a Joystiq report<\/a>, The Call of Duty Endowment ran a charity drive through their Facebook page last month. For every person who \u201cLikes\u201d the C.O.D.E. Facebook page, they will donate $1 \u201cto assist veterans with finding employment once they leave the service.\u201d<\/p>\nFirst off, let me say that I\u2019m glad that there are groups seeking to help veterans find work. And I believe that the Call of Duty games (specifically Modern Warfare 1 and 2) were well made multiplayer games (I couldn\u2019t make through either single player campaign). However, I can only enjoy them as multiplayer games insofar as they are quite\u00a0divorced\u00a0from real combat. I understand that it is a game and that the actions and situations in the game are incredibly exaggerated. In my mind, the Modern Warfare games have more in common with the Halo or James Bond universe than our own. They are ridiculous, over the top adventure games that I enjoy playing with friends to hang out. But I don\u2019t allow myself to conflate the illusion of the \u201cmodern warfare\u201d gameplay with real warfare. And if I had a child who was old enough to play these games, I would be sure to talk with them about how the image of war presented in the CoD games is meant to be romantic, exciting and fun. And that real combat is often morally\u00a0ambiguous, banal, ugly, and always tragic.<\/p>\n
What troubles me about this charity event is that it blurs the lines between the fantasy war in these games and real warfare. It implies some relationship between the CoD games set in the Middle East and the current wars being fought over there. How does it imply this relationship? Well, for one, Activision\/Blizzard did not start this endowment for any of their other games (as far as I know). There is no World of Warcraft endowment for veterans. Why? Presumably because the content of World of Warcraft has nothing to do with modern war, whereas the Call of Duty games do. And it is that assumption that deeply bothers me.<\/p>\n
If Activision wants us to think of their games as depictions of real warfare, rather than fantasy war, then that means that the CoD games are a form of\u00a0propaganda.\u00a0While I do believe that we should be supportive to veterans, I don\u2019t believe that we do them justice by supporting the\u00a0advertisement\u00a0of a game (what else should we call clicking \u201cLike\u201d on a page with CoD in the name?) which presents a vision of war that is romantic and\u00a0fantastic.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Does “charity” make it okay to support propaganda?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1219,"featured_media":6904,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,9,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-games","category-headline"],"yoast_head":"\n
The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Does "charity" make it okay to support propaganda?\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Does "charity" make it okay to support propaganda?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ and Pop Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-06-03T12:06:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Alan Noble\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Alan Noble\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/\",\"name\":\"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2010-06-03T12:06:30+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2010-06-03T12:06:30+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/08868a891b6ea4b842db4fce67dc4e5d\"},\"description\":\"Does \\\"charity\\\" make it okay to support propaganda?\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/\",\"name\":\"Christ and Pop Culture\",\"description\":\"Where the Christian faith meets the common knowledge of our age\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/08868a891b6ea4b842db4fce67dc4e5d\",\"name\":\"Alan Noble\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b3d4149adb62d3be491438cd7b1abb4e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b3d4149adb62d3be491438cd7b1abb4e?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Alan Noble\"},\"description\":\"(Co-Founder\/Editor\/Columnist) is a part-time lecturer at Baylor University. 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In addition to editing, Alan writes his column, Citizenship Confusion for CaPC. ---Follow Alan on Twitter\u00a0@TheAlanNoble and on Facebook. ---For questions, comments, or interest in speaking engagements please email me at noble.noneuclidean [at] gmail [dot] com.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/thealannoble\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/author\/anoble\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans","description":"Does \"charity\" make it okay to support propaganda?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans","og_description":"Does \"charity\" make it okay to support propaganda?","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/","og_site_name":"Christ and Pop Culture","article_published_time":"2010-06-03T12:06:30+00:00","author":"Alan Noble","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Alan Noble","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/","name":"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-06-03T12:06:30+00:00","dateModified":"2010-06-03T12:06:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/08868a891b6ea4b842db4fce67dc4e5d"},"description":"Does \"charity\" make it okay to support propaganda?","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/2010\/06\/the-call-of-duty-endowment-and-veterans\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Call of Duty Endowment and Veterans"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/","name":"Christ and Pop Culture","description":"Where the Christian faith meets the common knowledge of our age","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/08868a891b6ea4b842db4fce67dc4e5d","name":"Alan Noble","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/christandpopculture\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b3d4149adb62d3be491438cd7b1abb4e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b3d4149adb62d3be491438cd7b1abb4e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Alan Noble"},"description":"(Co-Founder\/Editor\/Columnist) is a part-time lecturer at Baylor University. 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