A co-founder of popular video game series Call of Duty says publisher Activision Blizzard ‘pressured’ developers to make a game about ‘Iran attacking Israel’. However, Call of Duty officials rejected this pressure.
According to Middle East Eye, a London-based media outlet, Chance Glasco said in multiple posts on social media that the pressure “stunned” developers and rejected the idea. Because it appeared to be ‘political propaganda pushed by activism’.
A few days ago, the official X account of the White House released a video montage. There is a scene of the US military attack on Iran. This video uses graphics that mimic the animation style of Call of Duty. Immediately after this, such a matter came to the fore through Call of Duty.
The montage shows US warplanes preparing to take off and Iranian weapons being destroyed by US strikes and exploding. In response to the video, Glasco wrote, ‘I’m not surprised. Soon after Activision took over after forming Response Entertainment, we were under very uncomfortable pressure to make the next Call of Duty story about the Iranian attack on Israel.’
He added, ‘Luckily most of our developers hated the idea and it was scrapped.’ He did not mention any specific date. However, his co-founders at Infinity Ward lost their jobs in 2010 after a dispute over creative control with Activision and later founded Response Entertainment. Glasco, however, remained with the company.
Call of Duty is one of the most profitable video game franchises of all time. Since its first release in 2003, the series has generated over $31 billion in revenue for publishers as of 2022. The franchise includes games in a variety of contexts, including World War II, the Cold War, future conflicts, and alternate reality wars.
Fans praised the series for its high-speed action, stunning graphics and cinematic presentation, but critics said it trivialized war. At any given time, around 45,000 people play online games of this series.
Although the Iran–Israel conflict was never a main storyline of the series, the 2022 Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II featured the Quds Force, a special branch of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The game involves killing a character named General Ghorbarani, who is modeled after Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani was killed in a US missile strike in Baghdad in 2020.
Other games in the series are usually built around Russian extremist groups or the so-called ‘war on terror’. One critic questioned why Glasco objected to the Iran-Israel storyline, but did not object to the other conflicts in the series. In response, he said, ‘My point is that the government will not hesitate to use entertainment media, even video games, to influence public opinion on major issues.’
He also said, ‘Multiple (US) administrations have been pushing for war with Iran for decades. Not so much in the circumstances you mentioned.’
Military forces of various countries, including the United States, have long used entertainment media to glamorize war and use it as a recruiting tool. The movie Top Gun (1986) marked a major turning point in Tom Cruise’s career as well as his enlistment in the military. It is believed that the movie increased recruitment in the US Navy by 500 percent.
With the development of the video game industry, games have largely taken the place of movies in portraying the appeal of military life to young people. According to a 2024 report by The Guardian, U.S. sailors stationed at a naval base in Memphis played the game in order to attract recruiting interest among gamers.
The US military has also developed the game itself. Released in 2002, America’s Army aimed to give players a real-world experience of military life before joining. But the relationship between the gaming industry and the military is not limited to recruitment; It also contributed to the expansion of US military priorities. In 2022, journalist and researcher Alan McLeod wrote about the ‘military-entertainment complex’ and highlighted the close relationship between the Pentagon and game developers.
Citing documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, he cited a 2018 visit by Activision officials to a US airport in Florida. There, they were organized to give first-hand experience of ‘Special Tactics Airmen’ and air-to-ground attack capabilities.
One official described the tour as a ‘great teaching opportunity’, so that participants become ‘more credible supporters for us’.
This exchange is not only one-way; US security officials have also worked in the game industry. In one instance in 2021, Activision hired former Bush administration official Francis Townsend as its chief compliance officer. Townsend was the US Homeland Security Advisor. He supported the use of torture methods, including waterboarding, in a 2009 interview with CNN.
His claim was, ‘in limited circumstances, these techniques can be effective in preventing terrorist attacks.’
