Olie Martin's Blog.

Society likes to ban stuff.

So they want to ban the new Call of Duty. Apparently this game will affect the minds of the youth. They will be able to shoot enemy fighters in a virtual war—nothing new in terms of video game contexts. According to some pissed off parents, this will ultimately damage the minds of our young-ones, and probably turn them into blood-thirsty gun-brandishers.

I find this one example very interesting to compare to the recent army recruitment adverts I have seen, that allow youngsters to play in virtual war-scenes. One fundamental difference between these virtual wars is as follows; Call of Duty is a fictional game, designed as a form of entertainment, albeit bloody (I’m guessing. Never played it), and the Army recruitment initiative is designed to attract youngsters into a career that trains them to kill, as a form of employment. I don’t think the creators of Call of Duty had sinister motives when they developed CoD. They created a game, to be played on a games console. The Army created a war re-enactment game in order to recruit potential killers. Namely disillusioned youth. Probably the kind of kids that will get out on the front-line and realise what a big mistake they’ve made.

I know which one I’d rather ban.

The public outcry over games and films is pathetic. If some lunatic plays a bit of Manhunt and decides to go and chop some poor sod up, then I’d say it’d be a good guess that he had a screw loose before-hand. If someone walks away after watching or playing one of these apparently terrible films or games, wanting to harm others, then I’d hazard a guess that they have great difficulties distinguishing reality from fantasy in the first place. There were murderers before films and before video games. There will be murders after films and video-games are banned completely. Probably more in-fact.