# data[].attributes.body
How CSGO Anticheat has failed over and over again? [s]
- What is the anticheat system used in CSGO? (s)
- Why was it implemented?  (s)
- Why is a good anticheat system so important in a game such as CSGO (r)
- Was the downfall of CSGO due to its severely lacking anticheat? (r)
- Has Fortnite taken all the attention from CSGO due to its much more superior anticheat system? (r)
- Road to Global impossible due to the drastic number of hackers in CSGO? (r)
- How you can continue playing CSGO with less hackers (r)
- Steam deciding to make CSGO free lead to more hackers? (r)
- Why the prime matchmaking anticheat system failed (r)
- How the overwatch system in CSGO is biased and not an efficient anticheat system (r)

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT : I would like to explain why the CSGO anticheat system failed and how CSGO can utilise the feedback from the community to build a better anticheat system

# data[].attributes.body
- What is an Esports league/tournament? (s)
- When was the first Esports league/tournament? (s)
- How effective are Esports leagues/tournaments in marketing a game to new players? (r)
- Do Esports leagues/tournaments impact player loyalty towards a game? (r)
- When is the best time for Esports league/tournament be established? (r)
- Should Esports be classified as conventional sports?  (r)
- What is the most popular Esports league/tournament? (s)
- What are the benefits of playing in an Esports league/tournament? (s)
- What is the business model of an Esports league/tournament? (s)
- How sustainable is the business model of an Esports league/tournament?  (r)
- What are the competition formats of Esports leagues/tournaments? (s)
- Who are the hosts of Esports leagues/tournaments? (s)
- Why are Esports leagues/tournaments hosted?
- Who are the most successful teams in Esports history? (s)
- What motivates players to join an Esports league/tournament? (s)
- How popular is Esports? (s)
- Are Esports leagues/tournaments in direct competition with sports leagues/tournaments?
- Will Esports leagues/tournaments overtake sports leagues/tournaments in terms of popularity?  (r)
- Obstacles Esports leagues/tournaments face in competing with sports leagues/tournaments for new viewers?  (r)
- Will Esports teams ever be more valuable than sports teams?
- Are there games better suited for the Esports format? (r)
WORKING THESIS STATEMENT: This essay will look at why Esports have the potential to overtake football in terms of revenue and market size in the future.

# data[].attributes.body
- what is genshin impact? (s)
- what is a "wish" in the game? (s)
- how did this game become the fastest growing game in the google playstore and apple app store in the year 2020? (s & r)
- why do people like to play this game? (r)
- why do people cash into genshin impact? (r)
- who are the voice actors behind the genshin impact characters? (s)
- is genshin impact just another version of honkai impact? r
- how long was the game under development before it was released to the public? (s)
- which platform is the best to play the game on? Mobile, PC or PS4? (r)
- does "competitive" genshin impact exist? (r)

Working thesis statement:
This essay will venture around the reasons for why and how did Genshin Impact become the fastest growing game in the Google playstore and apple app store for the year 2020.

# data[].attributes.body
-What is genshin impact? (s)
-How does a free game make so much money? (s)
-What makes it one of the fastest growing games in 2020? (r)
-How does genshin select their music in their games? (r)
-Character design and the reason behind their backstory (s) (can be narrowed down to a character)
-Does a meta exist in the game?(r)
-Why does mihoyo ban people from selling accounts? (s)
-In comparison, how well did genshin do against other open-world games? (r)
-Why you should quit genshin? (r)
-Why you should play genshin? (r)
-Problems with the CN community (s)
-Works behind the scenes (s)
-Should you pull baal or save for kokomi? (r)

Working thesis statement:
This essay will discuss about the reasons behind why many players enjoy the game.

# data[].attributes.body
- what is Osu!? (s)
- does playing Osu! actually increase your aim in other competitive FPS games? (r)
- what computer language was Osu! coded in? (s)
- why do some players use a tablet instead of a mouse to play Osu!? (r)
- how do you reach global rank #1 in the game? (r)
- how do you earn pp in the game? (r)
- does playing Osu! competitively generate income for a certain individual? (r)
- will you recognize more songs after playing Osu!? (r)
- will your rhythm, or tempo improve after playing Osu!? (r)
- why are most of the songs in Osu! japanese? (r)

Working thesis statement:
This essay will discuss about why Osu! is a more popular rhythm game in comparison to other rhythm game that exists.

# data[].attributes.body
-when was the first game released? (s)
-how long has the series been ongoing? (s)
-what genre of game is pokemon? (s)
-how has the attitudes of fans towards the series changed over time? (r)
-how has the pokemon games remained so popular for so long? (r)
-What consoles have the games been released on? (s)
-what country did the games originate from? (s)
-who is the creator of these games? (s)
-how have the look and aesthetic of the games evolved over time? (s)
-who is in charge of designing the pokemon? (s)
-what is the thought process that goes into designing a pokemon? (s)
-who is the target audience? (s)
WORKING THESIS STATEMENT: I would like to explain how the pokemon games have grown so popular and still are until now.

# data[].attributes.body
- What is Pokemon? (s)
- What is Pokemon Go? (s)
- Who developed Pogo? (s)
- When is Pogo released? (s)
- What platform is Pogo played on? (s)
- How is Pogo played? (game mechanics) (s)
- Is Pogo still updated regularly? (s)
- How is it different from other Pokemon games? (s)
- What is so unique about Pogo? (s)
- Who is the targeted audience? (s)
- Is Pogo popular? (stats) (s)
- Why is Pogo popular? (r)
- Is Pogo still as popular now? (s)
- What maintained Pogo's popularity? / What caused the decline of Pogo? (r)
- How much time, money, or effort do most players spend? (s)
- What can you cash in Pogo for?(s)
- Are there cheats for Pogo? (s)
- How did the COVID-19 pandemic affected the game? (r)
- How Pogo can affect physical activity of players? (r)
- Is Pogo just as popular for adults and teenagers? (r)

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT: This essay will explore how the covid-19 pandemic has affected Pokemon Go as a game and its players.

