Should We Hate Call of Duty ?

[Baz JJ]

Should we hate games like Call of Duty, BF, Arma etc or praise them ?

We run milsim games (Okto Eight Milsim).

Reading through forums, FB groups and talking to young airsofters, its amazing how many are influenced in terms of combat and weapons knowledge by time spent on console and PC games.

Is this generally good or bad for airsoft ?

 

[Rock-climby-Dave]

>2015
>Lumping Arma and cock of doody in the same genre

They are absolutely the best thing we can hope for, not just as airsofters, but as members of a shooting community.

The more people are either Pro-Gun or at least not Anti-gun the better for the longevity of our sport and those with similar pastimes (shooters, hunters etc)

Thanks to getting kids from a very early age interested in gaming, many of which will play FPS and shooters in general, they will learn to not be scared by firearms and their lookalikes, rather (the correct ideology) of being respectful, yet interested.

An remember - if someone at work, college or school has expressed even the vaguest interest in trying out airsofting you MUST invite them along to try it. Even if they don't take it up as a hobby, they will better understand our views and be less likely to push towards a firearms and RIF ban.

 

[Esoterick]

Arma is what made me know to scan before moving up when I started playing. Whilst it is a factor in other shooters things like movement and concealment aren't so much of a factor.

As far as other games go i'm not really fussed unless people try and do some of the more insidious things from the later call of duty games, which to be honest i'm dubious players do and instead people say them to sound interesting on the internet. When I was a teenager we didn't run with a knife in Airsoft because it made you run faster in CS

I think I mentioned it in another thread but I think the main influence media has is in what loadouts people want to run and what guns they choose. Although everyone is different I guess so I can't vouch for the whole community, although i'd have thought this would go without saying

 

[AK47frizzle]

Hmm both.

They're good because it makes people go out and have fun with the mindset of playing a console or pc game in real life.

Also bad because you get a tonne of 10 year olds who claim they've fuked your mom, turn up and expect to go on a 20 kill streak with a orange sniper rifle and 360 no scope everyone.

 

[clumpyedge]

I think they are a good thing no matter how much people moan about them, military games are more than just the typical ones on games consoles. I still love the operation flashpoint games (even with their flaws) I don't have anything decent enough to play Arma but I have played it. the latter games that i mentioned i think are better for people to play as these types actually teach forms of tactics and team movements where as the more console based games are very linear and don't have much in the way of actual decision making.

 

[Colonel Kurtz]

Anything is good for airsoft if it gets more people playing.

You reference the big military based first-person shooters, there's just as many non-military ones out there. From milsim perspective, I think it's down to you guys running/playing it as to whether it becomes a good or bad thing.

If you're open minded enough to accept fresh-blood and guide them (at risk of getting occasional total idiot, but whens that not a risk?) then it's all good and the ranks will swell, more good times for all.

If you're too snobbish and dismissive to not want anyone who isn't acting/dressing in a 'professional' soldering manner already participating, as they taint that precious sense of immersion, then you'll prob successfully put them off by being a dick, or encourage them to treat you with an equal lack of respect. More bad times for all.

If you think the computer games mentioned are unrealistic or incorrect, and this is damaging the sense of milsim immersion due to it being incorrect, then again it's the same decision; guide/help/persuade people to accept your 'truth' or dismiss/be a dick. If the influx of people influenced by these games was so great that it eventually lead to a situation where the 'military realism' perpetuated by these computer games ended up eclipsing or replacing the the current ethos in milsim and airsoft, then tough luck thats just cultural progression, it was more popular so it won. Sure wouldn't be hard to start an 'old-skool' milsim league if/when necessary.

Personally I don't care what makes someone want to play airsoft, as long as they don't think it's the only valid reason or ethos. I also don't care what kind of ethos people play with. If (as mentioned by AK47 above) a bunch of kids turn up expecting to re-live CoD, then who am I to stop them (other than by shooting them ofc hehe). It's snobbish to think their ethos is any more or less valid than your own. At the end of the day we're shooting each other with toy guns and a kid shouting he 'no scoped you' is no more ridiculous than someone using 'real' military terminology. If your sense of fantasy is so precious it can't handle conflicting things going on around you then form a club of like-minded people or see a shrink. As long as people stick to the rules it's all good however they want to go about playing. If they don't they'll be quickly kicked/banned anyways.

 

[M_P]

No reason to hate it, yes to some extent it spawns players that some people don't like but I don't see a real issue, let people play and do as they want.

 

[Alex34]

No reason to hate it, yes to some extent it spawns players that some people don't like but I don't see a real issue, let people play and do as they want.

My thoughts exactly.
Airsoft is all about relaxing and de-stressing for me. Growing up and living most of my life as a yank I miss being able to own and shoot guns as freely as I once did. Airsoft fills that void somewhat.

Oh... and I love some BF4!

 

[Happy]

I haven't met an airsofter that wasn't influenced by shooting games even a little bit. It's good for the sport even if people complain about the kids who come expecting it to be like CoD (very much a minority) - I just consider them as target practice or canon fodder depending on if they're on my team or not haha

 

[Fumps]

I think hating a first person game is as logical as hating a hair do.....it achieves nothing really.

People will always be drawn towards dangerous things, war, fighting and extreme situations. I'm pretty much in the minority, I dislike guns but do get a buzz from airsoft. I often get funny looks when I say to people that I know nothing about the military, never wanted to join nor do I know hardly anything about guns.

Personally I like anything that brings people together to have a good time.

