1. Case Study #2: Call of Duty

2. Call of Duty
 Originally released in 2003
 Developed by Infinity Ward
 Published by Activision
 First Person or Third Person shooter game.
 The game simulates infantry and combined arms
battles.
 Started as a PC game, but now plays on consoles and
handhelds.
 Has grown into a FRANCHISE with several spin off
games.

3. Activision’s home page

4. Screenshots used for advertising

7. Franchise
spin-off
“chapters”

8. PLAYERS
 100 million sales – to end of 2011
 40 million active players
 10 million players use the online service CoD
Elite
 Call of Duty Endowment – a charity which
promised to donate $1 million to the welfare
of US military veterans.

9. Merchandise
 Mainly figurines and
trading cards.

12. Billboards
“there’s a
soldier in
all of us”

13. Urban transportation

14. Is it just a game?

15. Is the game too realistic?
 Some people think that Call of Duty and other similar
“shoot-em-ups” provide players with too much
practice with fire-arms and too much knowledge of
modern warfare techniques.
 There have been stories in the media of the US Army
actively recruiting CoD players because they are easier
and quicker to train in combat techniques.
 The US Army denies this.

16. Practice for
terrorists?

17. Violent games
The Media Debate in this area is:
 Do violent games make players violent in
real life?
 Does being exposed to on-screen violence
desensitise players to the realities of real-
world violence?

18. Where is the evidence?
 There are many examples of mass-murders
(unfortunately, many in the USA) being committed by
hard-core gamers.
 This tends to result in knee-jerk reactions from
psychologists and sociologists – and right-wind
politicians - who wish to ban games which appear to
“promote” violence.
 There are similar arguments surrounding Grand
Theft Auto.

19. Make up your own mind…
 You need to form your own opinions about this.
 It may seem like a silly argument and you make thin
that you know the answer.
 How might you feel if it was your own son and
daughter playing these games?
 In ten (or less) years time some of you may well have
your own children.
 Will your opinion remain the same then?