Monday, April 6, 2009

Call of Duty Recruits

I was listening to the radio this morning and the radio host was prank calling a 19 year old boy from Burlington. The host told told the boy that he was a recruiter from the US Marine Corps, and that the Marines had been monitoring the gameplay of Call of Duty 4 online. He told the boy that his stats from playing the game stood out substantially, and that the Marines wanted to recruit him. The boy was very excited to hear that he had been singled out and he showed interest in finding out exactly what he was being offered. The host continued to tell the boy that he was a perfect candidate to work in a special operations unit in the Marines. He explained that the boys would travel the world killing people for the good of his country. The boy wasn't discouraged by this, and he continued to ask specifically what weapons he would have access to to carry out the tasks before him. I turned the radio off before I was able to hear the conclusion to this conversation.

I found it very disturbing that a video game has been so influential on this boy. Influential enough that it had actually made him numb to the fact that he wanted to kill people without any motive. I find it even more disturbing to know that he is one of many people who emmerse themselves in video games, and he probably isn't the only one with such a readiness to murder.

I obviously don't believe that everyone who plays video games is affected by them like this boy was, but it scares me to think that there are people who completely lose their ability to separate a fictional game from reality. I think this is especially prevalent at Champlain College, and it only takes a brief walk around campus to see that some students think they're living in Middle Earth.

To many, video games have become a kind of a religion. People worship the games for hours each day, and they can even play in a community of people that enjoy the same games, much like a church congregation. Video games control the way many people live their lives. They affect the exercise people get, the friends they make, the sleep they get (or don't get), and many other aspects of daily life. Muslims pray five times a day, and many people play video games five times a day. It's not a stretch to see the similarities that video games hold to religion, and the only thing we can do is hope that our current Champlain College students will design good, moral games for future generations to play. My fingers are crossed.

3 comments:

  1. My fingers are crossed too. I remember playing Vice City when I was in middle school, where you steal other peoples cars and beat up hookers and what not. That was one of the only games I ever played and I only played it a few times because I would get into this zone, where you don't really see what going on around you. I feel like people can get caught up in this zone if they really don't like the environment around them and it makes a separation from reality and game play.

    It really creeps me out to think that the military could put one of these kids in a chopper with a gun or a computerized airplane with missiles and kill people when in their head it would be just like a video game. Unlike a video game, there's no reset button and you actually have consequences for stealing a car or beating up a hooker.

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  2. I actually heard this on the radio as well. The ending was pretty funny actually. The pranker told him that he was going to have to go to Alaska for training for over a year and the only question he asked was if he could bring his PSP so he could keep practicing his game.
    Yes, it's very scary that these 19 year old young MEN cannot separate reality from their video game worlds.

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  3. Here is another example of what I mentioned in class its from the Fmylife.com stories, however it fits the subject of video games being used for reality purposes.

    http://www.fmylife.com/miscellaneous/927368

    This link is about a boy who is playing the Sims on-line with his girlfriend and in the morning his girlfriend gets up to find they are not in a relationship in the game anymore. He leaves her a note that says 'i hope you can take a hint'. Here he uses the video game world to break up with his gi

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