U.S. Spec Ops Veteran: Modern Warfare 3 Commercial a "New Low"

[Cyrus Hanley]

The commercial is cheesy, but no worse than any other form of media I've experienced including books, radio shows, films, television shows and those World War I military recruitment posters. The fact of the matter is that video games are the most recent form of entertainment media that glorify war and before that it was film and television. Before that it was radio. Before that it was literature. And before that it was storytelling via word of mouth.

 

[Zipa]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/115067-U-S-Army-Unveils-Official-Videogame-Accessories

*slowclap*

Way to make yourself look like a bunch of hypocrites US army.

Do I even need to mention the recruitment videos for the army that do the same thing that this guy complains at MW3 for?

 

[Vicarious Reality]

Tis reminds me o wen i commented negatively on ow ornady is going to start selling ''Zombie'' temed ammunition or zombie sooting sports

Wen does reality and iction intersect?

 

[Warforger]

He has a point. But overall, his point doesn't matter in the slightest.

Well his point kind of illustrate how most modern warfare FPS's are, as any attempt to make it a game are trivializing it anyway, still the Army loves it because it gets people recruited so that's really the scary part of it all. The worst part is that the army used to have it's own FPS......Well that one at least tried to give a sense of what it was like, being realistic to the point that you had to follow the rules of engagement.

 

[BrionJames]

I found it funny. Of course there is shit that is offensive and I do understand this from the veteran's perspective. But from my point of view, I just found it funny, it was intended to be "set" in a video game. The noob gets killed at the beginning right?

Besides, at the end of the day, its just what you make of it. I found it relatively funny. Though, I do find masterpieces like this awesome:


Speaking of which I met THE Glenn Beck at a starbucks, when I brought up what he thought about games he said he saw this commercial and said it looked really cool. No joke.

That one was good, but I really like the one they did for Halo 3 with the old guy at the memorial museum. It was a really touching and heartfelt ad about how one man on the battlefield helped to rally everyone else to fight harder.

About the post...I agree war should not be trivialized, nor should it be ignored. Which seems like in America right now, is what's happening. I hardly ever see any reports on the war anymore.

 

[Cid Silverwing]

I looked at the video once, read the veteran's statements, and I couldn't possibly agree more.

I mean, for fuck's sake, LOOK at this commercial. It's ACTUALLY retarded how no one bats an eye at games about World War 2, which was no less bloody than any war, but when gaming companies want to cash in on the War on Terror, then suddenly the soldiers are offended.

Hypocrites!

Not that I would care if people stopped milking the Normandy campaign because there's only been maybe 12 billion versions and maybe 2-3 on the East Front (see Red Orchestra), but if people aren't gonna care about WW2 games but WoT games instead, I'm calling every single one of you out. Stop trivializing any war at all.

It's better to have a funny aneurysm moment than to rip the headlines *cough*Generals*cough*. Or actually, maybe we shouldn't care at all and just continue milking every war after all? Because isn't that what's been killing creativity now? All the pussywipe lemonhead moral guardians who keep wanting to "ban this filth" on practically everything that's not bland happy-clappy Christian strolling through meadows picking flowers with the Care Bears?

Oh, and that whole overarching "n00b" thing going on in the ad? That's exactly the kind of attitude among players I'm avoiding like the Bubonic Plague by not buying these horrible games. Fuck you, FPS makers, for stinking up the market with these samey brown cover-based health regeneration dust clouds that program people into twitchy foamy-mouthed dipshits screaming down their mics like harpies.

 

[Lunar Templar]

*shrugs*
given i kinda consider both CoD and BF a new 'low point' ...

but his argument is kinda humors given the armed forces current ad campaign

 

[Awexsome]

Oh come on. Way too oversensitive.

There are piles of movies and books that have glorified or trivialized war that came before and MW3 in no way is trying to represent itself as a simulator. It's for fun. I thought the sprinting, spinning soldiers chucking throwing knives on the battlefield would've eliminated the though of it being terribly realistic.

 

[Fishyash]

Hmm... I personally don't like how the modern warfare series treats the subject of war, but that commercial particularly...

No. It's blatantly tongue-in-cheek, too much so to be considered offensive.

 

[caladors]

Why always video games? If you want to look to the trivial try John Wayne and read some history books (Short version Cowboys and Indians wasn't that cool. Like early germ warfare not cool) or how about Bruce Willis? I mean surely RED and Expendables alone... Oh wait there movies and there meant to be fun I get it.

