PUBG Player Fools Flat Earthers With Screenshot From The Game
A PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds player posted a screenshot to a Flat Earth Facebook page, inciting discussion.
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Video games have been back under the microscope lately, due to renewed discussions – the term “discussions” should be taken with a grain of salt – on video game violence instigating real-life violent acts, citing the recent mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida as the current prime example. While the debate on video games’ influence on real-life actions wages on, it appears that images and video from a couple of games have recently been used and debated as actual, real-life footage.
Earlier this month, Twitter user @canceric posted a screenshot from the wildly popular battle royale game, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, to a flat-earth discussion group on Facebook; a private group in which his post had to be formally approved. The cropped picture featured a view of a vast, empty ocean meeting the sky flatly upon the horizon, with a caption that asked where the curve was. Users in the group took the bait, lauding the picture in agreement and, conversely, sparking arguments by those who disagreed (including multiple comments that the image was taken using a fisheye camera lens to flatten out the curve). A full, uncropped view of the photo in question reveals the complete user interface of the game, including player characters standing atop a pixelated cliff edge, overlooking the ocean. @canceric was eventually removed and banned from the Facebook group.
The second recent occurrence of a video game being mistaken as real-life footage happened earlier this week, when a Russian state news network aired footage of Arma 3, an action-adventure military shooter, during a report covering the Syrian War. The mistake was chalked up as a “human error.”
As recent as these blunders have occurred, it is certainly not the first time this type of graphical confusion has happened. For instance, a clip from CNN in late 2016, utilized an image from Fallout 4 in a report about Russian hacking interference surrounding the 2016 United States Presidential election.
@canceric’s post is yet another example that not everything should be taken at face-value on the internet, or media in general. It will be interesting to see how many more of these kinds of errors occur; especially considering that the controversy currently surrounding video games’ influence will not be going away anytime soon.
Sam has been writing for TheGamer since early 2018, earning the role as the Lead Review Editor in 2019. The Denver, Colorado-native’s knack for writing has been a life-long endeavor. His time spent in corporate positions has helped shape the professional element of his creative writing passion and skills. Beyond writing, Sam is a lover of all things food and video games, which – especially on weekends – are generally mutually exclusive, as he streams his gameplay on Twitch (as well as TheGamer’s Facebook page) under the self-proclaimed, though well-deserved moniker of ChipotleSam. (Seriously…just ask him about his Chipotle burrito tattoo). You can find Sam on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook as @RealChipotleSam.
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