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time 2 be a hater
Feb. 1st, 2024 06:52 ambeen thinking about CoD/MW2 again recently bc of the whole deal with Spec Ops: The Line being delisted. have actually been wanting to stream Spec Ops for about a year now, since whenever the MW2 fandom started getting big and i was constantly inundated with people gleefully doing recruiters' jobs for them.
it's been a constant grappling between my very staunch belief in "let people enjoy things" with my disgust at people just uncritically engaging with War Crimes Simulator. i am very aware of the fact that much of the fandom doesn't actually know shit about CoD except that dudebros like it. hell, i know there are people in the fandom who didn't even know what the characters they were shipping were from. it seems like a pretty textbook case of the most shallow kind of "time to ship two hot [white] dudes standing near each other." which again, very much still Let People Enjoy Things about this kind of stuff.
it's just that the dudes in question are from the game where you shoot people going over the US-Mexico border wall, so like. why'd you settle down in that fandom, is the thing i keep thinking any time i see a post about soap/ghost (which is impossible to mute/block btw, bc of how the fucking character names are just regular ass words.) apparently MW2 does make some attempt at criticism of America/private military companies, but it's part of a series that has also worked with Blackwater during the writing/development process, repeatedly misrepresented history in order to push a pro-military/pro-America narrative that's effectively just propaganda (see: blaming Russia for war crimes perpetrated by America in CoD: Cold War).
also, one of my favorite CoD factoids: devs not only consulted with war criminal Oliver North, they got him to voice himself in Black Ops II.
oh wait, how about nerfing fucking WHITE PHOSPHORUS to just an inconvenient poison gas cloud in the MW multiplayer, which is doubly funny due to the series' repeated claims about "realism."
it's stuff like this that makes it impossible for me NOT to think about CoD when Spec Ops comes up. the previous article makes the exact same connection. like you can't not, tbh. ppl joke about the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops launching a thousand video essays but like...you can't understate the impact that scene had. it's also why both V and myself were so initially suspicious about the game being quietly delisted NOW, when the use of white phosphorus against civilians is actively being ignored or hand-waved by the media as well as the fucking US government.
like it turns out it's a music licensing issue, but goddamn what horrid fucking timing. (especially considering the game was apparently being brought up in the comments to the WaPo article about Israel's use of white phosphorus. real win for genocide-supporters that the game that makes it a point to portray the use of white phosphorus as an atrocity is no longer accessible to people.)
anyway, i'm not even done dragging CoD yet. still got more shit!
one of the things i've been looking into recently is the practice of devs paying arms manufacturers for the right to put their guns in games. that's right, any game that uses the actual name of a gun (Colt or Kalashnikov for example) in turn has to pay those gun manufacturers for the right to do so. real neat stuff.
there's a work around that article gets into: using military designations for weapons are fine, but once you tack the brand name on there, that's a no-no. unfortunately for many devs (including CoD's devs, which we know are so concerned with realism! that's why they just had to consult with Oliver North) including the fucking gun brand names are a "necessity" if you value realism. there's even a fucking gun licensing cop based out of France that reports any game that depicts guns that haven't been licensed properly (see Eurogamer article). like just the neatest. love, absolutely love learning things like this, wow!
that article, originally written in 2012 following the Sandy Hook shooting and NRA vice president LaPierre's statement that the real reason for gun violence is violent video games, ultimately centers an argument that slants more towards agreement with LaPierre than not, which i do have issues with (tho there's admittedly a noted shift at the end towards "the issue is the culture of violence in America"), but it's such an interesting read about the practice of gun licensing in video games. the statements by Barrett's Ralph Vaughn in particular are pretty eye-opening. it's clear from him that the logic for having these kinds of licenses and pro-gun propaganda in games (he makes it EXCEEDINGLY clear that arms manufacturers only approve the use of their weapons when the in-game representation is in-line with their company's image, so things like "only the good guys use these guns," etc) is that arms manufacturers believe that this will increase the sales of their guns, and as this article also points out, this has certainly been the case for the FAMAS assault rifle, which is used by the French army.
