Modern Warfare 2 and modern warfare
From The Point Magazine:
The voice couldn’t have come from anyone older than twelve. There was no rasp, no pubescent pitchiness.
“I’m gonna rape again!”
It took me a moment to connect the meaning of the words to the sound of the voice. And I couldn’t tell whose voice it was. Maybe Deadlylilbro22. Or ChronicJman03. Perhaps QuazzeFrodo. He could have been any of the eight or so players logged on to that particular round of “Hardcore Team Deathmatch,” a multiplayer online mode of 2009′s most popular videogame, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Players’ identities, like this kid’s, remain on the far side of gladiatorial algorithms, online-interactive audio and cutesy pseudonyms. Within the game, you can be whoever you want. No matter what you sound like. Or, apparently, what age you are.
The only gamer’s identity I knew for sure was that of my couchmate, Bogdan “Blowjob” Blower, a Wittgenstein scholar writing a dissertation on private experience, known online for his mad savvy in explosives. His weapon of choice that day was the Sikorsky MH-53, or the “Pave Low,” a helicopter rigged to rain down missiles and .50-cals. Blowjob heard the little boy’s voice, too. I turned to him, horrified. He preempted my questioning with something vaguely Wittgensteinian about slipping into the language games of “these sorts” of online gaming venues.
“It’s easy to get caught up,” he says. “It’s its own world.”
“Call of Duty: Gaming and Reality in Modern Warfare”, Joshua Casteel, The Point Magazine