# data[].attributes.body
-what are first-person shooters (fps)? [S]
-examples of first-person shooters both competitive and non-competitive? [S]
-what makes an fps competitive [S]
-are competitive and non-competitive fps different from a fundamental standpoint? [S]
-what differs between them if they are? [S]
-what does a competitive fps need (in terms of software and hardware like servers) that differentiate it from a non-competitive fps? [S]
-what are the player bases of each fps like? [R]
-friendly? cooperative? toxic? all of the above?
-does the competitiveness of the shooter contribute to the type of player base of each type? [R]
-how is integrity maintained in competitive play? [R]
-appeal of competitive vs non-competitive fps [R]

Working thesis statement:
I would like to write about the general personality of the player bases of each type of fps and how the type of fps could have contributed to the player bases.

# data[].attributes.body
- Are esports real sports? (S)
- Do esports qualify the requirements of being an event in the Olympics? (S)
- Is this going to happen in the future? (S)
- What games will be included? (S)
- Who will be the judges for certain games that need judges? (S)
- How to be qualified to play in the Olympics? (S)
- How will the gaming culture change when gaming becomes an event in the Olympics? (R)

# data[].attributes.body
* What is the series about? (S)
- Who came up with the story/plot/roleplay/?
- Why did they make it?
- What are (if any) historical/theoretical/fantastical significance?

* Who/How are the characters? (S/R, Lit Rev mostly?)
(From manuals/sourcebooks/player/DM)
- What is their background?
- What is their inspiration?

* When did it come to popularity (S)
- Why did it become popular?
- How did it become popular?
- Where (in the regional market) did sales rocket?

* Where/What is the application or significance, relating to the modern-day? (S/R)
- Do people cosplay?
- Do people learn anything from it?
- Why is it beneficial?
- How is it beneficial?
- Has it been updated to the modern setting?

* What are the view/opinions toward it, over the years? (R)
- Political view?
- Parental/Teacher/Psychological/Philosophical view?
- Player/Gamer/Competitive view/scene?
- Twitch view?

*  Did the COVID/Twitch scene "up" their sales/gameplay (R)
- Did people start playing more often?
- Why did ppl get into the scene?
- Are there influencers that get more pp in?
- Critical Role?
- BlackDiceGameplay?
- Dimension 20?
- The Lucky Die podcast?
- Dark Dice podcast?
- Hollywood figures

* Why do people on TikTok/Hollywood love it? (R, weak)

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT:
I would like to share how Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) has made a resurgence in popularity (effect in modern society, its benefits to modern society -various ways i.e. coping in the pandemic)
Refs
...

# data[].attributes.body
- How do gamers earn money? (S)
- How much do gamers earn? (S)
- Streamer vs Pro who earns more? (S)
- Which streaming platform is the best for earning money? (S)
- How long will this career last? (S)
- Why more people became game streamers during the pandemic? (R)
- Which game to play? (S)
- Will this game last long? (S)
- Is this game popular? (S)

# data[].attributes.body
-How stable is the career path?
-What impact would playing games professionally have on your mental health?
-How would you break into the professional gaming industry?
-Is being a professional gamer a better career path than working for a development studio?
-What makes the career path so enticing?
-How many hours does a gamer work on average?
-What are the most common games among professional gamers?
-What counts as being a professional gamer?
-What kind of money can be made as a professional gamer?
-When did the career path originate?

# data[].attributes.body
What is COC? (s)
When was it released? (s)
How does the game works? (s)
How did it once become the most famous mobile game? (r)
Is it still the most famous mobile game and why? (r)
How is it still sustaining as a multiplayer combat strategy game? (r)
How are the developers still coming up with new updates after 9 years? (r)

Working Thesis Statement: This essay will explore the evolution of COC for a decade. How is COC still maintaining after a decade will be discussed as well.

# data[].attributes.body
How has minecraft survived all these years? [r]
- When was minecraft created? (s)
- Minecraft mods lead to a more diverse game? (r)
- Are minecraft streamers the reason why minecraft is still alive? (r)
- Cracked versions of Minecraft lead to easier for players to play? (r)
- Does the freedom to customize the games texture pack enhance players interest? (r)
- Minecraft servers building upon new trends causing the game to stay afloat? (r)
- Did the pandemic revive the game? (s)
- How is minecraft being used now in the modern world? (r)

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT : I would like to share  how a basic game such as Minecraft managed to thrive for all this time

# data[].attributes.body
What is Pokemon? (S)
What is the target audience? (S/R)
What devices can you use to play the game? (S)
Who developed Pokemon? (S)
What is Pokemon Go? (S)
How is it different from the normal Pokemon game? (R)
How is the gameplay? (S)
Was there constant updates, and how things were changed? (R)
How levelling up worked? (S)
How to catch pokemon?(S)
How to enter raids?(S)
Playing with friends? (S)
What is the in-game currency? (S)
Can I cash-in into the game? (S)
How do regional pokemon work? (S)
Is cheating a common thing for this game? (R)
How do people cheat for this game? (R)
How popular is Pokemon Go then and now? (R)
Are there certain countries which play pokemon go more than others? (R)
How profitable is the game for the company? (R)
How much has the game declined overtime? (S)
What was the peak of the game? (S)
Did the long period of COVID affect players and cheaters (isaac included)? (R)
Could there be a competitive scene for this game? (R)
WTS: This essay will explain on how COVID has affected players of Pokemon Go before and after, including cheaters.

