Why The CIA Created Call of Duty

Overview

The video argues that video games have become a significant arena for surveillance, military influence, recruitment, and information operations. Its central point is that games can collect personal data and shape players’ understanding of conflict while appearing to be entertainment.

The title’s suggestion that the CIA “created” Call of Duty is broader than the evidence presented. The video describes military and intelligence links to games, rather than claiming that the CIA created the franchise.

Key Themes

Games and surveillance

The video connects warnings in Metal Gear Solid 2 and Deus Ex about information control and surveillance to later revelations about mass data collection. It says agencies including the NSA and Britain’s GCHQ infiltrated World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Xbox Live, at times monitoring players under counterterrorism justifications.

Security risks and information leaks

The video cites terrorist recruitment material made with modified versions of Grand Theft Auto V and Minecraft, as well as FBI warnings about online groups targeting children on Roblox.

It also describes classified military information leaking through gaming communities: the 2023 Discord leak by Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira and repeated leaks of military documents by War Thunder players arguing about vehicle accuracy.

Military influence on Call of Duty

The video says Pentagon advisers have worked with most mainline Call of Duty games since 2005. It focuses on the 2019 Modern Warfare reboot, which depicts a massacre on a road called the “Highway of Death” as a Russian atrocity.

The video argues that the real 1991 massacre was carried out by US-led coalition forces against a retreating Iraqi column, and that changing the perpetrators alters the event’s political context. It also notes that the games have been used for military training and may stimulate recruitment interest.

Other military-linked games and creators

Full Spectrum Warrior is presented as a commercial-looking game with a military training version underneath. The video contrasts such projects with Spec Ops: The Line, which it says depicted a US war crime and struggled to find publisher support.

The video also describes former Call of Duty director Dave Anthony’s move to the Atlantic Council, where he presented a hypothetical domestic terror scenario three years before the 2017 Las Vegas shooting. It notes the timing but does not establish a connection between the talk and the attack.

Recruitment aimed at young people

The US Army’s America’s Army, launched in 2002, is described as a taxpayer-funded recruitment tool that reached teenagers. The video cites Army surveys and West Point cadets’ reports of playing it.

It says the military later used Twitch streams, giveaways, and gaming content to reach young audiences. Twitch intervened over Army giveaway links that redirected viewers to recruitment forms.

Pokémon Go and location data

The video traces Niantic’s corporate history to Keyhole, a mapping company that received investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture-capital arm, before Google acquired it. It argues that Pokémon Go gathered extensive location imagery and sometimes exposed sensitive sites through in-game features.

The video also cites a Niantic executive saying that governments or militaries might use the company’s large-scale geospatial models.

Amir Hekmati’s case

The video recounts the arrest and imprisonment of Iranian-American former Marine Amir Hekmati in Iran in 2011. Hekmati had worked as a contractor and consulted on Arabic-language content for Kuma Games, whose shooter recreated real military operations and had a Pentagon contract.

He said he was tortured and coerced into a televised confession. He was released in 2016 as part of a prisoner exchange. The video presents the full circumstances as unresolved.

The future of warfare

The video argues that game interfaces and controllers helped make remote warfare more familiar to military personnel. It warns that automated systems increasingly use surveillance data to identify and rank targets.

It closes with a broader concern: technologies that observe and judge people may be difficult to control, while games can normalize military thinking and collect information about players from childhood onward.

Presenters and Contributors

The narrator or presenter is not identified in the subtitles. Named people whose statements or roles are featured or discussed include Edward Snowden, Hank Keirsey, Dave Anthony, Amir Hekmati, Joe Rogan, Theo Von, P. W. Singer, and Philip Alston.