was shocked, I felt sad and I felt helpless as I watched those men callously mow down innocent people. I didn't fire a shot, I just watched in horror. Once it was all over, I suddenly realised.......hang on, a game just made me feel all those emotions....WTF?
If IW's idea was to evoke emotion as good as some films can, then they succeeded.
Yes it is a little gratuitous, yes it is shocking. But did it need to be there? I think it did, as it achieved what many games strive to do but fail; it evoked emotions in me that I was never expecting. In that respect - well done Infinity Ward.
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My criticism of MW2 isn't the game or the content per se - it's the fact that this terrorism level has been very deliberately included because it would create media outrage and therefore increase sales. Without that level we all would still applaud Infinity Ward for a brilliant and realistic game. But with this level, all we'll now get is calls for games to be banned, and ignorant politicians like Keith Vaz preaching fear and ignorance. So it annoys me that while claiming to be tackling adult themes, Activision have again caused gaming to be attacked rather than celebrated in the mass media.
I've worked in and around the games industry since 2003, and believe me, this whole outrage in the papers would have been planned for to maximise the coverage. I love the game, but sometimes I think the industry is its own worst enemy.
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I don't remember the WW2 games having such ridiculous missions. Why does modern warfare have to turn out all hollywood?
On one hand, IW are saying "ooh, we wanted you to tackle something serious" yet the rest of the game is anything but. A cartoony action game with something "serious" inbetween? What the hell?!
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http://te chnology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/...