Launched on the eve of Veteran’s Day last week, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2,” the latest in “first-person shooter” video games, raked in an unbelievable $310 million in its first day on the market.
The game – already the subject of controversy over a scene where the player indiscriminately mows down innocent civilians in an airport that looks like LAX in Los Angeles – is supposed to be one of the most realistic war games yet. As Peter W. Singer describes it:
As part of a US special operations team, the player roams everywhere from Afghanistan to the Caucasus, winning hearts and minds with a mix of machine pistols and Predator drone strikes. The players also fight out in range of potential new conflict zones, from the rough urban favelas of Brazil to a simulated Russian invasion of Washington, D.C., and the Virginia suburbs (This is actually a major flaw in the game; any invasion force would clearly get stuck in traffic at the Interstate 95 Mixing Bowl).
Here’s an interesting bit from the Times‘s Idea of the Day: Can melancholy sell a violent video game?