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Do violent video games influence young teens enough to join the army?

Picture this: You’re in the slums of Brazil with your squad. You and your men are stealthily moving through the Favela anxiuosly awaiting your first encounter with the local militia, as you are dropped into your first war like situation, little experience, little hope, the weight of your gear weighing down on you, the echoing thud of your heart increasing in speed as you raise your assault rifle at a distant figure. You fire. 100 xp. Games like Call Of Duty and Battlefield are becoming ever more realistic and popular they are stirring the thoughts of teenagers on the concept of war. Do violent video games influence young teenagers enough to make them join the army?

Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is the most popular and enjoyable war game of recent time. It’s realistic battle movements and explosive action along with pure, untamed emotion seem to bring a realistic theme to the game and there making a real shoot-up an enjoyable and addictive situation. Because of realistic graphics and because of Modern Warfare 2’s background, the video game earned over 310 million dollars in the first 24 hours  of it’s release, beating a record in game sales internationally. The games hype was so built up that people ended up pre-ordering months in advance. Five days after the launch, 8 million people were playing the game online. The problem with this game is it’s popularity within the adolescent group. Molding their minds very slightly towards the military.

The difference between a video game and reality is very simple. Reality is a one go thing, but within a video game you have multiple options and a seemingly unlimtied amount turns if you mess up. This is what the youth of the generation seem to be misunderstanding as they are playing on some of the most realistic gaming engines and platforms around. The enjoyment and addictiveness of any battle game like Call Of Duty attracts the teenage mind to the idea of the military and ultimately war. The U.S. Military has almost doubled in numbers due to a rise in popularity to Call Of Duty, a very a patriotic game which has drugged the youth and therefore making the U.S. army a very young one. Call Of Duty is a near on spitting image of Afghanistan and the Middle-East but with a massive amount of entertainment which over rules the fact that war is not an enjoyable act and that in reality you do not respawn or have a certain amount of lives but that the military is designed for protection and not idle entertainment for rookies.

So as you can see, violent video games are a major contributor to the rise in contracts with the army. The fact that a world wide recession has also hit does effect the international community, looking for relatively easy money, but as the ongoing battle for beating the latest video game in realism continues the constant crave for the military will continue.