Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

As video games have become more realistic, critics of video game violence claim that they are more likely to inspire violent behaviours. And it is true that games these days are way more life-like than those made a decade ago, and so is the violence they depict. And given that the best-selling video games are not only cute platform games like Super Mario but violent games like the Call of Duty of series, which has sold a staggering 100 million copies, it is clear that gamers these days are exposed to more violence then ever…

So it was shocking to hear that far-right nut and mass murderer Anders Breivik had used Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to train for the massacre he perpetrated on the Norwegian island of Utoya in 2011. He murdered 69 students, after having killed another 8 people with a bomb in Oslo. But still, video games did not invent violence, and obviously most Call of Duty players are sane enough to never go on a real-life rampage…

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