The Gaming Persona

Unveiling the Impact of Call of Duty and Video Game Violence on Society

• Daniel Kaufmann Ph.D. | Dr. Gameology • Season 4 • Episode 1

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Is violence in video games, especially Call of Duty, instigating aggression in real life? Your hosts Dr. Gameology, Jenny Lebron, and Gene Wong unwrap this age-old debate in an absolutely thrilling episode of The Gaming Persona podcast. We'll be sharing our personal encounters with not just Call of Duty, but also our gaming adventures with Alan Wake 2 and Final Fantasy 14. 

Have you ever wondered about the evolution of Call of Duty over the last two decades? It's time to satisfy your curiosity as we traverse the entire trajectory of this legendary game from its realistic beginnings to its current otherworldly elements. We're going to delve into the celebrity engagements in the franchise, discuss the spin-off game, Call of Duty Zombies, and even drop hints about talking about the iconic game Doom in our future episodes. 

As we conclude our journey, we'll examine the impact of video games on society at large. We'll be debunking the common myth that violent video games breed violent behavior by drawing comparisons with violence in TV shows and movies. Also, we'll be looking at the popular game Overwatch, the variety it offers, and our experiences with the inviting AIE gaming community. Let's embark on this entertaining and enlightening expedition together!

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Thanks for Listening, and Continue The Journey!

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Gaming Persona Podcast. This is a show that explores who we become when we play games. I'm your host, dr Gameology, from Twitch and Grad School classrooms across the country, and I'm joined by two of my best friends from my gaming journey, jenny Lebron and Jean Wong. Friends, how are we doing this week?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing fantastic and I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 3:

I'm doing great too. The cold has descended upon you and Linda again.

Speaker 1:

Wait, were you living up there last winter, Jean?

Speaker 3:

Yes, we had this guy here. We actually got here at the end of October.

Speaker 1:

Oh, so you've been there one year.

Speaker 3:

Yes, one year.

Speaker 1:

All right. Well, now we've given everyone incredibly important details about your personal life. Where can the listeners find us?

Speaker 2:

You can find my photography page on Instagram at jlebronphotography or jlebronphotographycom, if you're curious about what Nerdy Persons photos look like.

Speaker 1:

I'm Dr Gameology on Twitch and other social apps. I just started a new video series on my YouTube channel called Geek Therapy for Gamers, so if you're interested in things like what we do on this show, please go over there, check it out, hit subscribe and help that part of my program and grow.

Speaker 3:

The Game Persona can be found on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google and most anywhere else podcasts can be found. If you're enjoying our content, be sure to leave a review on your favorite listening app.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much for supporting the Gaming Persona. Hello Jenny, what are we talking about from the world of video games this week?

Speaker 2:

We are going to be talking about a game that I have never played called Call of Duty, since a new version came out recently, and we're also going to touch on video games and violence.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, they go together right. I mean, the only thing that I know you do in Call of Duty is you run around and you kill things with weapons.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yes, it's a good example.

Speaker 1:

That is the level of insight that we're going to achieve throughout the entire episode.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, gina's our ex-president podcast expert on Call of Duty.

Speaker 3:

Yes, you know, the last time I played long was like 13 years ago.

Speaker 1:

Wait, am I the most recent Call of Duty player on this episode?

Speaker 3:

Probably. I haven't played it since college, so yeah.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my goodness, we're in for a show. Let's go into the ordinary world, where we share our everyday life through our games. All right, it's been a couple weeks since we've been able to do this, so what's everyone been up to in the world of gaming?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, okay, so it's all. Now I actually have an excuse for not gaming as much as I ever do, but it was my birthday a couple of days ago and I got a new fairy deck for one of my gifts, so I'm really excited to test that out who knows when, because I am drowning in editing.

Speaker 3:

That is pretty rad, though, that someone just gave to Gio Deck. I'd never had that.

Speaker 2:

Yes, Well, it was my boyfriend, so you know that was one of the gifts.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. What have you been up to Gene?

Speaker 3:

I have fully cleared Alan Wake 2. That was a fabulous game, by the way.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of people talk about I've never played Alan Wake 1. So I don't know if it would make sense for me to jump into part two.

