In a report by Businessweek, Dave Anthony, a former director of the Call of Duty franchise, spoke to a forum hosted by the non-partisan think-tank Atlantic Council in Washington and suggested that the US government incorporate several controversial strategies from video game marketing.
Believing that the Islamic State poses a severe domestic threat in the United States, Dave Anthony thinks that unpopular policies can be sold to the public in the same way that he feels some video games are marketed:
When we have a new product that has elements that we're not sure how people will respond to, what do we do as a corporation? We market it, and we market it as much as we can – so that whether people like it or not, we do all the things we can to essentially brainwash people into liking it before it actually comes out.
Showing a mock video of a US drone being hacked by Iran forces and a Las Vegas hotel being destroyed, Dave Anthony continued by suggesting a potential solution to international security, manning school with plainclothes U.S. soldiers:
The public won't like it, they'll think it's a police state. All of these are solvable problems.
I look at the US military and government, ironically, as having some of the very same problems as what the Call of Duty franchise has. We are both on top of our game. We are both the best in the world at what we do. We both have enemies who are trying to take us down at any possible opportunity. But the difference is, we know how to react to that.
