
A day after Fox News aired a piece on Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that appeared aggressive and biased against the game, MSNBC aired their own segment about the popular FPS from Infinity Ward and Activision. The guest for MSNBC was Kotaku deputy editor Stephen Totilo.
The piece was done very civilly, with the interviewers never cutting off Totilo and asking questions in a non-aggressive, curious manner.
The segment centered on the famous controversial scene in the game where the player, as an undercover agent infiltrating a terrorist organization, is forced to witness and/or join the terrorists he is with in slaughtering civilians in a Russian airport.
"What's happening in this mission is extremely unpleasant," said Totilo when asked about the scene. "You don't have to shoot the civilians but the people who you are fighting beside sure are. And it is very upsetting."
"And when people play things like this... you get to finally get at, 'Is this interesting? Should this be in a game or not? Is this fun or not?' And when more and more people get to experience that and talk about it, I think it helps the medium evolve."
To view the segment in its entirety, visit MSNBC's Tech Watch video page via the link below.
[MSNBC]
The Q Opinion on Activision/IW?
Listen Up 2009 Listen Up Awards
Eddie Inzauto Turning On My Sexy Lady
FilmPLOSION! Up Blu-ray Review
Brendon Lindsey When Game Journalism Gets Lazy
Pro Tip Pro Tip: Resident Evil 5: Lost in Nightmares
OneWordReview One Word Review: God of War
Head 2 Head H2H Deathmatch: Bobby Kotick vs. Major Nelson
Jason Fanelli Sex or Violence: Lesser Evil?
Tyler Cameron Do Achievements Ruin Videogames?
OLD SKOOL Ups and Downs of the 8-Bit RPG: Dragon Warrior
VS Node VS Node: Do You Want Files With That?
Mike Murphy Heavy Rain Has Revolutionized Videogames
Top 5 Takedown Top Five PS3 and 360 "Fails"
Dan Crabtree FOX News: The DS is for Pedophiles
Matthew Erazo BioShock 2: The Anti-BioShock
Well, at least it was civil.
I can still sense the reporters trying to contain their opinions and emotions surrounding the subject, but at least they allowed the other side to be presented in a fair manner. Maybe they walked away learning something. I also felt that Totilo did a fine job explaining things, too. Shame the segment wasn't a bit longer.
I don't think it is particularly necessary to immerse players in extremely disturbing and psychologically confusing scenarios so that developers can cultivate and analyze chit-chat among gamers in order to ultimately affect the evolution of games.