Two weekends ago approximately forty people were murdered in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, just across the border from El Paso, Texas.  If you count Thursday, the total comes to 53. It was the worst body count in memory according to one news report.  Unfortunately, the carnage has become all-too common. In 2009-2010 some 6,000 people perished amidst spiraling drug violence in the border town.  Law enforcement efforts to stop the narco-war account for some of the violence, but most of the bloodiest atrocities stem from inter-cartel conflict to secure new territory and maintain dominance over lucrative trade routes to U.S. markets.  Innocents, everyday people not involved in trafficking, endure a dystopian present marked by police invasions, human rights violations, and a climate of fear.  Sounds like perfect material for a multiplayer first-person shooter, right?

At least one game developer thought so.  From Ubisoft Entertainment S.A. comes Call of Juarez: The Cartel. This is the third installment in the Juarez saga by the French-based, billion-dollar multinational company, produced in conjunction with Techland, a game developer.  Yet, this newest incarnation of the first-person shooter (FPS) diverges sharply from earlier versions.  Its predecessors were situated in the Old West and, according to Pawel Kopinski, Techland’s project manager, they contained more conventional themes running the gamut “from the Pinkertons to gunrunners, through stagecoach chases, prison breaks, and holdups.”

Call of Juarez: The Cartel, on the other hand, “is set in [the] present-day and brings the best elements of the Wild West to a new and modern setting,” as described on the game’s website.  In fact, Ubisoft’s publicity claims that you the user will “embark on a bloody road trip from Los Angeles to Juarez, Mexico immersing yourself in a gritty plot with interesting characters and a wide variety of game play options.”  Pre-released screen shots of the game (it’s not set for release until this summer) show various Dog-the-Bounty-Hunter-esque characters sauntering down urban streets, armed either with assault rifles or the proverbial sawed-off shotgun ready to wreak havoc on Juarez narcos.  “Take justice into your own hands in this modern western shooter,” Ubisoft tells us.

The Pornography of Violence

FPS games are not unacquainted with controversy.  Ubisoft is just another game publisher in a long line to come out with ultra-violent, shock-value story narratives.  Activision’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 invited condemnation in late 2009 when gamers and critics alike discovered that on one level the user can join forces with a terrorist group and kill civilians in a Russian airport.  To protect itself, the game developer made the level skippable and slapped a mature audience label on it.  Yet droves of parents bought the game for their underage children despite the warning.  Electronic Arts’ Medal of Honor allowed players to become a Taliban insurgent and gun for American troops; EA backed down however, changing the name of the enemy to a more ambiguous “Opposing Force.”  But the company continued to allow users the option of smoking U.S. servicemen in multiplayer mode.

The age-old argument that these games corrupt youth and create sociopaths is hotly debated.  Furthermore, we search in vain to find a “Golden Age” without cruelty, violence, and death.  But there it is nonetheless:  sex and violence sells, and sells big.  Thus, perhaps most troubling about a game like Call of Juarez is that it comes from a company with profits in the billions of dollars a year.  To make their new FPS game stand out from myriad others, shock-value has become the norm.  EA promoted its inclusion of the Taliban characters for months before the game came out.  Sure, the company pulled the name at the last minute, but did it matter at that point?  Scores of gamers needed that game by that point.  A “pornography of violence” pervades the industry, compelled to include ever-increasingly sensationalist elements to sell product.

Mexican Drug Violence, Exoticism, and Ethnocentrism

All of this seems a bit passé these days really.  Cable news networks operate from the same framework.  To keep our eyes glued to the tube we are tantalized with revolts, rebellions, murders, and good old-fashioned scandal.  Mexican print and visual media is really no different; indeed, it is perhaps even more shocking.  Numerous news rags there reprint pictures of headless bodies and bloody murder scenes to sell papers.  But news coverage of drug violence from American news outlets exoticizes Mexico’s narco-war, allowing the viewer to see its victims and participants as “others,” transforming them into objects of North American gratification. 

Call of Juarez does the same thing, but takes exoticism and the pornography of violence to absurd new heights.  The commodification of suffering currently happening in Ciudad Juarez surely sets this FPS apart from killing zombie Nazis and their ilk in other such video games.  Also essential is that it is happening right now.  It’s ongoing.  Violence, that’s one issue.  Ethnocentric cruelty ignoring current realities is quite another.  Consider the theme of the Wild West.  The game’s subtext suggests that across the Rio Grande lies a barbaric, untamed, uncivilized territory.  Horrible violence certainly exists in Mexico today, but the reality of the drug trade is that this is not simply a Mexican problem.  The majority of guns used to kill Mexican citizens come from the United States.  Moreover, demand from drug users north of the border makes the drug trade option continually attractive and worth the risk for participants.  In short, Mexican narco-violence is American violence, it’s transnational and it’s global.  An FPS that objectifies Juarez citizens for gringo kicks is simply ethnocentric.

The Problem of Prohibition

Legislators from the State of Chihuahua have decried the newest Call of Juarez game, demanding that federal authorities ban its sale in Mexico.  Interestingly, on Ubisoft’s Facebook page dedicated to Call of Juarez several Mexican posters lamented this fact.  One who claimed he lived in Ciudad Juarez wrote “as a resident and citizen of Juarez, I cannot wait for this game to come out.”  Other comments from Juarez residents seemed more ambivalent.  One poster sarcastically quipped that he was really in need of a game showing him the realities of Juarez.

As the summer release of Call of Juarez: The Cartel draws near, protests are likely to increase from the Mexican government.  Since first-person shooter games have become a standard feature of American youth culture, calls for a ban are not likely to come from that corner.  But the problem is, in fact, prohibition.  It would be ironic if a black market grew around Call of Juarez, a game inspired by a prohibited drug trade with an incredibly violent black market.