Violent entertainment clearly numbs the soul . . .

I'm nonplussed to read about a new module in the 'Call Of Duty' video game franchise. CIO reports:

It's been less than three weeks since Activision's "Call of Duty: Black Ops" went on sale.




The game quickly broke entertainment sales records, with worldwide revenue of US$650 million during its first five days in stores. The game's online component is wildly popular, with hundreds of thousands of players simultaneously logged in to battle each other, and is creating some big numbers of its own.

On Saturday an in-game counter noted that the cumulative number of kills in the game has surpassed the planet's real-world population, which stands at about 6.9 billion, according to a U.S. Census Bureau estimate.

A scene from 'Call Of Duty: Black Ops'

Those deaths were largely as a result of gun shots. An amazing 138 billion shots have been fired in the game, and a disturbing -- or successful, depending on your point of view -- 561 million have been instant-killing headshots. About 51 million headshots have been delivered execution-style, while a player was alive but lying wounded.

. . .

Frag grenades are a popular tool of destruction and 527,936 tons of them have been thrown so far, along with 50,782 tons of C4 plastic explosive. To put those numbers in perspective, the Eiffel Tower's all-iron structure weighs 10,000 tons.

Some other stats:

If all the crossbows fired in the game were lined up end-to-end they'd stretch 144,501 miles, which is more than half of the way to the moon.

More than 65 million deaths came as the result of a player's own mistake.

. . .

Staying too long in one position has proved deadly for 79 million players who were stabbed in the back.

. . .

And if all that isn't impressive enough, consider this: gamers have cumulatively spent more than 8,000 years playing "Call of Duty: Black Ops" online.

There's more at the link.

All that, and the game's been available for less than three weeks??? Ye Gods and little fishes . . . I'm glad I never got sucked into the MMORPG universe. It looks like it's even more of a time-waster than I'd imagined possible!

(Besides, I never have liked so-called 'first-person shooter' games. It's my opinion that such 'games' numb one's conscience. They can't possibly portray the reality of combat, which some of us know all too well; and those who play them can't even begin to imagine the reality of the 'virtual' suffering and death they so casually 'inflict' on others. I can't believe that's healthy for the mind, or the soul.)

Peter