# data[].attributes.body
-What are educational games? (S)
-What are examples of common educational games? (S)
-Are most educational games free? (S)
-Has educational game became a tool for learning? (R)
-How can educational games be incorporated in lessons? (R)
-Will students be more engaged in class if educational
games are incorporated? (R)
-Why are educational games not as popular as other type of   games? (S)
-Will educational games distract students if incorporated in class? (R)
-Which targeted age group are educational games designed for? (S)
-Will students in high school and university level find educational games interesting? (R)
-Are educational games able to efficiently help students in the learning process as well as achieve non-academic skills? (R)

Working thesis statement: In this paper I will be writing about the effectiveness of educational games in students’ learning process and the possibility of achieving other non-academic skills if they are incorporated in class.

# data[].attributes.body
- What is CSGO? (s)
- Who developed CSGO?(s)
- When is CSGO released?(s)
- Who is the target audience?(s)
- What platform is CSGO played on?(s)
- Is CSGO still updated regularly?(s)
- How is CSGO played? (game mechanics)(s)
- Is CSGO popular?(s)
- Why is CSGO popular? (r)
- Is CSGO still popular nowadays? (s)
- What maintained CSGO's popularity? / What caused CSGO to be less popular? (r)
- How is CSGO unique? (s)
- How is CSGO different from previous Counter-strike games? (s)
- How much time/money/effort do average CSGO players put in? (s)
- What can you cash in CSGO for? (s)
-  Is there cheats for CSGO? (s)
- How is the anit-cheat for CSGO? (s)
- Does CSGO have a competitive Esports scene? (s)
- How did CSGO still maintain an active pro Esports scene even after nearly a decade and through the covid-19 pandemic? (r)

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT: This essay will discuss about how CSGO maintained its popularity after nearly a decade after its release and how the covid-19 pandemic have affected this popularity.

# data[].attributes.body
-What is Minecraft? (s)
-Where to download Minecraft? (s)
-Should you play Minecraft? (r)
-Is Minecraft still popular now? (r)
-How has the game lasted for 10 years? (s)
-Why hasn't the community died yet? (r)
-What happened to Notch in Minecraft? (s)
-Why did Minecraft removed traces of Notch from the game?(s)
-How did Minecraft speedrun change overtime? (r)
-How has Minecraft changed since its origin? (s)
-Why do people cheat in Minecraft (r)
-How to speedrun in Minecraft (r)
-How to speed bridging in Minecraft (s)
-How did Minecraft led to some of the biggest rising  youtubers in 2020? [r] (Example: dream, tommyinnit)

Working thesis statement:
This essay will discuss on how has Minecraft lasted for ten years and why is it still an active game among the gaming community.

# data[].attributes.body
What is Pokemon Go? (s)
When was it released? (s)
Who developed Pokemon Go? (s)
What's the inspiration behind the developers of Pokemon Go? (s)
How do we play Pokemon Go? (s)
How did it once become the most famous mobile game? (r)
How Pokemon Go prevent players from cheating? (r)
Who is the target audience? (s)
How does the game make the trainers spend so much money? (r)
How did the pandemic affect the game? (r)

Working Thesis Statement: In this paper, I will be writing about how did the pandemic affected Pokemon Go as a game and the players

# data[].attributes.body
-What makes Minecraft the best-selling video game of all time, at over 200 million copies?
-What challenges were faced in the development of Minecraft?
-How do the most popular competitive Minecraft servers prevent cheating?
-What are the ramifications of Dream cheating in his Minecraft speedrun?
-Which mod is the most important in Minecraft 1.17?
-How much money does Minecraft make?
-Is Minecraft still relevant?
-Which Minecraft version is the most popular?
-What is a Minecraft server?
-What are the differences between creative and survival?

# data[].attributes.body
-What is competitive gaming?[S]
-Why are competitive gaming are more popular than before?[S]
-Why some people care about their ranking in the game?[R]
-Why competitive mode is better than casual or vice-versa?[R]
-Does player in competitive game mode are more toxic than casual game mode?[S]
-Are there any advantages in competitive gaming?[R]
-Does E-sports competition increase the popularity in competitive gaming
-How competitive gamer become professional gamer?[S]
Working Thesis statement
In this essay will talk about the rise in competitive video games and E-sports has become larger over the years. How competitive gaming can turn in to a career

# data[].attributes.body
How does the game make you spent so much money?            (marketing strategies ) ( R )

What made league of legends one of the most popular games today? ( R )

How do they continue to stay relevant on the esports scene for so many years? ( R )

Does the game care about its players or only seek profits ?
( R )

Is there going to be a future for new league esports players or will a new game takeover the throne ( S )

Why so many people put hours into mastering this game ?
( S )

What inspires people to pick up league of legends ?
( S )

Is the game enjoyable ? ( R )

Is the league community too toxic ? ( S )

What does league do that sets it apart from its competitors  ? ( R )

Is the game enjoyable for current and new players ? ( S )

Working Thesis : I would like to explain and break down what League of legends does to become the second most played game today.

# data[].attributes.body
-what is COD? (s)
-when was the first COD released? (s)
-How long has the franchise been goin on? (s)
-what genre of game is COD? (s)
-is there a competitive scene? (s)
-how popular is the competitive scene? (r)
-how did it gain its popularity? (r)
-has its popularity reduced over the years? (s)
-why has its popularity reduced over the years? (r)
-what are some of the inspirations COD has taken from real world history for its stories? (s)
-is it acceptable for them to base their games on historical events that were relatively recent? (r)
WORKING THESIS STATEMENT: I would like to explain how we can learn about history through games like COD which incorporate historical events into their games.

