Here’s my take on the article
Yes I do understand about how playing the Division during a worldwide pandemic feels odd in a way because how in TD you’re playing in a world that happened and when your agent puts on their face mask it’s similar to putting a mask irl but it’s little bit different since one’s a modified smallpox virus with a 97% fatality rate and a other is sars but I can why.
For the part about how there are several burned police cars, graffiti, heavily armed people assaulting other people and how it brings mind to the BLM protest, I can see why it reminds you of that but there’s a difference 1 is about police brutality and racially motivated attacks against African Americans while the other is about how the cops and don’t forget the rest of the emergency units were trying to maintain peace while there was civil unrest and a virus floating around.
The part about how you the player is a secret federal agent from a secretive gov agency who are activated and go around with full combat gear in which is somehow similar to what happened in Portland, Ok so about the secret government agency, that’s what SHD is about! it’s supposed to be a secret agency that’s what it’s about with the last line of defense part and for the secret federal agent part I can see why too but there not really “federal“ agents because agents are regular civilians who are plucked out of society and are trained to save society from anything dangerous to it and when there done with their training they go back to their normal lives and then they get activated when directive 51 goes active and there also not really feds but you could but I’m not so sure and for the people with combat gear in Portland I’m pretty sure we all knew those were just regular people with guns which is about odd but they aren’t a part of any gov agency.
The killing part of the article about how you kill the average bad guys like the True sons, Cleaners, Outcasts, Rikers, Black tusk, LMB and etc. it’s okay but the Rioters are something else because well their not really good or bad they are like the grey spot since there normal people trying to survive the post-apocalyptic world and I could see why killing them could be wrong and bad but they also organize and raid people like how in the first game they attack the base of operation in NYC and the police station in Brooklyn but the rioters could be split in to sections, the first section their are gangs or people who organized and started attacking/ raiding/stealing from civilians and the second section are normal people trying to live but use guns and do not hesitant shooting a gun at someone.
A weird thing for shooting a guy who’s Looting a area while us the player loot too and looting or stealing from a place and wonder what it was for from location and wondering,I can see why it’s weird for us to loot and shoot someone else if their looting as well and to think about it, It’s a bit hypocritical for us to shoot someone for looting something and for us to do the same thing, and for the looting from a location and it being weird for us looting the place with maybe people using it or who else uses it I can see why but it depends on place and I guess time, Let’s day for example if we’re talking about NYC in the first game I can see why since there’s civilians roaming around the city and most of them are in the streets or in buildings or in other parts I can see why you would think it’s kinda wrong but if we’re talking about DC by now most of the places or long gone abounded places and most of the rooftop gardens are either used by enemy factions or are used by the civilian millita or a abounded with loot still there.
Killing American citizens, Yes I can understand why killing them of the crime of literally anything is wrong but you gotta remember most of the US is In dismay and there’s no courts or jails or prisons and most of them do bad stuff like the cleaners, rikers, outcasts, true sons, rioters and maybe the black tusk and LMB but since their PMCs I guess you could killed them without worrying about American citizens but kinda.
Yes I know there are more stuff to talk about but since I talked about most of the stuff I wanted to talk about Im going to finish it off here and what I think about the of points in the article about video game and irl comparisons to each other, I want to think there are just coincidences and most of them are explaining lore/story wise but if you disagree with me that’s okay it’s just my take/opinion about the article and I also don’t have anything with the article’s writer, this response is just for fun :)