It gets really murky and there is a question of intent but… I think it is truly elevated by how painfully average it is. That is the game that everyone was making and playing, right down to the overhead camera explosives shot with the mortars.

And what made The Line “work” is that… it pointed out how fucked up it is that this is so normalized. We had been trained, arguably indoctrinated, by so many Call of Duty style games that there was zero question about how fucked up what we were doing was.

Of course, because Gamers, everyone instead lost their shit and got angry that there was a false choice because they were being told they should walk away but weren’t given a button prompt and a special ending to do so. Rather than understanding that “walking away” is… maybe not buying the annual, rather mid, "shoot brown people in the middle east’ simulator.