but good ol' Ralph gives us such gems as: "We've worked with companies to send our sniper rifles into video games. Which ones? Our license agreement prohibits us from mentioning a company by name. [However] you are welcome to check out the Call of Duty series."
i'm still not done yet, tho! was anyone aware of the proposed $7 million marketing campaign agreement between CoD and the US Army in 2021? Army was literally going to pay Activision-Blizzard to promo it in the hopes of upping recruitment. one of the proposed plans was to include Army ads in the mobile version of CoD that players could earn in-game currency for watching. i think that bit might be my favorite, tbh. though there's so much there: Army-sponsored esports tournaments (the US military is pretty open about using esports for recruitment btw, like just check which website hosts that article), paying CoD streamers for promos, etc etc.
ultimately the deal fell through in December 2022 due to the controversy surrounding Activision-Blizzard and sexual harassment/assault. i found it darkly funny that the reason the Army cancelled the deal was due to it's own issues with sexual assault allegations; it literally had to dump Activision-Blizzard due to fears of increased bad PR. we sure do live in a society.
anyway, i find it curious that this deal was cancelled in December 2022, several months after MW2's October 2022 release. i also find it interesting that the Army determined to continue funding CoD streamers so long as their money would in no way go back to Activision-Blizzard. (note: love the little conservative dig about TikTok and China in that article. fucker couldn't help himself.) i've had convos with V where he's brought up "why in the world did so many people unfamiliar with the series get into this game?" and i really don't have an answer but i sure am eyeing this timing, especially bc i've always thought that the fandom must have sprung from people watching streamers play the game.
anyway, all this isn't to say that "CoD/MW2 bad bc video games cause violence" (though it is hilarious that there's a huge section of the fandom that are antis. you know, the champions of "fiction equals reality". the exact type of people to link unironically to "video games cause violence" articles and have "CoD fan" in their bio). that's not actually the issue for me. the propaganda and ties to arms manufacturers are.
i mean also the Oliver North shit is pretty damning. imagine wanting anything to do with a game series that got an actual real war criminal to be in their game and voice himself. jimmy was joking about the next iteration just going mask off and putting Pinochet in it and i'm just like. unfortunate that i can see it happening.
but like. i get liking trash. i write fic for RE and DBH. i understand. but why the trash that's also military propaganda. why the trash that quite literally funds the military industrial complex. why the trash that not only whitewashes US war crimes but attributes them to another country. just absolutely wild fucking behavior.
i do sincerely believe most ppl in the fandom don't know these things. hell, i didn't know a lot of these things until i got inspired by the delisting of Spec Ops. i actually believe most people in the fandom haven't even played the game, so them knowing anything i've gone into here is uh, not fucking likely.
that still doesn't detract from the fact that participation in a fandom for a game like this is effectively just doing free marketing for the Army, which (see the Vice article above) is particularly interested in recruiting from Gen Z, black and latino folk, and women in general. also i mean. buy the game and directly pay arms manufacturers. hope people are at least pirating this shit.
anyway, i am actually done now. going to keep trying (and likely failing) to remember Let People Enjoy Things, just REALLY wish people knew more about the things they were enjoying.
V and i are also planning on streaming Spec Ops soon, both because of the delisting fiasco as well as the importance of showcasing a decidedly anti-war game at this point in time.
bonus content:
>> please check out this Forbes article written by a guy butthurt about people saying mean things about MW2, who goes on to claim that having the people you're shooting at speaking spanish is a diversity win. no i am absolutely not kidding, he literally says that. he also misunderstands a joke in the Polygon review about "NPC Cletus" and claims the author of the article "got details wrong" bc the character "isn't actually named" Cletus. just real incredible stuff here.
>> something i didn't get into with MW2 was the blatant Qasem Soleimani stand-in they put in the game, though this article does so. you apparently get to play as the missile that kills him. feeling another big Neat about that.
