Bono and Mercenaries 2
As Our Beloved Hobby becomes more and more mainstream, the politicization of video games is only going to increase. The latest Rainbow Six: Las Vegas flap is merely the latest piece in a continuing trend.
Alex at loquaciously named blog These Damned Machines Are Killing Me informs and comments on another recent video game politcal episode. That is, Mercenaries 2 (and U2′s Bono, as a major investor in Bioware/Pandemic) is apparently drawing ire from Hugo Chavez defenders. (Hugo Chavez is the current Marxist dictator of Venezuela.
Political opinions aside, Alex does point out something very interesting…
There are some awkward but powerful reasons why so many real-world war games are based on World War II. The technology of pre-WWII wars was insufficiently frenetic, sure, but what about postwar, contemporary wars based in real countries? All the post-WWII wars in real-life have been too asymmetrical to be as dramatic or rewarding as games…and too asymmetrical to avoid political unease.
I don’t think the problem lies in the conflicts being too assymmetrical. I believe the political unease comes because Hugo Chavez and other modern dictators are not universally condemned in the same way as Hitler. In the U.S., everyone pretty much agrees, Hitler was evil. There are a few exceptions, sure, but they’re lunatics, right? The fact that there are people who tolerate and welcome leaders like Chavez is the reason these games are getting so politically charged. A video game about overthrowing Milosevic would probably not be as controversial as Mercenaries 2. Well, except for maybe in Serbia… I dunno.
Anyway, did anyone else have trouble finding copies of Call of Duty 2 to rent for Independence Day?
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