Hasan “HasanAbi” Piker is a major American Twitch streamer who talks a lot about political issues. He recently played the campaign for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and called the game a “war crimes simulator.” What is it?
Who is HasanAbi? Hasan Piker is one of the biggest Twitch streamers. He is ranked 14th worldwide with his viewer hours in the last 7 days (as of 10/25/22 via sullygnome.com).
The American with Turkish roots is almost exclusively on the road in “Just Chatting”. There he is known for his politically left-wing views and his willingness to engage in discussions. He gained a lot of attention in the 2020 US presidential election.
Now, the political streamer has played the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 campaign and tweeted that it described the story as a “war crimes simulator”:
CoD MW2: Campaign is full of forbidden military actions
Spoiler alert: In the next few paragraphs we will reveal some passages from the story campaign of Modern Warfare 2. If you still want to play the story yourself and don’t want to be spoiled, it’s better not to read any further.
We at MeinMMO have already played through the campaign and can understand HasanAbi’s statement. We are not experts in international humanitarian law, but the following actions could constitute war crimes:
These are just a few examples of when we, as players, commit simulated war crimes. The PCGamesN site counts a total of 22 war crimes committed by players (via pcgamesn.com).
Add to that the actions of the villains and the list gets even longer: hostage-taking, civilians protecting military action, and torture are other war crimes featured throughout the story campaign.
The streamer HasanAbi takes the scenes shown in the campaign with humor. “I don’t want to commit the war crime,” he says, grinning at the camera during the stream (via twitch.com).
What is your opinion about this? Do games like CoD support the trivialization of such crimes? Is it ok because it’s art, entertainment, just a game? Leave a comment on the topic.
Do you still want to fight your way through the CoD MW2 campaign, then you can find out how long it takes you here: CoD Modern Warfare 2: Campaign Length – How many missions are there and how long do they last?