Both Battlefield 3, published by Electronic Arts, and the new Call of Duty, from Activision, will be among the year’s biggest-selling games. But the core console and PC gaming world - where players spend $60 on a product that has cost tens of millions to create - is still mostly driven by the tastes of young and reluctantly middle-aged men.ĭespite the public’s political exhaustion after a decade of real war, imaginary war remains as popular as ever. According to game companies and analysts, the expansion of gaming onto social networks (FarmVille, Sims Social) and cellphones (Angry Birds) is largely being propelled by women. And so bullet-spewing first-person shooter games like Battlefield 3 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 seem likely to continue to reign among men as the most consistently popular genre in video games.
The fantasy would be less appealing if the reality of killing and dying in combat with other human beings were more imminent for more people.Ī military draft is now unthinkable in America.
If there were a draft in this country, video games about war probably wouldn’t be so popular.
