Terrorists Are Using First-Person Shooters To Spread message

[garyoak99]

"ISIS has refined the mechanics of the sale of violence." Writing for the New Yorker website, Jay Caspian Kang thoughtfully examines how the terrorist group invokes well-worn motifs from shooters like Call of Duty in its recruitment materials.

Much like the organization's use of modern social media, selling prospective recruits by promising a life "better than that game Call of Duty" has proved disturbingly impactful. Kang is careful not to place blame where it isn't due while still managing to raise a point gamers and game journalists often struggle to broach effectively. The language of first-person shooters is now a deeply entrenched one that many people understand on an instinctual level. Like any other organization trying to expand its membership and the reach of its message, ISIS understands this and uses a game-laden vocabulary to its advantage:

The similarities between ISIS recruitment films and first-person-shooter games are likely intentional. Back in June, an ISIS fighter told the BBC that his new life was "better than that game Call of Duty." Video-game-themed memes traced back to ISIS have been floating around the Internet for months, including one that reads, "THIS IS OUR CALL OF DUTY AND WE RESPAWN IN JANNAH." ("Respawn" is the gamer word for reincarnate.) Another ISIS video, as the Intercept notes, looks like a deliberate homage to Grand Theft Auto. Audio clips that sound much like ones in Call of Duty have been spliced into other ISIS videos. Many of the ISIS recruitment videos are dedicated to showcasing rocket launchers, mines, and assault rifles, as if to say, "If you join us, you'll get to shoot these things."

A game like Call of Duty is a very different beast depending on who's playing it and the context in which they're doing so, of course. For the vast majority of their players, modern, militaristic first-person shooters strike a nerve because they're profoundly compelling and incredibly fun to play. At the very least, however, we should consider what it means to keep delivering the same iterative power fantasy of shooting hordes of nameless and faceless terrorists in the face in games that are suggestive of contemporary conflict, even as they eschew specific references to one quagmire or another.

Terrorists Are Using First-Person Shooters To Spread Their Message

[RyugaHayabusa]

The actual article in the NYT talks about "frustrated" kids. Now, I have a problem with that statement. You see, growing up, I was a "frustrated" kid who used video games to relieve my frustration. Hell, millions of us did that, and it wasn't just kids, it was adults as well. Tell me, out of the several million people who have played violent video games, how many crimes were conclusively linked to video games? And by conclusively, I don't mean some newscaster decided that since they played video games, the games were to blame, simply because they once read an article from a group of parents not wanting to take the blame for not raising their kid.

Now, take that small number of crimes, and see how many of those people suffered from some form of psychopathic illness. Want a little hint? Nearly every single case that was actually studied in depth.

ISIS is going to recruit the same people, no matter what method they use. People who want to kill are psychopathic by nature, and only ever need a reason to do so. The only real difference is that they will be targeting people who THINK they know how to shoot and reload a firearm, but have never actually held one. They might get a few recruits using this method, but the blame does not rest on how we view FPS games.

[Faux Aria]

Old news Call of Duty neigh any army game is and has always been the ultimate recruitnment tools for the army.

[Rebeldoomer]

There was an ISIS video of them doing a drive by shooting, which was very violent.

I wouldn't be surprised they used that footage with a "just like Grand Theft Auto" message.

[David2074]

Many of the ISIS recruitment videos are dedicated to showcasing rocket launchers, mines, and assault rifles, as if to say, "If you join us, you'll get to shoot these things."

Haha!
You mean, just like almost every US military recruitment commercial since before video games were even invented?

US ads do not typically show the weapons firing (though some have) but they almost always emphasize the "cool" factor appropriate to which branch of the armed services they are advertising. Fighter jets zooming overhead or launching from the deck of a carrier, tanks, guys in full combat gear, etc. Everyone looking proud and happy of their job, their coworkers, their ship / jet / tank etc.


But back to ISIS - The author of the article seems to be trying too hard to make a story out of this.
It is hard for me to picture such recruiting tactics as comparing your organization to a video game being effective except for maybe mentally ill people already inclined to join them. I love FPS and other first person RPGs and over the years I have spent hundreds of hours in such games. Never once was I tempted to abandon my life and hop on a plane to ******** so I could eat sandy dust in 120F while being shot at for real. I've also never tried to apply to Hogwarts to become a real mage. And though I have never played Grand Theft Auto, if I did I wouldn't suddenly start stealing cars and b***h slapping hos.

