ethics posts

I was moved to make this the topic of this week's Big Ideas column after reading a review of Call of Duty: World at War. My first reaction was "Haven't we mined this genre by now?" Looking at a Wikipedia list of over 150 World War II-themed video games made me realize that this could very well continue on for years to come. My second reaction became "Why haven't gamers (and developers) gotten tired of the WWII setting?" Clearly, there is a reason these games keep iterating, and a reason players keep buying them.

That led me to my third and instigating thought: "Do we, as gamers, need the real-world setting to enjoy a game more?" Perhaps the continuing popularity of WWII as an environment is the real draw to these games, despite any innovations in actual gameplay mechanics. If this is true, I can only presume that players respond emotionally to the events contained in that war -- events that they themselves as a whole could not have experienced directly. This leads me to ask "How would a veteran of World War II respond to Call of Duty: World at War?"