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The Hideous Marketing of 'Modern Warfare 3'

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  • The Hideous Marketing of 'Modern Warfare 3'

    D.B. Grady - D.B. Grady is a former paratrooper with U.S. Army Special Operations Command and a veteran of Afghanistan. He is a novelist and essayist, and can be found online at dbgrady.com. More
    The Hideous Marketing of 'Modern Warfare 3' - D.B. Grady - Entertainment - The Atlantic


    The Hideous Marketing of 'Modern Warfare 3'
    By D.B. Grady

    Dec 29 2011, 4:55 PM ET 210

    The game's commercial trivializes and sanitizes war to an extreme, setting a new low

    vetandnoob.jpg

    Callofduty/YouTube
    There is a television advertisement for a video game called Modern Warfare 3 that is so base and strident that it's hard to believe that it's not deliberately offensive. It begins with two Hollywood buffoons in (for whatever reason) MultiCam taking heavy fire during an apparent New York City terrorist attack. The men calmly walk into a hailstorm of bullets, and return fire with rifles, pistols, and submachine guns. Most disturbing is that the depicted maelstrom seems designed to carefully hover in the uncanny zone. Clearly it's not Black Hawk Down, but neither is it Starship Troopers. On some level—perhaps it's the intensity of the actors—the commercial wants its action to be taken seriously.

    Veterans aren't in the "professionally aggrieved" business, and I don't doubt that some significant percentage of men and women in uniform own a copy of Modern Warfare 3. Because the game crossed the billion dollar sales mark in only 16 days, clearly its marketing strategy is working. But none of that makes it okay, or mitigates its tastelessness. The advertisement trivializes combat and sanitizes war. If this were September 10, 2001, maybe it wouldn't be quite so bad. Those who are too young to remember Vietnam might indulge in combat fantasies of resting heart rates while rocket-propelled grenades whiz by, and of flinty glares while emptying a magazine into the enemy. But after ten years of constant war, of thousands of amputees and flag-draped coffins, of hundreds of grief-stricken communities, did nobody involved in this commercial raise a hand and say, "You know, this is probably a little crass. Maybe we could just show footage from the game."

    This is not an argument against so-called shooter video games or depictions of war in popular culture. However, as Afghanistan intensifies and we assess the mental and physical damage to veterans of Iraq, is now really the time to sell the country on how much fun the whole enterprise is? (Here I point to the giddy howls of one supposed soldier in the commercial as he fires a grenade launcher at some off-screen combatant. War is great, see? It's like a gritty Disneyland.)

    Earlier this month, Sergeant Timothy Gilboe, a soldier with 4th Brigade Combat Team of 10th Mountain Division, received a Silver Star for heroism in combat. While on a patrol in Afghanistan, his platoon was attacked by insurgents. A squad leader was killed, and an assistant machine gunner's rucksack (filled with ammunition) was hit and caught fire. As Sgt. Gilboe worked to smother the flames, insurgents charged the men.

    Keep the stupidity of the Modern Warfare 3 commercial in mind as you consider what Timothy Gilboe did next. He didn't have time to pick up his weapon as an insurgent set upon him. According to the Army News Service:

    Gilboe reached out and grabbed the barrel of the enemy's AK-47 and pulled it toward his chest, which was covered by an armor plate. He said the last thing that ran through his mind before the enemy pulled the trigger was "This is gonna hurt a lot."

    Gilboe was knocked to the ground, wounded by shrapnel and trauma. He got up and fought and beat down the insurgent in hand-to-hand combat until a comrade could shoot the enemy dead. And Gilboe wasn't finished. He then directed a security perimeter, provided first aid to the wounded, and helped in the medical evacuation—all before he allowed anyone to treat his injuries.

    Here's how the Modern Warfare 3 commercial ends. Two smug, A-list clowns strut toward the camera, rifles hanging over their shoulders, explosions consuming the city of New York, and then the words: "THERE'S A SOLDIER IN ALL OF US."

    No, there's not.
    “the misery of being exploited by capitalists is nothing compared to the misery of not being exploited at all” -- Joan Robinson

  • #2
    Xinhui Reply

    "'THERE'S A SOLDIER IN ALL OF US.'

    No, there's not."


    Too true. It won't give pause to the chairborne warriors the world over, though.

    And the corporate machine could care less.
    "This aggression will not stand, man!" Jeff Lebowski
    "The only true currency in this bankrupt world is what you share with someone else when you're uncool." Lester Bangs

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    • #3
      Why don't we give Gilboe an MoH as it seems he deserves. Most of us here know that there is not "a soldier in all of us". so lets just call soldiers, soldiers. Gamers, gamers and
      marketers, marketers.

      This isn't the first offront to a soldier, if you think it is, pay more attention to the world you live in. If you don't like it, lets get together and do somethin about it.;)
      Last edited by Blue; 03 Jan 12,, 19:48.

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      • #4
        it's a computer game...what did he expect?
        There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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        • #5
          (Here I point to the giddy howls of one supposed soldier in the commercial as he fires a grenade launcher at some off-screen combatant. War is great, see? It's like a gritty Disneyland.)
          Grenade launchers are fun! Anyone else here ever went fishing with a 203 or clear a bunker from 200yds with one? Equal amounts of "hell yeah" will be boasted by all present.

          This DB Grady needs to move on to something else to whine about.

          Comment


          • #6
            War being fun is our guilty little secret.We're built that way but live in a society that for some reson tries to repress it's guilty pleasures.Like sex during the Victorian age.
            Popping some targets,calling CAS or fire mission and watching the poor hapless m.....s that 2 minutes earlier were trying to kill you being evaporated is also fun and met with collective cheers.Even in FX's.Veterans 30 years old said of relief,but the sort of relief that needs an outburst.
            Veterans 90 years old also recall funny stuff.In their case,there's another excuse.They don't recall the pain,they recall their youth.Apparently being young and at the siege of Sevastopol or freezing at Stalingrad beats the hell of being in a chair .
            That being said,everything is better taken with measure :) .Also,I don't play games.
            Those who know don't speak
            He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

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            • #7
              Many of us who aren't soldiers, admire those who are. These games give people a way to pretend they are with no danger to themselves - hardly soldiering, but sometimes it is fun. It's just marketing crap, to tell chairborne "warriors" that they're really soldiers deep inside. Like telling them they will be popular if they consume a particular softdrink...

              The FPS games do improve hand eye coordination, and some sims can teach their players a few things, like the names and specs of weapons. It really amuses me when people who play these games think they know all about the realities of war because of it. "You'd better not piss me off, I'm bad - I scored 100,000 in BoneStorm".
              sigpic"If your plan is for one year, plant rice. If your plan is for ten years, plant trees.
              If your plan is for one hundred years, educate children."

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              • #8
                I thought it's a pretty cool commercial. I guess I know it's a game and so I don't see the big deal.
                "So little pains do the vulgar take in the investigation of truth, accepting readily the first story that comes to hand." Thucydides 1.20.3

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                • #9
                  Paintball is more fun.
                  To be Truly ignorant, Man requires an Education - Plato

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