[RyugaHayabusa]

Inamatus Requiem

Old news Call of Duty neigh any army game is and has always been the ultimate recruitnment tools for the army.

Actually, the military has very little to do with the games that are produced, and are not used by each branch to recruit people. That will not stop some lazy recruiters from claiming that it's just like CoD, just so they can pad their numbers a bit.

Truth is, the military hates it when people join up because they played a video game, because most of those people wash out, wasting time and resources that could have gone towards someone actually competent enough to complete the training.

If anyone glamorizes war, it would be the game developers. They must make action-packed games to keep the attention of their audience, and to keep their jobs, so they would naturally choose war-based combat, and stylize it to make it seem "cool."

[Ringoringa]

Shows what they know. Now, if they told me they had portal guns, THEN maybe I'd consider it. But who wants to imitate Call of Duty? That was a joke, by the way. Please don't tell the authorities to show up at my door with machine guns. I'm too meek for prison.

[Wako Smitty no Yuuku]

RyugaHayabusa

Inamatus Requiem

Old news Call of Duty neigh any army game is and has always been the ultimate recruitnment tools for the army.

Actually, the military has very little to do with the games that are produced, and are not used by each branch to recruit people. That will not stop some lazy recruiters from claiming that it's just like CoD, just so they can pad their numbers a bit.

Truth is, the military hates it when people join up because they played a video game, because most of those people wash out, wasting time and resources that could have gone towards someone actually competent enough to complete the training.

If anyone glamorizes war, it would be the game developers. They must make action-packed games to keep the attention of their audience, and to keep their jobs, so they would naturally choose war-based combat, and stylize it to make it seem "cool."

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.

I dunno...........

Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

[RyugaHayabusa]

Wako Smitty no Yuuku

RyugaHayabusa

Inamatus Requiem

Old news Call of Duty neigh any army game is and has always been the ultimate recruitnment tools for the army.

Actually, the military has very little to do with the games that are produced, and are not used by each branch to recruit people. That will not stop some lazy recruiters from claiming that it's just like CoD, just so they can pad their numbers a bit.

Truth is, the military hates it when people join up because they played a video game, because most of those people wash out, wasting time and resources that could have gone towards someone actually competent enough to complete the training.

If anyone glamorizes war, it would be the game developers. They must make action-packed games to keep the attention of their audience, and to keep their jobs, so they would naturally choose war-based combat, and stylize it to make it seem "cool."

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.

I dunno...........

Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

I stand corrected. I completely forgot that AA existed.

[Jayce Reinhardt]

I blame D&D and that rock and roll music.

[MiameMiame]

I thought fundamental muslims were against games. This comes off as hypocritical. If you want to be an a**l muslim then do so in your own corner of the world please. Thanks.

[Wako Smitty no Yuuku]

RyugaHayabusa

Wako Smitty no Yuuku

RyugaHayabusa

Inamatus Requiem

Old news Call of Duty neigh any army game is and has always been the ultimate recruitnment tools for the army.

Actually, the military has very little to do with the games that are produced, and are not used by each branch to recruit people. That will not stop some lazy recruiters from claiming that it's just like CoD, just so they can pad their numbers a bit.

Truth is, the military hates it when people join up because they played a video game, because most of those people wash out, wasting time and resources that could have gone towards someone actually competent enough to complete the training.

If anyone glamorizes war, it would be the game developers. They must make action-packed games to keep the attention of their audience, and to keep their jobs, so they would naturally choose war-based combat, and stylize it to make it seem "cool."

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.

I dunno...........

Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

I stand corrected. I completely forgot that AA existed.

Never underestimate the good or evil that the most powerful fighting force in the world will accomplish. A free army game is just too much soft power for every branch of the military to ignore, no matter how many Sargeants complain about the SOCOM 12 year olds showing up at their doorstep.

[God Emperor Baldur]

Yet another way to bash video games. News is deprived because they are in direct competition with video games.