# data[].attributes.body
- What are violent games? (S)
- What are example on violent games? (S)
- Are violent games popular among children? (S)
- What are the negative impacts of violent games on children? (S)
- Do violent games not have any positive impacts? (R)
- How children are exposed to violent games? (S)
- Why do children find violent games interesting? (S)
- Can children learn something from violent games? (R)
- Is playing violent games a good way to relieve anger and stress? (R)
- Should children be prohibited from playing violent games? (R)

Working thesis statement: In this paper I will be discussing about the negative and possible positive impacts of violent games on children’s behavior as well as examine if violent games should be prohibited.

# data[].attributes.headline
How to make playing video games your career 

# data[].attributes.subject
How to make playing video games your career 

# data[].attributes.body
Do you enjoy video games ? ( S )

How many consistent hours do you see yourself putting into the game ? ( S )

Do you have enough passion and love for video games ?
( R )

Do you have what it takes to be a full-time pro gamer ? ( R )

Streaming ? ( S )

E - sports ? ( S )

Youtube ? ( S )

What makes you stand out from the millions of other gamers ? ( R )

Is being a pro gamer sustainable in the long term ?
( R )

How does society view pro gamers? ( R )

Working thesis : I would like to justify and explain why playing games could be a possible career choice for you.

# data[].attributes.body
-which game that make survival games popular?[S]
-why do people enjoy survival games?[R]
-How game developer create the world that looks so real?[S]
-Do we learn problem solving skills in survival games?[R]
-Are people more friendly in survival games than FPS games?[R]
-Which survival games is the most popular, and why is that so?[S]
-Are there any positive effect on playing survival game
Working Thesis Statement?
I would like to talk about the development of 3D survival games such as Minecraft. And what benefit do we get by playing survival games.

# data[].attributes.body
-what are web-based games? [S]
-what genres do they cover? [S]
(spoiler alert almost all of them)
-what would their gameplays be like? basic? complex? [S]
-how could the developers have squeezed a complex game (tank.io, slither.io, krunker, etc) into a website [S]
-did simple web-based games blow up because of the pandemic? (gartic phone, skribbl.io, codenames, etc) [R]
-if web-based games blew up during the pandemic, why? [R]
-how do web-games earn money? [S]

Working thesis statement:
I would like to explain how web-based games have been around since 1995 but have only started gaining mass popularity during the pandemic.

# data[].attributes.body
- Can movies be successfully adapted into games? (s)
- Which movies are best suited to be adapted into games?
- Why was Harry Potter adapted into video games?  (s)
- Who are the target audience of Harry Potter video games? (s)
- Who were the developers of the Harry Potter games?(s)
- When were the Harry Potter video games released? (s)
- How successful was the Harry Potter video games?  (s)
- If so, why was it successful? (r)
- Has the large success of Harry Potter helped or deterred the game from becoming successful? (r)
- Did the Harry Potter video games affect the success of Harry Potter? (r)
- What is the most successful Harry Potter game? (s)
- How much revenue did the Harry Potter games earn? (s)
- What consoles were the HP video games available in?
- Why were the non Lego HP video games receiving negative reviews? (s)
- What could have made the HP video games better?(r)

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT: The essay will discuss why the Harry Potter video games should be considered failures

# data[].attributes.body
- what type of game is CSGO (S)
- is csgo the first cs game ever made (S)
- what does CSGO stand for  (S)
- why was CSGO created (S)
- who can play csgo (S)
- why do people play csgo (S)
- is CSGO safe to play for all ages (S)
- what age group plays csgo the most and why (S)
- is CSGO popular (S)
-why is CSGO popular (R)
-does CSGO have rankings (S)
- how do the ranks work in CSGO (S)
- how important are ranks in CSGO (S)
- Is competitive gaming a thing in CSGO (S)
- what games inspired the creation of CSGO (S)
- how long has CSGO existed (S)
- why is CSGO still popular after being released for 9 years (R)
- how do people improve their gaming skills in CSGO (R)
- is practice all you need to be a good CSGO gamer or is it based on luck, talent, or equipment (R)
- what do you need to play CSGO (S)
- do you need a strong computer to play csgo (S)

Working Thesis Statement: I would like to find out how and why CSGO is still popular as a professional Esport even after it has been released almost a decade ago. I would like to understand the longevity of popularity of CSGO.

Chess
- what is chess (S)
- when was chess created (S)
- why was chess created (S)
- how was chess created (S)
- who invented chess (S)
- what is the origin of chess (S)
- who played chess in the beginning (S)
- how did women begin to play chess when chess was a male dominant game (R)
- why was chess only played by men (R)
- is chess still popular (S)
- why is chess a popular game (R)
- how do u play chess (S)
- what are the roles of each piece in a chess game (S)
- what are the types of strategies in chess (S)
- types of opening moves in chess  (S)
- do people earn money playing chess (S)
- how much do professional chess players earn (S)
- what careers can people take on in chess (S)
- the queens gambit (S)
- how accurate is the chess playing in the queens gambit (R)
- was Beth Harmon inspired by a real life chess player (S)
- who are the best chess players in the world (S)
- how does the ranking system work among professional chess players (S)

working thesis statement: I would like to explore how women began to enter the game of chess when it was a male dominant game and why female participation rates is still lower than men.