Speaker 3:

So I would say Alan Wake 1's gameplay is not age. Well, you should just watch a video summary of Alan Wake 1. But then play this technically, the second game in the series called Control. Then play oh, I have Control. Yeah, control was free on PS Plus for a while back, so yeah, might own it through that I have it on Steam too. Okay, yeah, control is also a great, but yeah, alan Wake 1's gameplay is very annoying by today's standard.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, I've had a lot of people tell me that I should play Control and it's on my list of games that I will play someday when I conquer the list of games I'm currently involving myself in. But actually, okay. So my ordinary world. First off, I would like to say that I spent a lot of time with both of you over the weekend, although you probably didn't realize it, because in your lives I wasn't there, but for me I actually did a lot of episode editing because I just decided this is the best content that I can come up with for YouTube for this set of days and I'm behind on them anyway. So if I complete them, then I will be completing two goals in one. You know, killing two birds with one stone. So, because those conversations were all so far in our past, getting to hear them, I had this weird experience of I don't remember this conversation at all, and so the two of you actually were able to surprise me repeatedly with amazing ideas and conversations that I was not able to predict, because, in particular, the DICE episode, which I think actually happened in September, finally edited it, and that was such a fun conversation. So I got a really cool message on threads this morning from a new listener. They go by the handle Basanti and just getting in and saying that they really enjoyed it. They love our outlook on how games are a part of good mental health practice. Emphasis on good, with little sarcastic spin on it at the end. Come on, world, you're making my job too easy, but it was a lot of fun to get to catch up on those episodes. On the gaming side, though, I decided to completely switch my stream over to playing Final Fantasy 14 as a solo player and starting over, because Final Fantasy 14 does this really annoying thing with their account system where, if you have it on PC, you can link it to the PS5. If you have it on Steam, you can link it to the PS5, but you cannot link Steam to PC. Therefore, if your PS5 is linked to your PC account, you cannot link your Steam account, meaning that I would have to buy the game again. So I like playing Final Fantasy 14 on my Steam deck. That's actually the best way to play, because it turns the game into a portable game and that's awesome. But I can't play those characters on my computer, even though it's a Steam account, unless I start over. So I did. So we did the Call to Adventure segment of the game where we wake up and we find that first shard of the Mother Crystal and have that out of body experience. It's been really cool because there are things I've done professionally and things I've written and been working on that are inspired by when I was playing that game at the beginning. So now getting to play it at the beginning but knowing all the things that have come from my time playing the game, is really interesting.

Speaker 2:

Oh.

Speaker 1:

So that is what I've been up to, but I think that covers a good starting base for the ordinary world. So let's do the Call to Adventure, where we get into our topic for the week. So, as you said, jenny, call of Duty had a new game come out and it is Modern Warfare 3. So this is the third of the Modern Warfare series and that is in contrast to a couple different other kinds of Call of Duty. There's Black Ops and there's something else. I'm not a Call of Duty player, jenny are you a? Call of Duty player.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely not, Gene are you a Call of.

Speaker 1:

Duty player.

Speaker 3:

Not anymore.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so we're going to do our best everyone. Thank you so much for listening. This is a very important game title for the video gaming industry and we just learned how SEO works and decided that it would be a good idea to have an episode. So we're going to give it our best shot. But we do know the psychology of video games and games in the genre. So that's what we're bringing to the table, and I just want to spend a couple minutes talking about what some of the questions that people might have if they are interested in learning about the psychology of games like Call of Duty. What might they be thinking and asking? So the first thing that I would think to ask is who plays Call of Duty? You know what is the draw of this franchise, why has it been able to go so long and what are the key entertaining points about the game? Do either of you have any other questions that would be a good idea for us to answer to the best of our ability this episode.

Speaker 2:

Well, one of the adjacent topics that we're hoping to talk about is violence in video games, and I know Call of Duty, at least in the past. I think Jean has some information about what the game has started into, but it's a pretty violent game. So are Call of Duty players prone to violence? I hope that's a good question to ask.

Speaker 1:

Okay, you know, just in general. It seems like there is a belief or a sensationalist perspective that any video game player is going to be prone to violence at a higher rate than a regular person with regular amounts of violence would be expected to behave as.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Jean, are there any things that come to your mind that hopefully we can answer and talk about for this episode?

Speaker 3:

Well, yeah, it is the real question of why is it still so dominant in the gaming sphere? And it's well have some ideas.

Speaker 1:

Okay, yeah, I mean everything is on the table as a possibility right now. We don't have dice. We should have done 20 Call of Duty topics and rolled the dice again those are really really fun episodes. I might get addicted to doing episodes that way.

