I can't imagine how anyone enjoys games like these unless they really are sociopaths. War is when young men go die for the old men's mistakes and kill a lot of women in children in the process.
Sociopaths?
That's all these games are. If you seriously can't understand how normal, empathic people could enjoy playing pretend, then you, not they, are the one who has difficulty distinguishing reality from fiction.
Have you ever read a fantasy/sci-fi/historical novel where a conflict took place and people died? It's still the same thing.
Did you ever read comic books or watch loony tunes? Both are full of violence.
Aggressive behavior is sadly just a consequence of being a member of the animal kingdom. However, we are gifted with an intelligence that allows us to understand that violence is not a favorable attribute in any society, so we developed artificial outlets for our aggressive tendencies in the form of video games, movies, music, comic books, sports, and even literature. There isn't anything unhealthy about playing a violent video game. I suspect if someone did create the game that was described in the article, that most people who currently enjoy violent games wouldn't enjoy playing it, which incidentally happens to be the author's point.
After the housing crisis in the US, do you still play Monopoly? How can you without sympathizing with all those people who got foreclosed on while the banking fatcats got rich?
The tight feedback loops of videogames make us examine them more closely, but, truly, games have always done this.
All that said, I don't enjoy CoD and the like because I'm not a FPS kind of guy, and I don't like the glamorization of war. But I had a lot of fun playing Warhammer 40k for a short time after college, so... does that make me a sociopath?
I find the source of most of the fun is the initial hit of adrenaline that lasts for about 10 minutes when playing multiplayer. It gets pretty old after that so I rarely play them. I have a large stack of shrinkwrapped freebies including war fps that I haven't yet touched dating back to 2009. Usually I just give them away.
I prefer the fps games where complete suspension of disbelief is required like the Dooms/Quakes. First time I played that and I raised the flashlight to see that I was about to get mauled I almost wet myself. No empathy required as it is so clearly not real. I however start to feel guilty about leading units in Civ to die. I empathize with you. :P
Edit: Since this is getting downvoted I'll add another bit to clarify. Games that simulate anything are still pretty simple and if you don't bring your imagination to supplement the experience, it gets pretty boring pretty quickly. I find it more fun to play who I am than to go with the assumed pigeonhole for success.
Maybe you have not noticed, but violence is part of human nature, and our creative works (of all kinds) have used this because, for better or for worse, it mirrors us. If you don't like the reflection, don't look.
I don't suppose you think any book where humans kill humans is also 'F*d up'? What about movies? Or is it only acceptable when they provide moral overtones you agree with?
I've played such games a little but never thought of the people I was playing with as the enemy. The people you play with are your friends normally aren't they?
There's the random oddball (usually an immature kid) that gets too worked up when he loses and starts insulting people, but then again, that's common in sports too.
(ammo is a precious resource)
I do know of plenty of games where you "shoot" blocks of pixels. And I assure that I'm perfectly capable of distinguish them, both at a rational and emotional level.
This reminds me of a story in Stanislaw Lem's Cyberiad (which is a fantastic book -- highly recommended).
From this[1] description of the story:
In the story "How Trurl's Own Perfection Led to No Good," Lem describes
how Trurl consoles a deposed dictator named Excelsius by building him a
simulated kingdom -- a small-scale mechanical model controlled by
computer programs -- so that his client can play at being a tyrant
without actually harming anyone. But Klapaucius objects that, because
Trurl's model is so perfect, Trurl has actually created a host of
conscious beings who are suffering under Excelsius' misrule...
"If an imperfect imitator, wishing to inflict pain, were to build
himself a crude idol of wood or wax, and further give it some
makeshift semblance of a sentient being, his torture of the thing
would be a paltry mockery indeed! But consider a succession of
improvements on this practice! Consider the next sculptor, who builds
a doll with a recording in its belly, that it may groan beneath his
blows; consider a doll which, when beaten, begs for mercy, no longer a
crude idol, but a homeostat; consider a doll that sheds tears, a doll
that bleeds, a doll that fears death, though it also longs for the
peace that only death can bring!
. . .
You say there's no way of knowing whether Excelsius' subjects groan,
when beaten, purely because of the electrons hopping about inside --
like wheels grinding out the mimicry of a voice -- or whether they
really groan, that is, because they honestly experience pain? A pretty
distinction, this! No, Trurl, a sufferer is not one who hands you his
suffering, that you may touch it, weigh it, bite it like a coin; a
sufferer is one who behaves like a sufferer!"