Video Game: depiction of the Middle East…You the player tell us….

Video games have become an integral part of many young life’s around the world. In places like the United States, Japan and Great Britain video games are as much a part of a child's life as is socializing and attending elementary school. In the Middle East, this is no different and countries that have better economic stability have hundreds of people playing online even as one reads these words. Video games offer great entertainment, great social interaction with players from around the globe, and some even offer broad knowledge. However, video games are not that innocent and have been known to be bias and to have negative effects on their players. Negative effects pertaining to violence, according to an American Psychological Association review “Violent video game play is linked to increased aggression in players but insufficient evidence exists about whether the link extends to criminal violence or delinquency, according to a new American Psychological Association task force report.”[1]. Bias pertaining to the poor portrayal of Middle Eastern and Arabic Society on many games specially war and first person shooter games. Middle Eastern people are usually portrait as the villains by western video games with a malicious and dangerous culture and the Western characters are usually the heroes that triumph over those villains. It should be noted that this is obviously not the case the Middle Eastern people are not the villains. With this in mind, I decided to conduct a little research on video gamers from the Middle East. Unfortunately, due to time constraint and other factors only a dozen individuals’ opinions could be capture. Nevertheless, the opinions were quite helpful and present a sort of trend. Which is quite interesting for it’s the opinion of actual players rather than a spoke person for a video game company. Two methods were use one was a blog and the other an audio interview. The same questions were administered in both cases and gamers were allow to answer freely. The questions were as follow, what is your opinion on Western depiction of the Middle East in Video Games? Has Playing first person shooter or other shooting games made you fantasies about war and made you more likely to join a cause? Do you know anyone that became obsess with the idea of war through video games and joined the army? What was your favorite war game and why? Did that game depict the historical and cultural context on which it was based on correctly? The key is not only to see what the person, being a Middle Eastern, thinks of the depiction of video games on their culture but also to see if videos made them more suitable for violence or to join any warring cause. The majority except for one individual stated that without a doubt they felt like the Middle East was wrongly portrait. And just about half stated they felt or knew someone that became obsess with the idea of war and arms but not necessarily violence. Example of comments were as follow, “I think that it’s a way to make kids in the middle east believe that Islam is wrong as a religion or an idea by making it look bad”, “gaming developers twisting facts to serve their interest”, “This western propaganda aims to sully Islam and Muslims by always giving them the role of the bad guys”, “I’m okay with Western depiction of the Middle East in Video Games I never saw like a matter of disrespect” .Two major games came up in the discussions Modern Warfare Call of Duty and Medal of Honor Warfighter. I personally have play both games but more extensively the latter. Medal of Honor Warfighter centers around the idea of showing the players the work of special operation forces from around the globe. Navy Seals, Delta Force, British Special Air Service, Polish GROMS, Pakistan Intelligence agency and many more. The plot like many typical Western shooting games features Soldiers against terrorists. Now the terrorist in the game are from different cells of terrorist group from around the world but somehow all connected in a malicious plan. The Middle Eastern culture is not necessarily portrait in any way per se but there are important geographical errors in the game. During a mission the player heads to Hara and Al Fara’ both located in Yemen. The game calls the map Hara Dunes and Al Fara’ Cliffside. However, despite the accurate portrayal of towns and architecture in Yemen if one searches for these actual locations the villages shown on the game are not present in real life. The game itself has a description of both places. For Hara Dunes, the game states, “For centuries, the cistern in Hara was a place of relief for pilgrims traveling across the scorching desert. But history, and tradition, has been lost to time as the waters ran dry and the desert reclaimed its prize. The cistern now offers little more than shelter, meaning only one side will drink from the chalice of victory” [2]. For Al Fara Cliffside it reads, “Located in the perilous mountains of Northern Yemen, the cliff side village is known as Al Fara. Many conquerors have come and gone in its long history, but the village remains where it has been perched for centuries. Rumors state every army that passed through its valley never suffered defeat if their cause was honorable and just” [3]. Perhaps the villages were design in remembrance of old villages now lost to serve the purpose of the game. And it seems that it always comes down to a selfish purpose and that’s why so many historical, geographical and cultural context in games get erroneously portrait. Fortunately, efforts have started to be made in what Pierre-Alain Clément calls a “Digital Emancipation” in his essay on When Geopolitics Meets the Game Industry A Study of Arabic Video Games and What They Teach Us. Middle Eastern gaming companies have started to release some games that try to depict actual historic, cultural and geographical facts correctly about the Middle East and Islam. According to Clément’s article games like Swords of Heaven, Road Block Buster and Quraish are among the ones taking aim in the “Digital Emancipation”.

These are images [4] of the game Medal of Honor Warfighter top two are from what the game calls Al fara cliffside and the bottom one from Hara dunes.