Speaker 3:

I am, let's do it. I've got an infinite amount of dice. I have a dice addiction. It is a problem.

Speaker 2:

Oh my gosh, before we move on, one of my last weddings that I shot. They both got up to the altar and they rolled for initiative on who would get to say their vows first, and it was the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Speaker 1:

Jenny, I almost passed out because I thought that you were going to say that they were going to roll to see if the marriage was possible. And if they get a one, then that's like a critical fail and they have to abandon the relationship.

Speaker 2:

No, oh my gosh, it's terrible.

Speaker 1:

There's no coming back from rolling a one, jenny. There's no charm, there's no friendship. There's no anything. All right, that was good. I needed that. In this episode, let's step onto the road of trials, where we face our challenges and discover our strengths. All right. So Call of Duty is a first person shooter and it is largely played as a competitive online match based game. So there is a campaign in a lot of them maybe all of them, at least most of them that you can play as a one player activity, but I have never talked to anyone that cares about those.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, not since the 2000. That's when they kind of gave up on it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I mean I. So one of the cool things about when people reach out to me by email or LinkedIn or things this is a frequent title that people want to talk to me about and over this past summer it was happening so frequently with people wanting to interview me. But because they found our show or they found the website where we put the episodes of our show and this game always came up. So I actually downloaded one of them on Steam. I downloaded Black Ops, cold War, and I started playing the solo campaign and it really they're not even close to being the same game, but it really reminded me of the vibes that I got when I would play GoldenEye on the N64. Where it's just like you have a mission, got to take out this person, you got to interrogate this person and just the whole. You know ducking and running and taking cover and switching guns. But all the guns are very realistic and the kinds of shooters that I play, because of my own choice, are more like BioShock or Resident Evil and there's not really this realistic style of weapons in those, because there are guns that are pretty mundane and then you make them ridiculous in the kinds of shooters that I play. So number one, call of Duty, seems to be based more in reality. However, gene, that may not be the full story here in the in the 2020s. So the first thing that you brought to the table is actually some of the wackier sides of Call of Duty. So can you tell us a little bit about, like, what Call of Duty is doing these days that makes it stay fresh for the player base?

Speaker 3:

Well, okay, since we are talking about the modern warfare section of the game right now. So when modern warfare one first came out, it was modern at the time. How?

Speaker 2:

long ago, was that 2000,.

Speaker 1:

Like I maybe so we're talking about two decades ago.

Speaker 3:

Maybe 2006.

Speaker 1:

I don't know Somewhere around that time.

Speaker 3:

I remember playing it early on in college.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I just wanted to set that, that time frame up for our listeners who maybe don't play these games either, because we're talking about 20 years ago.

Speaker 3:

Right, all right. So yeah, the first modern warfare was modern at the time. It was depicting, you know, the basically essentially US military people fighting in the Middle East using weapons and stuff. That would be indicative of that time period. Okay, and so now, when you jump ahead to modern warfare two and three and some of the other games, you're getting more and more futuristic. I actually I'm not sure if you might have seen this. I think for modern warfare Two maybe, I'm not sure if it's modern warfare two there was a famous ad campaign with Megan Fox in it when she is jumping through space. So we're talking about Space Force, which our real world doesn't operate that way yet. We're trying, we're just not there yet Right, so you get. So now we're having our. We have soldiers like floating around space station, stopping terrorists and blowing up space station.

Speaker 1:

So, before we move on, we need to give props to Megan Fox because it is it is clear that she knows that gamer dudes are most likely to be into her and that that lets her be a part of our franchises, because here in 2023, she, of course, got to play Nittara in Mortal Kombat one. So she has just continued her legacy of joining our franchises, and that is very nice. Thank you, megan Fox.

Speaker 3:

And then another more recent spin off of the franchise Well, not even a spin off, it's like an inclusion of the franchise Is that every Call of Duty game now has a sub game called Call of Duty Zombies, where basically that's my thing Instead of fighting terrorists, you're just guys shooting at zombies and monsters and demons.

Speaker 1:

But what if the zombies and demons were terrorists before they turned?

Speaker 3:

Well, that's possibly entirely possible, because one of the more recent things like these the whole zombies game has its own events and seasons and whatnot and I've built one of the more recent things that had a crossover with Spawn Spawn the yeah, the comic character right. Yeah, who fights literal people from hell. So it's possible they were terrorists at one point and that's why they were in hell.

