This year has seen the development of an unexpected trend in the world of video games.  Video game consumers have begun protesting publishers by boycotting certain titles.  At first, this may seem like a noble act of collective renouncement, but on finer inspection, it is closer to a pastiche of non-violent protest.

It all started this June, during E3, when developer, Valve, revealed their game, Left 4 Dead 2, the sequel to last year's critically acclaimed first-person co-op shooter.  The original game only had a handful of levels, but Valve promised to add content as time went on.  With the unveiling of Left 4 Dead 2, this commitment seemed to be broken.

Fans of Left 4 Dead quickly decided to boycott the sequel until Valve followed up on their promise.  Gamers were alarmed by such little time between installments in the series.  They were afraid a new game coming around the corner meant the end of support for the current title.

Valve quickly responded to the community by stating that they still planned on releasing much more content for Left 4 Dead.  "We see no reason to change [our plans to support Left 4 Dead] and will continue to support the over three million customers in the L4D community," Gabe Newell, co-founder and director of Valve, told Kotaku only days after the upset.

But this reassurance still did not satisfy the quasi-official Left 4 Dead 2 boycott group.  The group created a charter which demanded Valve to continue support for the original game, convert the sequel to a free download, or give current customers a discount for the sequel if it was not a free download.  Currently, only one of these criteria have been met, so the boycott still stands.

More recently, PC gamers have been up in arms due to Infinity Ward's decision to use match-making technology to implement online muliplayer modes in their upcoming Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.  This decision eliminates the possibility of the use of mods, skins, or custom-built maps.  And, of course, if PC match-making proves successful, surely other developers will use the technology, putting a dent in the homebrew community.

Just like the Left 4 Dead debacle, PC gamers banded together and organized a boycott, hoping to convince Infinity Ward to re-implement the standard dedicated server technology.

More Modern Warfare fans jumped on board after a viral video was released to promote the game.  In the video, a professional baseball player, who claims to be from the (clearly fictional) advocacy group, FAGS (Fight Against Grenade Spam), condemns the tactic of randomly throwing grenades to defeat opponents.  He goes as far as to assert that this tactic is "for pussies."  It is obvious how one could be offended by the advertisement, which was eventually removed by Infinity Ward.

The question begs to be asked, "what brought about the use of boycotts against video games?"  Surely there have been games with details far more upsetting than these two examples.  It seems most likely that the Left 4 Dead 2 boycott has inspired (and will most likely continue to inspire) more boycotts, thanks to the staggering amount of press the boycott received.

The whole phenomenon is astounding.  People are being upset to the point of boycotting a video game.  While video games do arguably have substantial merit, the argument, "it's just a game," seems as valid as ever.

One might find it troubling, to say the least, that people are more concerned about the details of a video game than controversies that are actually worthy of a boycott.

Most of the people who are boycotting these games do not care about the fact that Wal-Mart's contracted third-world country workers are paid pennies a week for laboring all day in a roach-infested, bathroom-less, clean water-less factory, only for Wal-Mart to make a 1,000% profit (whose inspectors turn a blind eye to such conditions).  Speaking of Wal-Mart and gamers, the big box store is one of the top retailers of video games, not to mention CDs, movies, and all sorts of other products, thanks to their use of horizontal integration, which puts countless smaller retailers out of business.  The irony is tangible.

Even with the idea that video games are a form of art, they are (mostly) pieces of entertainment, first and foremost.  Games are not pieces of egregious politics which could change the way people live.  They aren't articles resulting from an exploitative social system.  They aren't products of an unscrupulous corporation.  They aren't garments created from brutally mutilated animals.  They are pieces of media.  Boycotting a game is just as peculiar as boycotting a movie, TV show, book, or CD.  But most cases of movies, books, etc. being boycotted have to do with morals and ethics, not details that keep a product from being as desirable as possible.  To be fair, though, a reaction against the Modern Warfare 2 "FAGS" video is warranted.

What would the world be like if these gamers cared as much about real issues as they are passionate about video games?  It could very well be more just than it currently is.  On top of that, the use of boycotting video games seems to diminish the authenticity of the form of protest.  There are countless people living in misery, thanks to companies our society buys from constantly.  Yet who does the 18 - 35 demographic choose to boycott?  Video game publishers and developers.

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