# data[].attributes.body
What is Pokemon Unite? (S)
What is the target audience? (S/R)
On what platform is the beta available on? (S)
On what platform is it going to be available on? (S)
How is it different from other pokemon games? (R)
Who made Pokemon Unite? (S)
Which country was the first to be able to play the game? (S)
Which country was the second to be able to play the game? (S)
When was it first released for beta gameplay? (S)
When is it going to be released for the public? (S)
What pokemon are available for gameplay? (S)
Is it different from other MOBAs? (R)
Are there ranks? (S)
What pokemon is the best to pick from the pool currently? (R)
How does the levelling up of pokemon in-game? (S)
How does the move-set change in-game? (S)
How hype is the game when it first dropped? (S/R)
How did pokemon unite gain the amount of hype? (R)
Will this game die down overtime? (R)
Did this game get positive or negative feedback from the community? (R)
Will there be a battlepass for this game? (S)
How will this game gain money later-on? (R)
Is there a competitive scene for this game? (S)
WTS: The following essay will discuss upon how Pokemon Unite will possibly proceed in the future, in terms of money, community, updates, etc. (Based off feedback, and how nintendo has been updating their games over the years)

# data[].attributes.body
* What is the series about? (S)
- Who came up with the story/plot/gameplay/multiplayer?
- Why did they make it?
- Is there any historical/theoretical significance?

* Who are the characters? (S)
- What is their background?
- What is their inspiration?

* When did it come to popularity (S)
- Why did it become popular?
- How did it become popular?
- Where (in the regional market) did sales rocket?

* Where/What is the application or significance, relating to the modern-day? (R)
- Do people cosplay?
- Do people learn anything from it?
- Has it been updated to the modern setting?

* What are the view/opinions toward it, over the years? (R)
- Military/Veteran view?
- Political view?
- Parental/Teacher/Psychological/Philosophical view?
- Player/Gamer/Competitive view/scene?
- Twitch view?

*  Did the COVID/Twitch scene "up" their sales/gameplay (R)
- Did people start playing more often?
- Why?

WORKING THESIS STATEMENT:
I would like to how modern culture and history has affected Call of Duty - i.e. modern equipment, historical impact, tactics [TTP/SOPs], modern multiplayer experiences > player-player(developer) relationships, plots and future potential
Refs-
[modern culture of Call of Duty]
First-Person Shooter Ideology - The Drift (thedriftmag.com)

“Invading Your Hearts and Minds”: Call of Duty® and the (Re)Writing of Militarism in U.S. Digital Games and Popular Culture (openedition.org)

COD Culture: Stereotypes in Call of Duty Modern Warfare – The Lance (lhslance.org)

Call of Duty | Ultimate Pop Culture Wiki | Fandom

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[modern influence of call of duty]
You Can Thank 'Call of Duty' for Everything You Love (and Hate) about Modern Shooters | GQ

Shock and Awe: The Political Influence of Modern Warfare - Paste (pastemagazine.com)

Video Game Retrospective: Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - The Gateway (thegatewayonline.ca)

The Most Influential Games Of The 21st Century: Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - GameSpot

5 Ways Call Of Duty Has Influenced Gaming (& 5 Games That Influenced CoD) (gamerant.com)

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[the real influences of the modern Call of Duty games]
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare - 6 things that influenced the game (Exclusive) (shortlist.com)

How Call of Duty: Modern Warfare was made to look so real - Washington Post

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[the real culture of the modern Call of Duty games]
'Call of Duty: Modern Warfare': Video game takes realism to next level (usatoday.com)

What 'Call of Duty' Shows About How War Changed America - The Atlantic

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For decades, historians of the twentieth century have debated why, exactly, the United States fought a protracted, destructive, and ultimately pointless Cold War with the Soviet Union. Some have claimed that the United States was simply reacting rationally to Joseph Stalin's provocations; "the brave and essential response of free men to communist aggression," "an aggressive search for markets and investment opportunities overseas, without which the capitalist system in the United States could not survive." And in the last two decades, a generation of scholars inspired by the work of in the words of Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Others, including Stephen Wertheim and myself, have pointed to the traumatizing experience of the 1930s and 1940s, when the struggle with Nazism persuaded a generation of American elites that peace and prosperity depended on global U.S. supremacy. For their part, Marxist historians have insisted that the Cold War was, to borrow the conservative scholar John Lewis Gaddis's description, Odd Arne Westad have argued persuasively that ideology was the key to understanding American and Soviet motivations, and that the Cold War was at base a struggle between capitalism and communism for the hearts and minds of the world.

History is always in flux, reimagined by each new generation of scholars, and the process by which it filters down to American students in schools can be contentious. Most recently, The New York Times 's "1619 Project" sparked controversy when it established the basis for high school curricular reforms intended to "reframe U.S. history by marking the year when the first enslaved Africans arrived on Virginia soil as our nation's foundational date." The administration of President Donald J. Trump retaliated with its own "1776 Report," which maintained that "distorted histories" like the "1619 Project" disrespect "students' independence as young thinkers trying to grapple with social complexity."

But these debates among historians, liberal journalists, and right wing politicians exist apart from the ways that knowledge of American history is actually disseminated to most "young thinkers." Indeed, if historians, educators, commentators, and politicians really wanted to shape how youth understand U.S. history, they'd focus on the fact that an overwhelming number of people under eighteen generally first confront extended historical narratives not in the classroom, but at home, as they zonk out in front of the television and while away the best years of their lives playing video games set in Ancient Rome, Medieval Europe, or World War II.

