Advanced Essay #3 - Video Games and War

When studying the history of the world, war is one of the most impactful things on societies and cultures. War still continues to go on today in the world, but do we go to war for the same reasons as we used to? Do we even view war the same as we did a few hundred years ago? One of the main things that change the way that we view war is the entertainment industry. From video games to movies, the seriousness about war has changed into something enjoyable to play or to watch.

One example the ways images of war are packages of entertainment is the games in the  Call of Duty series which allows you to play online with others. When playing the game, the things that are visible on the screen is a gun in your hand, a scoreboard of how many kills each team has on the right-hand side, and a timer, and the environment. There are different game modes in the game, but I will be talking about Team Deathmatch. The name alone shows how we see death as entertainment. The goal of the game mode is for one of the teams to reach a certain kill score, usually 75 kills, before the other team does within the time limit. The first team that reaches that score wins the game. Everyone's objective in the game is to get as many kills as possible, while also dying as little as possible. After each game, your character gains xp, which is experience points, from the match and more game currency, which allows them to rank up in the game and buy gear. The higher your rank, the more and better weapons and gear you can obtain with the game currency. Colors and designs on guns and armor also become unlocked with rank or the number of kills or headshots you have obtained. There is a Ted Talk by Peter Mantello which speaks on a similar topic, in which he said, “So the more you kill, the richer you become. The richer you become, the more weapons you can buy. The more weapons you can buy, the more powerful you can become.” There is no point in time where the game makes you question the killing of other people. The objective is very clear, kill. In order to stay alive, kill. In order to look and be cooler, kill more. Another game that is like this is Fortnite, which is currently still one of the biggest games out there right now. It is a battle royale game where you can play with a team or by yourself in order to kill everyone and be the last man standing. The more you level up in the game, the more things you unlock. What’s interesting about this is that when I use to play Fortnite, I questioned the whole idea of the game, which is having people skydive from hot air balloon school bus and search for weapons scattered in the world in order to kill each other. But interestingly enough, I continued to play the game. Even after looking at the game from the outside for a short period of time, I continued playing it. What I liked about the game was the costumes, the dances, the objects. The way you were able to play the game with your friends and compete against people online, and I liked it just because it was popular and I wanted to have fun just like everyone else. That’s what kept me hooked.

What people don’t realize is that the concept of these games may have a deeper meaning than simply playing with your friends and having a good time. I don’t want to bash the games completely, because I’m sure that the creators didn’t have any bad intentions when making these games (I hope), but when you think about a simulation where you put a group of humans in an environment just to slay and kill each other, that’s kind of brutal and downright savage. Is that really something we want our youth playing? For the people that are going to defend video games like this, I understand that a lot of people have the common sense not to do anything of these horrific things in real life, but what about the people that don’t? At a young age, children absorb and mimic a lot of things they see and hear. Knowing this trait of children, there is a good possibility that video games like Fortnite and Call of Duty can be the kickstart for violence in their future. Parents need to make sure that their child understands that they should never do any of the things they do in the video game in real life, or just not allowed their kid to play the game at all.

Video games were made for entertainment, and games like Call of Duty and Fortnite can be fun. But people need to be aware of the hidden symbols and meaning in video games that involves war. We cannot allow ourselves to be negatively influenced by these games and allow them to change the seriousness of war.