It’s All Fair in War and in Gaming

The episode in Modern Warfare 2 in which you have to play as a terrorist as gun down innocent bystanders have got a lot of attention from not just blogs but also from traditional media (ehmm I wrote that story.. abridged version turned up on site ).

I read view points of Indians (we were the direct victims right?) at Split Screen and The Angry Pixel, both denouncing calls of boycott. I agree with them wholeheartedly. What’s the need to boycott a game just because you can’t stomach it? If it’s too much violence for you, don’t play it, but can you call that a boycott? When you say you’re boycotting something, you’re saying that person or entity behaved in a way which wasn’t politically correct. Which brings me to the point of ‘was gaming ever politically correct’ and ’should gaming be politically correct’? Doesn’t being politically correct sometime involve being moderate and thinking out of the box? Now that’s something we don’t want to see in gaming.

An art grows from entertainment to a serious affair when it makes you think. Modern Warfare 2 does just that, it makes you think – do you really want to gun down innocent civilians? Are you a cold blooded murderer? Does the end justify the means? – these are a few questions that popped up in my head when I saw a walkthrough footage of that level.

I recently read a post how death is handled in videogames, on how earlier games had an option to regenerate self and not die. Remember all the controversy Mortal Combat created just because people died in the game? Now all these old games, they were being politically correct. They were meant for entertainment. But games like Modern Warfare 2 are rated 18+ for a reason. Not everyone will be able to understand the subject mater well enough. In the hands of a younger person or in the hands of a person with a psychological issues, such games could be a trigger to actual violence. In such circumstances, the game is blamed for the damage, but rightfully shouldn’t be. It’s the people around who should have seen it coming, that needs to be blamed.

Speaking about being politically correct, looks like Russia has decided to remove the controversial level from the game. The reason? Russia does not have a rating agency, now that’s a really weird reason if you ask me. Even India doesn’t have a rating agency, but the game hasn’t been censored and I hope it won’t be either. The delay in launch of the PC version however, has got me slightly worried. Are they planning to remove that level, hence the delay or is it just the normal production time. I hope it’s the latter.