Modern Warfare 2 blamed for Moscow airport bombing

The Modern Warfare 2 controversy is back. No, really. We know you were all thoroughly bored by it but the Russian media has revived it in the wake of the shocking Moscow airport bombing.

The No Russian mission in which the Modern Warfare 2 players play as an undercover agent forced to join a group in a terrorist attack on a fictious Moscow airport is being seen as having direct resonance. The fact that terror attacks in Russia were relatively common prior to the release of Modern Warfare 2 seems to have passed the bandwagon jumpers by…

Russia Today ties the Moscow Airport bombing to Modern Warfare 2 with a level of hyperbole that would make The Daily Mail jealous:

“…as for the video game scenario, it appears a lot more people have been involved in the violence. The game was released by the American company Activision in November 2009, and in just a few months, sales surpassed $1 billion worldwide. The “No Russian” segment can be found with a simple YouTube search. With so many seemingly downloading, watching, and playing this game, you have to consider that this bloodbath would ever-so-closely resemble reality.”

The report goes on to quote an ‘expert’ to support the claim that terrorists might have used Modern Warfare 2 as their model for the attack:

“Indeed it is a trouble to look at the game and reality. The issue is we need to know if terrorists or extremists are using these videos or DVDs or games to basically apply the model,” Walid Phares, Director of Future Terrorism Project at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said.

Media critic Danny Schechter believes “This is the way entertainment mirrors reality and reality mirrors entertainment, and there are people influenced by all this, even though the manufacturers always deny having any influence on anyone.”

So there you have it, Russia Today thinks Modern Warfare 2 is a training aid at terror camps. We’re pretty sure Activision doesn’t need those sales or this kind of sensationalist and utterly ridiculous report.
Let us know what you make of this revival of the Modern Warfare 2 brouhaha in the comments…

Out now | £varies | Modern Warfare 2 (via Russia Today)

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