>> another article on CoD devs consulting with US military advisors and the pentagon + their dedication to "realism" when it comes to weapons and why they shifted to a focus on PMCs
>> if you wanted to know more about CoD Cold War for whatever reason, this article gets into it a bit more. plus there's some more fun series factoids scattered throughout!
it's been a constant grappling between my very staunch belief in "let people enjoy things" with my disgust at people just uncritically engaging with War Crimes Simulator. i am very aware of the fact that much of the fandom doesn't actually know shit about CoD except that dudebros like it. hell, i know there are people in the fandom who didn't even know what the characters they were shipping were from. it seems like a pretty textbook case of the most shallow kind of "time to ship two hot [white] dudes standing near each other." which again, very much still Let People Enjoy Things about this kind of stuff.
it's just that the dudes in question are from the game where you shoot people going over the US-Mexico border wall, so like. why'd you settle down in that fandom, is the thing i keep thinking any time i see a post about soap/ghost (which is impossible to mute/block btw, bc of how the fucking character names are just regular ass words.) apparently MW2 does make some attempt at criticism of America/private military companies, but it's part of a series that has also worked with Blackwater during the writing/development process, repeatedly misrepresented history in order to push a pro-military/pro-America narrative that's effectively just propaganda (see: blaming Russia for war crimes perpetrated by America in CoD: Cold War).
also, one of my favorite CoD factoids: devs not only consulted with war criminal Oliver North, they got him to voice himself in Black Ops II.
oh wait, how about nerfing fucking WHITE PHOSPHORUS to just an inconvenient poison gas cloud in the MW multiplayer, which is doubly funny due to the series' repeated claims about "realism."
it's stuff like this that makes it impossible for me NOT to think about CoD when Spec Ops comes up. the previous article makes the exact same connection. like you can't not, tbh. ppl joke about the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops launching a thousand video essays but like...you can't understate the impact that scene had. it's also why both V and myself were so initially suspicious about the game being quietly delisted NOW, when the use of white phosphorus against civilians is actively being ignored or hand-waved by the media as well as the fucking US government.
like it turns out it's a music licensing issue, but goddamn what horrid fucking timing. (especially considering the game was apparently being brought up in the comments to the WaPo article about Israel's use of white phosphorus. real win for genocide-supporters that the game that makes it a point to portray the use of white phosphorus as an atrocity is no longer accessible to people.)
anyway, i'm not even done dragging CoD yet. still got more shit!
one of the things i've been looking into recently is the practice of devs paying arms manufacturers for the right to put their guns in games. that's right, any game that uses the actual name of a gun (Colt or Kalashnikov for example) in turn has to pay those gun manufacturers for the right to do so. real neat stuff.
there's a work around that article gets into: using military designations for weapons are fine, but once you tack the brand name on there, that's a no-no. unfortunately for many devs (including CoD's devs, which we know are so concerned with realism! that's why they just had to consult with Oliver North) including the fucking gun brand names are a "necessity" if you value realism. there's even a fucking gun licensing cop based out of France that reports any game that depicts guns that haven't been licensed properly (see Eurogamer article). like just the neatest. love, absolutely love learning things like this, wow!
that article, originally written in 2012 following the Sandy Hook shooting and NRA vice president LaPierre's statement that the real reason for gun violence is violent video games, ultimately centers an argument that slants more towards agreement with LaPierre than not, which i do have issues with (tho there's admittedly a noted shift at the end towards "the issue is the culture of violence in America"), but it's such an interesting read about the practice of gun licensing in video games. the statements by Barrett's Ralph Vaughn in particular are pretty eye-opening. it's clear from him that the logic for having these kinds of licenses and pro-gun propaganda in games (he makes it EXCEEDINGLY clear that arms manufacturers only approve the use of their weapons when the in-game representation is in-line with their company's image, so things like "only the good guys use these guns," etc) is that arms manufacturers believe that this will increase the sales of their guns, and as this article also points out, this has certainly been the case for the FAMAS assault rifle, which is used by the French army.
but good ol' Ralph gives us such gems as: "We've worked with companies to send our sniper rifles into video games. Which ones? Our license agreement prohibits us from mentioning a company by name. [However] you are welcome to check out the Call of Duty series."