Speaker 1:

On that topic. I know that I'm really pushing us away from Call of Duty when we're supposed to be embracing Call of Duty, but we have never talked about Doom on this show. Sure, and that is really an important game, so maybe that's going to be in our near future. We can talk about Doom.

Speaker 2:

First PC games ever played.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, it also revolutionized a lot of the technology that goes into video games, and you know there's no Call of Duty without Doom. Yeah, actually there's probably no Nintendo 64, the way we know it, without Doom.

Speaker 2:

What's funny is I used to play that game on my teacher's PC in his office because he was a gamer and he was our band teacher and I was his like band aid for the sixth grade band, and there was never anything for me to do, so I just sit in his office and play Doom.

Speaker 1:

There were some computers in my elementary school that had Doom on it as well. Also, from our chat, the zombies in Black Ops Cold War happened to be Nazi soldiers, so I was almost correct that the zombies were the kind of Ruffians that were supposed to be aiming bullets at. Yeah so yeah, it's on the game's future fighting real Ruffians.

Speaker 3:

Other ones feature Nonsense, but also the seasonal events bring in Nonsense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, so one of the things that I've come to realize about myself recently is I am not very good at third or sorry at first person shooters and the people who really take the competitive aspect of these games and that's what they're excited to do when they sit down in a chair like this. They're a different kind of gamer and I'm impressed by them. It's kind of like me saying that I like basketball but recognizing that I'm never going to play anything organized ever again in my life, since I'm more than 12 years old, and it's just really, you know, it's a different way of understanding hand-eye coordination with video games.

Speaker 2:

It's unbelievable yeah.

Speaker 1:

Like how incredible.

Speaker 2:

These people are.

Speaker 1:

Also the aim trainers are these extra programs that you put on your PC and you go into them to practice micro movements, to aim very quickly, so that when you're in a real match you're actually going to respond with quicker reflexes and greater accuracy. So this is not just a sit down and play, you actually have to turn the game into some, into a skill that you practice.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like savagery. Like savagery, where you have to learn your rotation and learn the mechanics? Yes, Exactly yeah, the only time I've ever played a first person shooter it was Halo 2 and I could do it. I couldn't keep my camera straight, like I would get so scared and then my camera would just shoot up to the sky. I would be like, oh no. So I ended up just using the sword. But that was the only weapon I ever used, so I would just hide and get people around the corner.

Speaker 3:

That's on my topic. I'm quite amazed by watching people play competitive Fortnite, because that game not only is it the shooting, it's the building. People are building literal fortresses around themselves in. Seconds.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, crazy.

Speaker 1:

You know Fortnite, though I can imagine myself getting into. Is that one first person or is it third?

Speaker 3:

It's third by default, but you can play it first, so I could play third, but also I could be John Cena.

Speaker 1:

So I think that there's automatically a hook that I would learn to play, just so that I can do amazing things as John Cena.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, you could be anyone in Fortnite.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, they are constantly coming out with new cross promotions, so I think that that's a game that we really need to cover too. But I've never played Fortnite, but I actually have played a Call of Duty game for about 90 minutes, so I know that's not a lot, but one of the things that I realized is I wanted to be the kind of expert on video games and psychology who actually plays the games that I'm talking about. And the first person reached out over the summer to talk about this, I was like, ok, that's fine, I handled it well, talked about player types and motivations, how online games fit into our lifestyles, talked about the skill element and the eSports and competitive element. And then it happened again and I was like, oh my gosh, if these questions ever get detailed about Call of Duty, I am not going to handle them well. So I just decided that this is something that I need to be able to figure out. So I downloaded the game. I finished the first two missions, did not finish the third one, started failing a lot and, just as a timeout, I have to be like Daddy Podcaster here I see the chat. The problem is when you're editing the podcast and I keep talking to the chat. It doesn't make for a great podcast episode, so please stop the passive, aggressive stuff in the chat. My dear Mod, thank you Next. All right Back to the podcast. So I just wanted to make sure that even if I'm talking about Call of Duty, I've actually played it and can actually speak to some of the things that I'm seeing in the game. So, as far as the field of psychology and published research, the easiest way to get published in a peer review journal if you're going to talk about Call of Duty is to do some kind of scale about player aggression or violent thoughts or behavioral tendencies, and that's going to be a very specific message in your research, because there's been this decades long assumption, going back to doom that and Mortal Kombat, that video games cause game players to become violent, and what do we think about that?

