My god's this is pathetic.
Especially since the game is having you play an event very similar to what happened in real life.
Sure, you attempt to assassinate the guy... like many did back then. But if you paid attention you would note that in the game you don't even succeed...
So what exactly is -your- problem with this?

From what I understand it glorifies things like assassination attempts like that. On top of that I hear that you play in Vietnam as well. I can just imagine the things they left out of those missions that really happened

I don't know what's wrong with me but this actually looks like the first Call of Duty game since 2 I've been actually interested in. Not enough to play it, but man, it seems quite nice.

This is The Dumbest Thing to get mad about.

There's a separate series of games for that, although they're set in the 1100s and 1400s.

Well JFK Reloaded went without official comment, so I would guess so.

-Sure, Ted Kennedy hated it, but I can't blame him, I'd be upset about a video game about killing my relatives too.

You obviously haven't even played the ****ing game, or done any real research, and are just throwing around these dumb**** claims because you want to try and paint a video game as an evil tool of imperialism.
That's stupid.

meh. i dont see what all the fuss is about. its a game. there have been a lot of games with a lot worse things in them. games "glorify" assassination all the time. it makes for a great plot line. also if you want acuracy in what happened in vietnam look in some history books(even that is questionable), not in a video game.

it's Jarl!

What?! Where?

-:ninja:

I've never heard the claim that Call of Duty (or any video game, for that matter) is a tool of imperialism before this thread. Is that supposed to be a leftist version of Jack Thompson's claims?


You mean Video games aren't a good source of historical knowledge? Why didn't someone tell me this sooner?

Video games, like films, have a particular plot line. In that plot line certain ideologies can be (and usually are) promoted. In the case of codBO it seems that promoting the "get rid of the enemies of America because America = Freedom and its enemies = bad" ideology is being promoted.

For example, apparently the first mission of Black Ops, you don't really even need to fire a shot for the level to play itself:

Which of course makes it more like a film. And the whole "it's just a movie" line doesn't really make much sense considering that American films often do promote American military ventures (not all of them of course, but there are some obvious examples).

The youth section of the Communist Party of Greece did a video that argues that video games promote propaganda. It takes a little while in part 1 for the video to go anywhere, and I don't 100% agree with their analysis, but it does give a little bit to what I'm getting at perhaps.

TSM_Bguitar, you should look up a game called Homefront. I'd like to know your thoughts on it.

It's a video game. It's entertainment. AND it's media. Therefore, it is fun and also probably intentionally or inadvertently represents certain views. Are you arguing that the US government is paying Treyarch to drum up public support for **** that a very small subset of its members did 50 years ago? Because...that's ****ing stupid.

Looks like more of the same nationalism promotion.



I'm not saying the US government is paying anyone to make video games (except their own productions of America's Army, which their explicit goal there is to use it as a recruitment technique).

Pro-America propaganda doesn't have to be done by the US government to be propaganda, just look at the film, not produced by the US government, Red Dawn.

Now Red Dawn was an excellent action movie, but what it's trying to promote is nationalism and patriotism. These things are very political, and it's frustrating to see people try to depoliticize these issues. Same goes with CoD. I enjoy playing Modern Warfare on occasion, but I understand it for what it is. But some folks try to depoliticize it: "well of course America's presence in the middle east is good!" becomes the conclusion of such story lines in those CoD games.

In reality, that is quite a contentious issue, but games like these try to promote a specific message, it's just as valid to criticize them as it is for them to promote that message. I don't see what's "stupid" about that any more than it's "stupid" for them to promote American military actions.

OH NO!!!!! not.....PROMOTED!!!!

every study that i have seen(granted that is only a hanbdful) has, to put it gently, had a dificult time showing any corilation between video games and negative affects on players. particularly where violence is concerned.

of course i can understand if some cubans are miffed that their dear leader is the subjust of a fictional assassination, but tough.

I found this more funny than the Castro stuff:


The ending of the game also hints that the protagonist killed Kennedy. OH NOES!

How are those studies relevant to the topic at hand? This isn't about videogames promoting violence, but promoting American imperialism.

Obviously some folks think that it's effective.

And there's of course the documentary about "Militainment"

There's fairly standard research on the effects of violent media on children.

TSM isn't talking about violence. He's simply said that CoD:BO can be quite clearly viewed as a form of propaganda in much the same way a jingoistic film or novel can be. I find that so bleeding obvious I don't see what the fuss is all about.

Well if promoting American imperialism isn't something you disagree with then I can see why you wouldn't see what the fuss is about.

Black Ops also promotes historical inaccuracy. Silly Treyarch, Steyr AUGs and HK G11s weren't used in the late 60's!

And your aloud to disagree. So what's all the fuss about?

The fuss I was referring to were those who seemed bothered by you pointing out that it was propaganda. I can see how you misinterpreted me though.

You take things way to seriously, You are the "Left" version of Wookie.