i'm still not done yet, tho! was anyone aware of the proposed $7 million marketing campaign agreement between CoD and the US Army in 2021? Army was literally going to pay Activision-Blizzard to promo it in the hopes of upping recruitment. one of the proposed plans was to include Army ads in the mobile version of CoD that players could earn in-game currency for watching. i think that bit might be my favorite, tbh. though there's so much there: Army-sponsored esports tournaments (the US military is pretty open about using esports for recruitment btw, like just check which website hosts that article), paying CoD streamers for promos, etc etc.
ultimately the deal fell through in December 2022 due to the controversy surrounding Activision-Blizzard and sexual harassment/assault. i found it darkly funny that the reason the Army cancelled the deal was due to it's own issues with sexual assault allegations; it literally had to dump Activision-Blizzard due to fears of increased bad PR. we sure do live in a society.
anyway, i find it curious that this deal was cancelled in December 2022, several months after MW2's October 2022 release. i also find it interesting that the Army determined to continue funding CoD streamers so long as their money would in no way go back to Activision-Blizzard. (note: love the little conservative dig about TikTok and China in that article. fucker couldn't help himself.) i've had convos with V where he's brought up "why in the world did so many people unfamiliar with the series get into this game?" and i really don't have an answer but i sure am eyeing this timing, especially bc i've always thought that the fandom must have sprung from people watching streamers play the game.
anyway, all this isn't to say that "CoD/MW2 bad bc video games cause violence" (though it is hilarious that there's a huge section of the fandom that are antis. you know, the champions of "fiction equals reality". the exact type of people to link unironically to "video games cause violence" articles and have "CoD fan" in their bio). that's not actually the issue for me. the propaganda and ties to arms manufacturers are.
i mean also the Oliver North shit is pretty damning. imagine wanting anything to do with a game series that got an actual real war criminal to be in their game and voice himself. jimmy was joking about the next iteration just going mask off and putting Pinochet in it and i'm just like. unfortunate that i can see it happening.
but like. i get liking trash. i write fic for RE and DBH. i understand. but why the trash that's also military propaganda. why the trash that quite literally funds the military industrial complex. why the trash that not only whitewashes US war crimes but attributes them to another country. just absolutely wild fucking behavior.
i do sincerely believe most ppl in the fandom don't know these things. hell, i didn't know a lot of these things until i got inspired by the delisting of Spec Ops. i actually believe most people in the fandom haven't even played the game, so them knowing anything i've gone into here is uh, not fucking likely.
that still doesn't detract from the fact that participation in a fandom for a game like this is effectively just doing free marketing for the Army, which (see the Vice article above) is particularly interested in recruiting from Gen Z, black and latino folk, and women in general. also i mean. buy the game and directly pay arms manufacturers. hope people are at least pirating this shit.
anyway, i am actually done now. going to keep trying (and likely failing) to remember Let People Enjoy Things, just REALLY wish people knew more about the things they were enjoying.
V and i are also planning on streaming Spec Ops soon, both because of the delisting fiasco as well as the importance of showcasing a decidedly anti-war game at this point in time.
bonus content:
>> please check out this Forbes article written by a guy butthurt about people saying mean things about MW2, who goes on to claim that having the people you're shooting at speaking spanish is a diversity win. no i am absolutely not kidding, he literally says that. he also misunderstands a joke in the Polygon review about "NPC Cletus" and claims the author of the article "got details wrong" bc the character "isn't actually named" Cletus. just real incredible stuff here.
>> something i didn't get into with MW2 was the blatant Qasem Soleimani stand-in they put in the game, though this article does so. you apparently get to play as the missile that kills him. feeling another big Neat about that.
>> another article on CoD devs consulting with US military advisors and the pentagon + their dedication to "realism" when it comes to weapons and why they shifted to a focus on PMCs
>> if you wanted to know more about CoD Cold War for whatever reason, this article gets into it a bit more. plus there's some more fun series factoids scattered throughout!