Video games are indisputably a dominant form of entertainment in the United States. According to the (possibly generous) estimate of the Entertainment Software Association, an industry lobbying group, around 214 million Americans , roughly two-thirds of the total population, currently play them, including about 70 percent of all Americans under eighteen. As technological advances have bled other sectors of media dry, gaming has thrived, even and especially throughout the . As one Hollywood Reporter article underlined , in the third quarter of 2020 consumer spending in the gaming industry surpassed $11.2 billion, an increase of 24 percent from the previous year. For the sake of comparison, in February 2020, the month before the Covid-19 lockdowns began, domestic theater box office receipts barely $634 million. What movies were to the twentieth century, video games are to the twenty-first. I t's not an exaggeration to say that these games have become the primary medium through which many young Americans first encounter complex narratives about U.S. history.

For eight out of the last eleven years, a Call of Duty game has been the top-selling video game in the United States. Call of Duty is a "first-person shooter" (FPS), a type of game in which players assume the perspective of a "shooter" who travels through varied environments killing enemies. The genre stretches from pixelated shoot-'em-ups like Wolfenstein 3D to nostalgic classics like 1997's GoldenEye 007. And as the former's Germanic title suggests, for decades FPS games have taken inspiration from history, with World War II - a conflict that clearly pitted "good guys" against "bad guys" - serving as a particularly common setting.

The first Call of Duty was released in October 2003, two years after the United States invaded Afghanistan and seven months after the country invaded Iraq. The game, which was set entirely in World War II's European Theater of Operations and which involved killing thousands of Nazis, was very much a product of the post-Cold War and post-9/11 eras. Similar to other successful cultural products of the 1990s and 2000s, from Saving Private Ryan to Band of Brothers , the first Call of Duty returned to the founding moment of the modern American Empire to justify its post-Cold War claim to being the world's "indispensable nation." And it was an enormous success, selling around 4.5 million copies , raking in hundreds of millions of dollars, and setting the stage for a series that now includes dozens of games that allow players to shoot people in many different times (The 1940s! The 1960s! The 2060s!) and places (Vietnam! Cuba! Southern California!). Call of Duty is that kitschy t-shirt slogan about the Marines - "Travel To Exotic Places. Meet New People. Then Kill Them" - come to electronic life.

The recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War was just the top selling game of 2020. Right now, this one game is teaching millions of young Americans about the epic struggle between their government and the Soviet Union, a century-defining cataclysm that resulted in tens of millions of deaths, reshaped world history, and engendered the ideological struggles that presently bedevil the public sphere. But where the original Call of Duty was all rah-rah patriotism, the latest entry in the series evinces how cynical the franchise - and, by extension, American politics - has become.

A s the United States remains mired in a series of endless wars that show little sign of abating, as the nation continue s to spend on its military than the next ten countries combined , and as the country maintain s access to hundreds of military bases that do little but threaten smaller powers, Americans have become willing consumers of stories that portray their nation as fallible, foolish, and maybe even a little bit evil.

T he Call of Duty universe is broken up into three broad strands: World War II, Modern Warfare, and Black Ops, the last of which centers Special Operations Forces and spans from the Cold War far into the future. Whereas the World War II games largely adhere to the treacly tracks laid by Steven Spielberg ("America? Good. Nazis? Bad. War? Mezzo-mezzo."), the Modern Warfare and Black Ops series are forced, by dint of their contemporary settings, to engage in some actual politics. A recent Modern Warfare title, for instance, fictionalized the infamous "highway of death," a real-life Iraqi road bombed by the United States during the Gulf War's final stages, as a Russian atrocity rather than an American one. In the Modern Warfare universe, war is hell, but at least the United States is (mostly) good.

But where Modern Warfare is vanilla and self-serious, Black Ops is lurid and kooky. The games star grizzled reactionaries with tenuous government allegiances who do whatever's necessary to protect the American way of life, and for whom the vicious immorality of that violent project is its own reward.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War begins just after Ronald Reagan's inauguration in January 1981. Mindful of the humiliation the United States has suffered during the Iran hostage crisis, the new president has "authorized a black operation to take down two [of its] suspected masterminds." You play as various members of the CIA team charged with this and other operations.

After a number of twists and turns that take you from Amsterdam to Turkey to East Germany, you learn that a Soviet secret agent, codenamed "Perseus," plans to detonate several neutron bombs earlier placed by the United States under European cities to ensure the latter never fell into enemy hands. Perseus predicts that, when he explodes the nukes, the international public will assume the United States did it, which will turn the nation into global enemy number one and spur the Soviet Union on to victory in the Cold War.

Upon discovering this nefarious plan, you spend the rest of the game trying to find out where Perseus is located. This is when the plot takes a bizarre turn, as you are instructed to do things like infiltrate the Lubyanka Building, better known as KGB headquarters. Based on the intelligence you gather from the KGB, you eventually learn that Perseus is hiding on the White Sea's Solovetsky Islands. In the final mission, you travel to the islands and prevent Perseus from detonating the nukes, though the secret agent himself escapes to fight another day.

In Black Ops Cold War, players assume the identities of a number of characters, including Alex Mason, a CIA operative, and Dmitri Belikov, a KGB agent on the U.S. government's payroll. But you spend most of your time as "Bell," the codename of the game's protagonist. (My official character name was "Daniel 'Bell' Bessner," so it was sometimes fun to imagine that my avatar was the well-known mid-century sociologist who authored The End of Ideology .)

Bell's backstory is a tragic and confusing one. By the game's end (spoiler alert!), you learn that he was an associate of Perseus whom one of the Iranian "masterminds" from the very first mission attempted to murder. The CIA, however, saved Bell's life and used mind-altering drugs taken from the top secret Project MKUltra to trick him into thinking he was a long-standing CIA operative. Bell eventually learns the truth, and, though he was manipulated by the CIA, nonetheless decides to tell the Americans where Perseus is hiding, saving millions of lives. (At least, that's the choice I made; one can also decide to lie to the Americans, which ultimately results in Bell detonating the neutron bombs hidden under Europe.)

