When one hears of research on international humanitarian law, the laws of armed conflict, and nonproliferation regimes, a discussion of video games is not what is usually expected. Fifth-year Economics and International Affairs (EIA) major D. Adam Thigpen presented the findings of research on adherence to international law in modern video games at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference in Washington, D.C., which was held 27-30 March 2013. As a member of the ongoing research group led by Assistant Professor Margaret E.Kosal, Thigpen has been studying non-traditional means of political communication via new media as part of understanding how emerging technologies affect international security.

The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association (PCA/ACA) is the leading scholarly organization dedicated to the study of American culture and popular culture in all its forms, venues, contexts, and exchanges. Publishing the Journal of Popular Culture and the Journal of American Culture, the PCA/ACA is composed of academics and affiliated experts, who explore politics, race, religion, gender, identity, and philosophy as manifested in books, historical events, cinema-television, music, digital media, and, even, video gaming.

Included on a panel on modern representations of war, Thigpen's research explored how video games portray the legal ramifications for violations of international law. As video games continue to grow in popularity and the audience for these digital experiences grows, some of the most popular games, such as the Call of Duty series, include the depiction of weapons of mass destruction and war on the global scale. It is these games that are the focus of the research, in which he dissects the events of the games and compares them to many of the restrictions put in place by the international legal regime. Game developers then acknowledge these violations by punishing the player or characters. Ultimately, Thigpen found that many games punish crimes against civilians and allies, but less so towards civilian property. Additionally, the use of weapons of mass destruction generally go unpunished, not necessarily due to negligence, but because most of the uses of these weapons are not perpetrated by the player, but instead by non-state actors in the role of antagonists. This research aims to expand the understanding that we have about the implicit knowledge gamers will gain regarding weapons of mass destruction and international law.