I hate the goldfish like memory of the cultural zeitgeist. Anyone here know why the movies called that? There called the Movies as an insult to the people who ran the pictures there movies like Gypsies or anyone else were meant to look down on.
(Oh and captain Google before you say anything about the words origins dig a little deeper)

This is all cause it's a game, nothing more.

Well I for one am sick of it, the ad that lasts for how long just shy of being slap stick and it shows the guy die and re-spawn. Come on just tell me the last action flick you watched where hero kills more bad guys than the average man power can rustle up, tell me how often does one of them get back up?

Lets be honest this is a load, in a pre 911 world come on, really you sound like the bad family guy episode, the eleventh of September was bad we get it but it has become the new Godwin's law. That's it I am Laying it down you can now call this Graham's law someone refers to eleventh of September 2001, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Terrorists or Osama bin Laden approaches 1." And don't forget the lack of creditability that goes with, because what happened then was tragic and not a reference point and I'm sick of people using it as a yard stick to measure how much they can censor other people because of the perceived crudeness.

If this was an add for a movie about a guy becoming a gun toting hero, people would eat it up. This ad is not being judged on it's merits of being entertainment promoting a piece of entertainment.

 

[ReinWeisserRitter]

Off the top of my head? Growl [http://www.gametrailers.com/video/video-game-screwattack/31945], an arcade game from the nineties that's showed up ported to PS2 under the Taito Legends (not many to choose from, eh, Taito?) 2 compilation.

That game is out of its damn mind, and any friends you have willing to play something just because it's ridiculous is guaranteed an hour or two of amusement out of this one.

 

[JWAN]

I can see his point. I actually thought the marketing was just really $h1t to begin with. I enjoy the game though (I dont own it, but my buddy does).

Basically it comes down to how everyone feels as an individual on the subject, clearly I'm going to take the soldiers opinion more seriously than some large video game company's marketing team.

I guess in conclusion, I dont find it offensive, however I do find it ridiculous and I can see how others might think it is offensive.

 

[Enslave_All_Elves]

They raise a valid point certainly. But they lack perspective. Name one time in all of human history when war wasn't glorified by every jackass who didn't go? I think the commercial isn't describing war, it is relating to how players play it with their friends. On BF3 I always imagine my friend flying the chopper, and my other friend using the mortar, and the other being a sniper. Why not? A game character is after all you.

Six Days in Fallujah is a great example of how realism is shunned. Now there are complaints about trivializing? We can have it both ways I think. I would have loved to play as the insurgents, just to see another perspective (and who doesn't want a Red Dawn style defense of their homeland?).

Personally I find that not portraying war accurately is an insult. It is disgusting business. I always laughed at how when I played CoD on PC I'd get banned for my name being Long Dong Silver. I always thought, "Well jeez, no weiner jokes while my kid shoots people in the face mister man." Utterly stupid. However it isn't like there will be a game with bits of bone, teeth, and brain smattering your face, or brutally stabbing someone to death and watching the life pass out of em, or disemboweled people screaming. It wouldn't get past the bitchy ratings people.

I say let anyone release whatever they want. If you don't understand war, or human suffering in general, it is your fault being a stupid fucking waste of space.

 

[TheEndlessSleep]

Why do people still listen to these morons?

Of course it's not an accurate representation of war... its a bloody game.

It's barely even worth saying now when something like this comes up...

 

[The Man With the Soap]

[blockquote]The commercial's fun-tastic atmosphere is right for the general experiences you tend to find when playing Modern Warfare 3 online, but EA's complete failure to recognize in the advertising for the game that hundreds of thousands of people actually do this kind of stuff on a daily basis and suffer for it is a valid criticism. [/blockquote]

Surely you mean Activision.

OT: I find it interesting that no Vietnam or Cold War veterans complaining when Black Ops pulled the same "There's a soldier in all of us." ad campaign. I'd imagine something like that would piss off quite a lot of soldiers. I wonder why that wasn't brought up too.

But I agree with the statement that they're making. A lot of marketing for war games such as Call of Duty or Battlefield bring the impression that war's fun, and that's not the depiction that they should bring out. That's a problem you expect to run into when you market your game the same way you would an action film. And besides, it's Call of Duty, and at this point, the series is about as artistically bankrupt as a vending machine.

In general, I would say that Vietnam veterans are not as close to the games industry as many of the veterans of more recent wars are. They probably are not as exposed to it, so they may not see it. Their quarrel is more with Hollywood and the way in which Vietnam has been depicted in films.