The World of Sam Reynolds

On November 10, the day before we take a moment of silence to remember our war dead, Activision released the video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to much fare. It quickly sold millions of copy upon release and its’ publisher dubbed it the “biggest launch release in history”, garnishing a cool $310 million in sales. Gamers quickly took to the multiplayer portion of the game, engaging each other from their couches in warfare in theatres set around the world. Within days of its release the game quickly became one of the most popular on Xbox Live; 2 million players were locked in virtual combat at its peak. In comparison there are nearly 100,000 troops serving in Afghanistan, 1,528 have been killed in combat. War is not a game.

In his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, media ecologist Neil Postman coined the aphorism “the medium is the metaphor” – a corollary to Marshall McLuhan’s “the medium is the message”. Postman argued that how we interact with the medium impacts how the message is received. The fact that we “watch” television and “read” books impacts how we interpret the message in both of these mediums. Watching a television program is relatively passive experience, while reading a book requires more cerebral activity. The medium of the video game expects a different level of interactivity all together; the consumer “plays” the game. The act of play detonates fun and activity that is associated with pleasure and enjoyment. A game is play with structure and goals. Video games are designed for entertainment and fun.

In Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 you can “play” through nearly eight hours of levels set in every corner of the world. The opening chapter takes place in Afghanistan, the same place where 133 Canadian soldiers have lost their lives in the call of duty. Players engage in virtual combat throughout the streets and the deserts of the country, the game provides scenes loaded with the same nearly iconic imagery of the Long War found in news broadcasts: the black and white bird’s eye view from a UAV; the destruction of a target by a smart bomb; tense urban combat. The game affords the player a central role in completing all of these said actions in ways that critics have lauded as “ultra realistic”, “terrific”, and “a hell of a good time”.