WASHINGTON — Excitement over a recently released update to the wildly popular Call of Duty video game franchise turned to confusion and worry this week as thousands of gamers discovered that they had unexpectedly enlisted in the army. It turns out that Activision, in coordination with the U.S. Army, tucked the military’s Oath of Enlistment into the game’s Terms of Service (TOS), which 99.9 percent of Americans simply acknowledge without review in order to get to the gameplay.
The new game, called 4-Year Commitment, begins with an exciting montage of combat and rock music. Interestingly, scattered throughout scenes of gunfire and explosions are occasional references to the G.I. Bill and “competitive pay.” After the introduction, the player is presented with the Terms of Service dialogue box.
"Nobody ever reads that stuff," admitted new trainee Devon Jones. "I just selected ‘ACCEPT’ like I do with any game. Then there was a screen that required me to verbally ‘swear or affirm’ a bunch of stuff. I thought it was just a cool mood-setting device. But I knew something was wrong when a medical team came to my home the next day to stick fingers up my butt.”