Speaker 2:

I mean, I haven't read the research and this is coming from my own opinions and perspective. I played Slow Tour, which it's not a gory game, it's not. You know, there are many other games that are more violent than Slow Tour Star Wars, the Old Republic, for those who don't know but it's like I'm murdering people in game, I'm force choking people in game. These are all things that, like as a normal human, would never even consider doing, and I played I purposely played as the darkest kind of character that I could, and it did not impact my violent tendencies whatsoever. So yeah, I think it's both.

Speaker 1:

We both worked at a place where becoming violent and throwing something through a window would have been very understandable too, at the time that you're running around force choking all these people and you never once threw anything that was made of glass anywhere.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 1:

So I think that the idea comes from. We have a tendency as human beings to constantly compare ourselves to others, and there's also alongside that tendency that the way I do things is inherently right and thoughtful and strategically sound, and so if someone else does something different to me, then the way they do it is flawed and reckless and not thought through all the way, and so then all the traits that I'm proud of in myself have to be the reason that my strategy is better, and all of the traits about the other person that's different than me is an explanation of why they are worse. So therefore, going back to the 1990s, the people in leadership positions and legislative positions and parenting and teaching positions probably didn't play a whole lot of video games, and at least not ones that looked violent. They might have played video games that looked like Tron or Pac-Man and Tetris. And so when you see the first set of video games that have heads exploding and decapitations and the word fatality in big red words, and you have hell being depicted on the screen, even though it didn't look very convincing, but it is hell so you have these assumptions playing out, that I don't think about hurting other people and throwing tantrums that are violent and breaking things.

Speaker 2:

Sorry.

Speaker 1:

That's okay. So you have these assumptions play out and a person would be thinking I don't act out violently, I don't do things this certain way and I'm not a video game player. They're a video game player. Therefore, that must be the difference. That's the factor that's different between the two of us. So then that leaves all kinds of things, even the ESRB system that rates our games, and it gets built into the way we think about video games. So, Gene, what do you think about? Just the importance of, I don't know the importance of how we think about video games, like this whole argument that violence in video games are somehow intimately related?

Speaker 3:

I mean I think it's ridiculous. Like you said, it did probably come about in the times of Doom and Mortal Kombat and whatnot. But even when you go backwards in gaming to like the Atari and thing, I mean one of the very first arcade games was a Star Wars death trench simulation game. There was just a whole bunch of lines and it looked ugly. But the whole point of that game is literally you're blowing up a space station with tens of thousands of people on it.

Speaker 1:

It might even have been more than tens of thousands. Gene that station was the size of a moon.

Speaker 3:

So like yeah, it's kind of ridiculous to say like I mean, pac-man is a game about, I don't know, eating ghosts. If you're going to throw, you would have to argue that video games have been making people violent since the inception of it, instead of saying oh yeah, mortal Kombat.

Speaker 2:

Also like. I think so. Video games like, there's a certain challenge to them. Right, it's challenging to play. Depending on you know the video game, it can be challenging. Playing a game like Call of Duty is a very challenging game to play, and so anytime you're doing anything challenging, there's frustration involved, and so, especially if your skill level doesn't line up with the challenge, and so until that gap is lessened, then there's frustration involved. And I think who you are as a person and how you handle frustration, how you handle these situations, whether it's in a video game or in real life, I think that is the issue. I don't think that it has to do with the actual game itself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think that that's a really good point is that the game is going to interact with the person and the set of values and moral development that's inside the person. And, jay, to go back to what you were saying about Star Wars, the Old Republic, you were describing a very role-playing element of the game, meaning that you're not going into the game trying to demonstrate to the entire internet who Jenny LeBron is. Yeah, you're going in there as a Sith Lord trying to demonstrate. What kind of Sith Lord have I created that I control?