 

[skarra333]

I think for Airsoft, they are good for a range of reasons – and for sites, they could actually be yet more – they have triggered research that can perhaps help inform your business (IMO)...

For years, what Der Derian called the military-industrial-media-entertainment network has given children games like CoD, Battlefield etc. These are games designed and developed often with the support of the Governments/armed forces of the West as a recruiting and propaganda tool (regardless of what a Senator/MP might say to the press etc). There is a vast wealth of academic writing on this.

But according to the literature, an element (there are many) of why these games appeal is a post-modern ‘therapeutic way to work out 21st century angst by battling the bad guys’… Such games ‘simulation of digitised superiority’ or ‘cyberdeterrence’, taken like prozac and serving as a ‘technopharmacological fix for all the organic anxieties that attend uncertain times and new configurations of power’. Games offer the possibility of getting back control, of overcoming fear, and are fantastical and temporary: ‘for 45 minutes you can pretend you have some sense of agency, some control, or at the very least some part in trying to make the world a better place’.

There is more of course, but games have thus (IMO) generated research that could help Airsoft sites to tailor their offer to a deeper appeal than most sites currently do… First and Only are perhaps onto this to a certain extent - from their website:

Tired of Computer Gaming? Done with Paint Ball? Ready to take on something all together more thrilling and realistic? First and Only Airsoft is the experience for you. We have the best and most varied combat sites and locations throughout the UK – from dense woodland and built up army bases to exciting urban locations and even a nuclear bunker. If you want to treat your mates to an incredible stag do, tackle a real life zombie encounter or simply experience the ultimate in realistic military gaming – we’ve got what you need.

 

[BrightCandle]

I think the main influence of COD is that a lot of new players want to get sniper rifles. But ultimately I can't complain because much of what I know for milsim comes from playing with my peeps in Arma 2 and Arma 3. I would have never met the ex servicemen I did without that game and they wouldn't have taught me all the things I know now. The influence of the less realistic games (COD, BF etc) perhaps generates a small issue but the more realistic ones is likely training milsimmers that attend the OPs events. Other than the few airsoft training places like airbourne airsoft there isn't a whole lot of places to get that training and practice it. Its kind of essential to milsim's survival.

 

[Josh95]

A lot of people are drawn to air-soft through war games, air-soft its self is a war game.

If people try to implement virtual tactics into airsoft of course thats stupid and moronic, but gaining an interested and knowledge through gaming i think is a good thing.

 

[Colonel Kurtz]

A lot of people are drawn to air-soft through war games, air-soft its self is a war game.

If people try to implement virtual tactics into airsoft of course thats stupid and moronic, but gaining an interested and knowledge through gaming i think is a good thing.

I disagree entirely, airsoft is a game, it is only a war-game if you treat it like one, and this isn't necessary to play airsoft.

As for virtual tactics, a tactic is only stupid or moronic if it doesn't work. Perhaps lying in a bush in the hope of knifing someone in the foot is doomed to failure but a majority will succeed. I can give examples of many very common 'virtual' tactics that work; camping, sprinting off from the start of a game to get to the advantage points first, sneaking round the edge of the map and shooting the other team in the back...

Infact i'd almost go as far as saying there's more viable tactics for airsoft from computer-games than military tactics as your actual situation has more in common due to it being entirely safe and an indulgence, no risk of death or destruction. It having a defined area, rules that have to be obeyed, a clear notion of what constitutes 'victory' and score...

 

[skarra333]

I concur with Kurtz.

The laws of physics Airsoft is mercy too means that real world tactics can also be pretty stupid to try and implement. A rhododendron can be quite the impenetrable barrier for an AEG.

 

[Colonel Kurtz]

If airsoft was war i'd use the following tactics;

- First I'd hack the server/site of the organisers and attain a list of those attending.

- I'd then use a drone with a BB gun to shoot people the night/day before while sat in their gardens, or simply drop a bucket of bb's so large on their house one was bound to hit them at somepoint (blown off the roof in a gust of wind while they get into their car hehe).

- Everyone else would be taken out by the BB IED's placed at the entrance to the car-park, and any survivors by a BB mortar while they got sorted in the safe-zone.

- Once i'd successfully annexed the airsoft skirmish site then I'd hire some milsim players to guard it and shoot anyone else that turns up to play, and not count anything they do towards the official totals.

- and I'd make sure there was lots of news footage about me bravely intervening in stopping a group of fanatics from using their weapons of mass BB's for evil, and then spend years justifying my use of time and money in doing so rather than the morality of it.

- finally i'd cash the giant cheque paid to me by laser-quest for forcing people back into their business.

 

[MxHaze]

its amazing how many are influenced in terms of combat and weapons knowledge by time spent on console and PC games.

Is this generally good or bad for airsoft?

I don't think it matters where you get information from, as long as it's correct.

It's neither good nor bad, it's not here nor there really.

I'm guessing OP has been on a Milsim lately, and overheard a younger player say "map" or "spawn"

 

[Baz JJ]

As I said we run milsims but you have to be 16 to play, so no not at all.

My post is based on what Ive read online.

I don't think it matters where you get information from, as long as it's correct.

It's neither good nor bad, it's not here nor there really.

I'm guessing OP has been on a Milsim lately, and overheard a younger player say "map" or "spawn"

 

[MxHaze]

Well in answer to your question, yes we should hate call of duty.

But there will be no hating of bf and arma... not on my watch

 

[Fumps]

I hate Gherkin's