I n telling this story, Black Ops Cold War repeats, and refigures, one of the classic tropes of Cold War-era fiction: brainwashing. As Scott Selisker notes in during the Cold War thinkers and intellectuals across the political spectrum deployed the idea of brainwashing, though to different ends. For the center and the right, describing Cold War enemies, whether Soviet, Korean, or Vietnamese, as brainwashed ideological pawns "allowed Americans to imagine that the citizens of totalitarian states had been somehow conditioned, such that they became masses of human automatons, will-less and therefore less human." Such a perspective presented the battle between capitalism and communism as a necessary struggle between a "free" world and a "slave" world, making it easier to manufacture consent for the Cold War.

Nevertheless, at the same time that Cold War propagandists presented "totalitarians" as programmed simpletons, more progressive thinkers like Ralph Ellison (in Invisible Man ) and Betty Friedan (in The Feminine Mystique ) turned this image on its head, claiming that it was actually oppressive institutions that transformed people (be they African Americans or housewives) into brainwashed automatons. To take one example, and to borrow Selisker's phrasing, Friedan's "image of the housewife as robot [was] a way to imagine that life as subhuman." According to Friedan, Ellison, and others, the true struggle for freedom was not found in the geopolitical arena, but at home.

As its story unfolds in a scattershot, non-chronological fashion, Black Ops Cold War combines elements of both the left and right wing perspectives. Bell began his career an avowed "totalitarian," an unrepentant ally of Perseus bent on destroying the United States and its freedoms . So, from the view of the center and the right, his brainwashing at the hands at the CIA was deserved and, perhaps, benevolent - at least he was now on the right (pun intended) side of history. But Black Ops Cold War simultaneously takes pains to present the CIA as morally corrupt, willing to kill Europeans with neutron bombs rather than allow them to live under Soviet domination. In the world of the game, not only is the CIA fine with murdering tens of millions of innocents, but, by virtue of its brainwashing of Bell, it is also willing to upend democracy - which by definition depends on the ability to think freely - itself.

Black Ops Cold War reflects the cynicism of the era of endless war in which it was produced, in which few people ( possibly not even President Joe Biden ) really think the United States remains the world's indispensable nation. Both a perpetrator of violence and a victim of institutions beyond his control, Bell is neither a good guy nor a bad guy, just a soldier fighting wars that will one day be forgotten, based on choices over which he had no say.

So what message would the average fourteen-year-old take away from Black Ops Cold War? To riff on a coined by Mark Fisher, the game evinces an "imperialist realism" that can't quite justify American actions abroad, but also can't imagine a world outside of a militarily dominant U.S. empire. This idea is clearly expressed in Bell's trigger phrase ("We've got a job to do"), which implicitly affirms that in the Cold War, and perhaps in every war, all a soldier can do is put his or her head down and get to work. Though nothing - not the CIA, not the Soviet Union, not even one's own mind - can be trusted, no other world is possible, so you might as well support your own empire.

After finishing Black Ops Cold War, our hypothetical young American will have learned very little about the actual Cold War itself. Historians have spent decades underlining the importance of ideology to the battle between the United States and the Soviet Union, but the game's players never learn what, exactly, the two sides are fighting over; the words "capitalism" and "communism" are barely uttered. Instead, the game presents geopolitics as being about nothing but power, accepting the rather blinkered vision of so-called "realists" who reduce international relations to a struggle of might. This perspective is not just wrong - ideas, as innumerable scholars have demonstrated, inform how countries act in the world - but it also teaches young people that the only thing that matters in global politics is strength, and that they therefore must support the grotesque structures of the American empire: the 750 overseas bases, the enormous defense budget, the hundreds of thousands of troops stationed abroad. After all, the game argues, if they don't, some other antagonist will arise to defy, and ultimately overtake, the United States.

Black Ops Cold War thus embraces an incredibly pessimistic theory of human nature, one in which people don't fight over ideas, or even interests, but because fighting is what people do. While on its surface, Black Ops Cold War appears to offer a critique of U.S. foreign policy, the game's profound cynicism ensures that it can't offer a positive program, a way out of the present stagnation. It ultimately presents conflict as a necessary feature of American, and international, life, subtly endorsing the status quo position of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, which for almost a hundred years has claimed that the only way to keep the United States safe is to build a world-spanning empire that prevents other nations from becoming too powerful. The game takes a look at the Cold War, throws up its proverbial hands, and insists that it couldn't have gone any other way. To paraphrase Fredric Jameson: Black Ops Cold War finds it easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of American imperialism.

Perhaps this is why the Pentagon has embraced the game as a recruiting tool.

he connections between the military and gaming communities span decades, going all the way back to 1962, when MIT students created the first modern video game on a computer funded by the Department of Defense. These links have remained remarkably stable over time. In 1999, the U.S. Army granted the University of Southern California $45 million to found the Institute for Creative Technologies, whose mission, in the reporter Adi Robertson's , the military T words, " was to draw on new entertainment tools to build military training simulations ." Then, on July 4, 2002 allows players to learn about being a Soldier by taking on the role of an American Soldier participating in force-on-force operations as part of a team ." (The most recent edition of America's Army, Proving Grounds, came out in 2015.) Moreover, released America's Army, which, according to the deputy director of Army Game Studio, " military veterans have regularly with game developers to make first-person shooters more realistic and, in the process, valorize and romanticize the U.S. Armed Forces. Most infamously, Iran-Contra plotter and one-time National Rifle Association chief Oliver North appeared in the second Black Ops game, for which he was a paid consultant.