Right, war and death aren't something we should take seriously..

The "fuss" is that nothing exists in a vacuum. That is to say, EVERYTHING exists within some sort of political viewpoint context, ESPECIALLY any media that is set in the real world, and against a real historical backdrop. It's unavoidable. That doesn't make it propaganda. It's only propaganda if the intent is to influence the public's opinion on a topic, especially by skewing facts. The only public opinion treyarch is trying to influence is whether or not their company can make a fun game...they don't give a flying **** whether or not we support assassination of communist dictators, or whatever. It's not propaganda and it's stupid to get upset about it.

Edit: It's not war and death...it. is. a. videogame. The intent is for it to be entertaining and fun. Can you imagine a FPS videogame in which the protagonist is assigned the mission to NOT assassinate someone? "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to stick around the US, since we're not deploying troops to that country, because we feel it is politically and morally wrong to do so. Keep training hard though, in case there is ever a morally justifiable war!"

Oh sure, if you want to argue about war and death go ahead. Talking about some insanity about how Black Ops is designed to give the US government more recruitment fodder (or to just sway public opinion) because it romanticizes war is kind of silly, especially considering it's historical setting. Ranting about how it has an objective to kill a dictator in a historical setting much like it almost happened in real life, is also dumb. If a game was made about killing Vladamir Putin tomorrow, then your argument might hold some water. As is though, it doesn't.

So you admit that there is a specific political context to this game, yet you deny that it could be propaganda because it's somehow based on "truth" and not "skewed facts"?

The way enemies and heroes are portrayed in games like this, is not "just the facts" because large important facts are left out, like the real human toll that war has on folks, and "why we fight" in general. It's a defense of US military adventures.

And yes, the companies are in it to make money, I don't see how that makes your counter-argument any stronger.

War games are part of the overall social discourse on war and occupation, and to discard them as unimportant when millions of dollars are spent on their production and millions of people play them and tend to not question these story lines/why American forces are in these places in the first place/etc. then it's important



Yes it is a video game that is about war and death, and not only about abstract war, but real wars and real deaths. And on top of just being about these wars, they are more about promoting them as justified wars.

Sorry to make you actually critically examine something you thought didn't matter?



It's not about some abstract historical event though. Cuba is still a socialist country and is still constantly threatened by the United States (and Spain to some extent). This has been the case since the early 1960s and continues to be the case today, hence the Cuban state media's addressing it.

And black ops is one example, the rest of the "Modern Warfare" games are about contemporary/ongoing wars (or potential wars) and are promoting a specific point of view to millions of young players

This isn't the first time an American video game has been about promoting American aggression.

Again, sorry to make you guys who are trying to condescend think critically about something.

You caught me. I have never thought critically about anything. Thank you for opening my eyes. Let me ask you this, though: Who exactly are you upset at? What do you wish that party had done instead?

So how exactly are these wars being promoted as justified? That didn't pop in my head, not once the entire time I played BO. (Oh yeah, now that I played BO the war in Korea totally seems justified now! I've seen the light!)

It's a videogame dude, for fun and entertainment purposes for adults over the age of 18. If you have a problem with it don't buy it, simple as that.

No. Take or leave his premise as you will. But you have to acknowledge that, if you do believe his premise (as presumably he does), it's not simply a matter of not buying the game for yourself. Rather, such games represent a societal problem that demand more concerted action to confront.

Disagree if you like, but don't use bad logic to say that the discussion itself shouldn't exist.

Well this is a forum, based off of a FPS video game so I don't think the discussion is going to go too far

Well, one can enjoy something and still be able to retain some critical distance from it. I enjoy Star Wars in general, but I still recognize that at its core is a fairly naive conception of good and evil (and one that influenced me as I grew up).

I don't recall Black Ops promoting or opposing the Vietnam War. Also, you don't kill Castro, you kill his double .

I didn't say that, I'm talking about this. The whole "it's just a video game so don't try to analyze it!" doesn't make much sense to me.



It's part of a broader social discourse. I don't think that people watched just one broadcast of CNN's coverage of the Iraq war and then turned around and supported it. It was seeing all of CNN's reports, all other news/media/etc.



Exactly. And I can enjoy playing a video game that promotes an imperialist message while understanding what it is.

I feel the same about Star Wars, I grew up on it and still love it, but the good vs evil as portrayed in the films is simplistic to say the least (and the politics of SW...ehh)

Rebel Alliance = imperialists

Really though, what's imperialist about Black Ops?

why are you guys having this retarded discussion instead of celebrating jarl's triumphant return?

Man you are stupid, stop making nothing out of something and go cry over something worthwhile.

You mean terrorists, also he has no idea what imperialism means.

If you're going to condescend to someone: at least have some sort of argument behind it. "You're stupid" is the kind of discourse a 12 year old uses.



I'm using it in the Leninist sense. You should probably just ignore that of course and write it off as stupid (without reading any of it too of course)