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

So the violence in video games too, I think, is really misunderstood by people who do not play video games. And I would almost point out how much violence is in movies and TV shows compared to the amount of violence that we accept in the world. So, for example, you can watch 10 minutes of a TV show and unless it's a sitcom or something like Friends or that 70s show or something like that I know I probably just dated myself, but that's okay. I'm thinking a lot about the 1990s right now. So you know you watch those shows you're not very likely to see things that are violent. But if you watch something that's more of prime time television, it's very likely that you'll see a police chase with someone going down an alley, you might see a gunshot, you might see some punches thrown, you might see some improvised melee weapons, and the reason for that is conflict is often resolved by someone defeating another person in some form of combat to make the resistor passive or to stop the aggressor. This is how we solve problems Going through human history. We solve problems with war. There's not a whole lot of conflict that can be solved in a peaceful way, unless you're playing a game like Phoenix Wright or a Danganronpa. You know these are games where you solve the problem with words and choices, but you yourself, as the player, are not committing an act of violence to pacify an opponent. So video games are about solving problems, almost whether it's violent or not, video games are about solving a problem, about empowering a player to see something that is not the way we want it and be able to change it to the way we do want it. And because so many problems in life are put behind this whole, like I, have to change what I'm looking at here. Your character uses weapons as tools to make that change happen, and that's just how you make the conflict look visually appealing and exciting to people, so they want to play it. Did that make any sense? It took a long time for me to get that idea out, but it's like if you tried to remove violence from video games, most games would evaporate. They would cease to exist, because the primary characteristic of how you play it is you attack things that are not right to make them so they are right for your player. So that's that's where we're at there. As far as the research goes, I put together a little literature review for today's episode and everything I could find on the topic of Call of Duty and or video game violence or Call of Duty and violence is super old. Like as a professor, the goal is to encourage my students to use research that is less than 10 years old. Five years is ideal, but you can get into the six to 10 range if there's scarcity of information. I would not be accepting these articles unless I bend my expectations. We have we have Andrew Shibilski from 2009 talking about how violence adds little to the enjoyment or motivation for players. That goes along kind of with. What I'm trying to say here is that overt violence, that is, you know, over the top violence doesn't make a game more enjoyable. I look at it more like it's just a part of the strategy of how do you win this game. So then we also have Chris Ferguson, who's been on our show in 2007, published that there is a bias in the literature and that most of the people that report on violence in video games are not using standardized instruments, and so you're getting inflated numbers for the violence and the players. It's just bad math. So that's where we're at with the literature.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm most we need more studies.

Speaker 1:

Nope, I'm not doing it. I'm not doing it.

Speaker 2:

No way, I'm heading to your list.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, I'm most certain that literature is not applicable to today's, today's call of duty Because, as I've entered that before, with the introduction of zombies and the more fantastical elements of the game, people who are no longer simply playing these games for the purposes for the realistic murdering of other people yeah, there's all kinds of motivations to play these games. Now, I mean, the whole demon that is cosmetic microtransaction is here and people are paying tons of money to be rainbow colored Santa Claus in these games. That's not a violence catering item. Yeah, I think like Don't knock that, Jean.

Speaker 1:

I paid money so I could look like Waldo in Dead by Daylight.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, but you, as the Waldo player, isn't doing the murdering. You're getting possibly murdered, ha.

Speaker 1:

Jokes on you, jean. I made it to Silver 2 as a survivor this month. Amazing, I'm doing great.

Speaker 3:

But yeah, it is. So yeah, I know what I was talking about before. After the 2000s and, I guess, mid-2010s. Well, the earlier games were much more realistic and more like, you know, for military enthusiasts. And now, whatever you want it to be, you're shooting candy cane guns at zombies and reindeer. Yeah. So it's a hit. This mass market appeal not just for people that are in the gun.

Speaker 1:

Right, but I have been asked if I thought Call of Duty could be used to teach people about guns and encourage interest in guns for people who otherwise would not have been interested in guns, and I don't actually know the answer to that question. I suspect that you do learn about different styles of guns from video games. For example, you learn that there are differences between different calibers of bullets, that handguns operate differently than sniper rifles or shotguns. This is kind of Resident Evil logic too. So if you're pulling this knowledge from Call of Duty, it might be even more realistic because you might have actual gun models that can be purchased in our real life world. And so if you do get a person who gets fascinated by the weapons they play in the game and they think I just want to own these for myself, for real, I mean I can understand that thought process because I go out and buy lightsabers all the time. So the difference is, you know the fear there is that these guns that you can purchase are real and can be used to actually shoot living things, which is not a great idea. In fact, it's illegal to shoot people. So I think we need to remember that our moral structure for society is still present, no matter what video games we choose to enjoy the most. And I don't think that video games that give the main characters guns are encouraging and are causing this out of control violence. I think it's just a stimulus response. Application of this is how you solve the problem that we're giving you in this level, and then these are the kinds of people who are your enemies, whether they're Nazis or terrorists or zombie reindeer. So I just think that the moral panic comes around when people look at here's a person who does things I don't like. Here's the things they do that I do not do, and that's the one I'm going to blame for the differences between us. But the cool thing is, the longer we go through human history, the more people in those prominent positions will have been gamers. So I remember my first meeting at one of the jobs I had, where the person in charge was complaining about how millennials were, and so I got on my phone because I wasn't sure I was like what years would you have to be born to consider yourself millennial? It's like, oh, okay. Well, yeah, millennials are licensed mental health counselors with PhDs. Got it All right, good to know, thanks, boss. So let's go ahead and do the ascent. I think I'm ready to talk about whatever we can do to elevate this topic. Wrap up the research, wrap up the questions and get to the end of the episode. So if you are a fan of Call of Duty, congratulations. You have Modern Warfare 3 this week and here on the gaming persona, all three of us hope that you are enjoying it. If you're worried about what that means for the way research is judging you, don't worry about it. They're not going to be publishing anything for the next eight years anyway. No joke, I just read a research article that was talking about exercise with video games. That was citing games on the Wii U. So we have nothing to worry about. You are fine playing Modern Warfare 3 this week. Enjoy it. However, it's a good idea to make sure, however you play games whether it's with guns or swords, magic or munitions that you stay the best version of yourself. Whatever you believe, that makes you a good person. That helps you connect well with other people, be polite, have manners, care about others, show empathy. Those are important parts of you too. So keep the blowing stuff up and the yolos in your video games and stay a good person out here. That's what this is all about. The topic that we've been talking about is just because there is always going to be a moral panic from the people who judge and do not play video games. But the best thing we can do is prove them wrong and show what we can do when we have the opportunity to make a difference in the world around us. And now let's go on the return so we can get back to our daily lives and take our next step forward. I hope that one was okay.

Speaker 3:

It was okay.

Speaker 1:

All right, does anyone yolo anymore?

Speaker 3:

I don't know.

Speaker 1:

I need to get an emote that's like Millennial Daniel. So, gina, jenny, since we have finished with our call of duty questions for the night, where are some of the things you're going to take with you into the week?

Speaker 2:

I am going to continue not playing call of duty because it requires entirely too much focus and attention for me, and also continue believing that violent behavior has nothing to do with video games.

Speaker 3:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And.

Speaker 3:

Gene, I am working on a different first person sheer that is arguably less violent, kind of Tina's Wonderlands, oh, so good yeah. So again, I don't mean that makes me violent, because half the time I'm shooting wands at people. How about that?

Speaker 1:

Fun. If it's magic, it's not real. Yeah, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 3:

I'm sure that's why everyone was okay with people growing up in Harry Potter, even though they have literal murder spells.

Speaker 2:

I mean, not everyone was okay. Remember still some people that weren't okay.

Speaker 1:

We're being trained to judge the people as being bad if they use the murder spell.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, Instead we use the spells that cause immense pain. That's way better.

Speaker 1:

That one was unforgivable too. Gene, all right, well, I just would like to say that there are. I don't even know what to say. I'm done talking. No, I really had a thought, but then Gene, like expelliarmist my brain. Now I don't remember what I was going to say. Anyway, I have so many games that are just like in different states of completion that I don't even know what I'm going to be doing this week. But oh, I remember what was. If we ever want to do a shooter, we the three of us should just play Overwatch. That one is actually really fun.

Speaker 2:

No, yeah, Actually my boyfriend started playing that recently.

Speaker 1:

I think it's been over a year since the last time I played it, but that doesn't mean that I don't love it. I think it's a great game, all right.

Speaker 2:

Is there a sword in this game? If there's a sword, I'm in.

Speaker 1:

There are some characters that have melee abilities and they are devastating.

Speaker 3:

Well, the sword one is a ninja. That's a really high speed character, so uh, we'll see yeah.

Speaker 1:

Well, if these conversations sound to you and you're looking for some great people to play online games with, check out AIE at ai-gildorg. And I have one last quest for everyone to collect for the day Continue the journey.

Speaker 2:

See you next week. See you next week.

People on this episode

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Daniel Kaufmann

Host
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MarcusB814

Co-host