In recent years, the military has also turned to video games to recruit the next generation of troops. Officers are well aware that, as 1 st Sergeant Glenn Grabbs in November 2018, when not in school " to create he Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Space Force have told the a big section of the [youth] population ... goes into some sort of e-gaming interest ." In order " " and to " help make our Soldiers more visible and relatable to today's youth ," the Army formed an eSports team. (T awareness about the Army and the opportunities it provides ) In collaboration with the Call of Duty Endowment - a 501(c)(3) non-profit co-founded by the CEO of Activision Blizzard (the company behind Call of Duty) to aid veterans - the military recently established the CODE Bowl, where military eSports teams play Call of Duty against each other. likewise fielded eSports teams.

Even more important, military recruiters and affiliated eSports teams have started to play games on popular streaming platforms like Twitch. As Jordan Uhl has described a typical military stream in The Nation

" A recruiter, usually a man in his 30s, sits comfortably in his gamer chair inside a dimly lit room illuminated by a monitor and the colorful LED lights of his computer tower. An American flag hangs on the wall behind his right shoulder, an oversized stuffed animal sits to his left. He's playing Call of Duty or Valorant. He's friendly, and talks about how much he loves being in the Army."

The reach of these and other efforts is expansive. In 2019, the Army's eSports team was seen by millions of people and, according to the Army News Service, " the team has garnered 8,500 [recruiting] leads in the first four months of fiscal year 2020, more than doubling the 3,500 leads they got in all of fiscal year 2019."

The U.S. military, it seems, is not especially concerned about the critical messages offered in games like Black Ops Cold War. The latter, in fact, was the game played at the 2020 CODE Bowl (won by the Space Force team). To paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, the genre of "first-person shooter" is more important than the specific themes evident in individual products. It's not difficult to see why: after I beat the latest Call of Duty, I was far more impressed by the exhilarating (if morally abhorrent) experience of mowing down thousands of enemies than I was by the confusing and elliptical story I had just been told. No critical narrative, no matter how well-constructed, can hold a candle to the visceral thrills of digital murder. And the narrative in Black Ops Cold War is not well-constructed.

When it comes to gaming, genre matters more than content. It may not be all that important what story Black Ops Cold War - or, really, any first-person shooter - tries to tell. (Indeed, the game's single-player campaign is designed to last only a few hours; most of the game's players sink the majority of their time into its multiplayer offerings.) Even if a game portrays war as hell, the thing that matters is that the player is rewarded for using cool guns to kill faceless people. Simply put, the most important fact of any FPS is that the player is required to murder with abandon, which necessarily reinforces the militarism that permeates American popular culture. The FPS genre might, in fact, be unavoidably reactionary; even an "anti-imperialist" shooter that allowed players to assume the identities of anti-colonial forces would be premised on wanton murder.

This is what the U.S. military understands, and why it's willing to promote games like Black Ops Cold War that offer some critique of U.S. foreign policy. In the final analysis, it's the murder, and not the message, that matters most.

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For decades, historians of the twentieth century have debated why, exactly, the United States fought a protracted, destructive, and ultimately pointless Cold War with the Soviet Union.

# data[].attributes.body
-How stable is the career path? (S)
-What impact would playing games professionally have on your mental health? (S)
-How would you break into the professional gaming industry? (S)
-Is being a professional gamer a better career path than working for a development studio? (R)
-What makes the career path so enticing? (S)
-How many hours does a gamer work on average? (S)
-What are the most common games among professional gamers? (S)
-What counts as being a professional gamer? (R)
-What kind of money can be made as a professional gamer? (S)
-When did the career path originate? (S)

Thesis: We'll go over what games are the most popular in the professional gaming scene, along with the reasons these games are as popular as they are.

# data[].attributes.body
-What makes Minecraft the best-selling video game of all time, at over 200 million copies? (R)
-What challenges were faced in the development of Minecraft? (S)
-How do the most popular competitive Minecraft servers prevent cheating? (S)
-What are the ramifications of Dream cheating in his Minecraft speedrun? (R)
-Which mod is the most important in Minecraft 1.17? (S)
-How much money does Minecraft make? (S)
-Is Minecraft still relevant? (R)
-Which Minecraft version is the most popular? (S)
-What is a Minecraft server? (S)
-What are the differences between creative and survival? (S)

Thesis: With Minecraft selling over 200 million copies across various platforms, it is worth going over why Minecraft has sold so well over the years.

# data[].attributes.body
- what is valorant? (S)
- is valorant a popular game? (S)
- is valorant not much of a aim skilled game like CSGO? (R)
- what other fps games is it compared to (S)
- is valorant a balanced game with all the agents and meta comps today ? (R)
- who is the target audience for valorant? (S)
- why do people spend a lot of their money on the valorant store? (R)
- why valorant is considered the best fps game now (S)
- how often is the game being updated compared to other fps games ? (S)
- how good is the ranking system on valorant? (R)
- why is it so hard to rank up on valorant? (R)
- is the ranking system on valorant bad? (R)
- is the valorant community toxic (R)
- how to become a professional player on valorant? (S)
- how do you get picked up by pro teams? (R)
- how much can you earn as a pro valorant player? (S)
- how do you improve your aim or game sense in valorant? (R)
- what type of equipment do you need to play valorant? (S)
- is there longevity in valorant compared to other fps? (R)
- will valorant die like other fps games? (R)

Working thesis statement: I would like to find out how to become a professional e-sports valorant player?