When we mean firearms that are licensed, we mean the real deal firearms that are made by real world manufacturers. Airsoft players are familiar with this as each airsoft gun that comes with the trademarks (not necessarily trade dress) of real world arms companies, there is a license paid by the airsoft manufacturer to the owner, and the cost, of course, is passed on to the customer, in this case, the airsoft player. This pretty much goes the same for video game players of popular FPS games such as Battlefield and Call of Duty.

This is interesting to know as such it presents a conundrum to video game players who may have an axe to grind against firearms companies especially with the NRA's claim that violent video games lead to real world violence and not firearms. While there is a publicly-held perception on violent video games, the research supporting such perception remains inconclusive as other countries which allow the sales of violent video games (let's toss in violent TV shows too to the mix) do not show a correlation between real world violence and violent games, for example Japan. Thus, for the video game companies and their fans, being "thrown under the bus" by the NRA is something that they are seething about when their industry is also a source of revenue for the corporate sponsors of the NRA. And it's also ironic that the NRA also releases its own video games:

The video below from PBS explains the conundrum, especially for FPS players but hate real steel guns, and there are indeed video gamers who do and I know a few of them:

It is an interesting issue for those who think they are morally obligated to not to buy these video games as they're paying real steel companies that they don't want to support, but are conflicted since they also love playign FPS games. The compromise that they can ever get to is avoid buying FPS video games that use real world weapons and go for fiction guns such as Halo and even the Aliens Colonial Marines. But there is also that strong pull of having a feel of the action of real steel weapons in video games, and firearms companies that the features and weapons characteristics of their products are faithfully adhered to by the video game developers.

Even in the airsoft community, there are certain players who try to avoid buying airsoft guns that are licensed by firearms companies since they don't see any point why or just being plain anti-intellectual property. There are airsoft players who believe they should pay the license to use the trademarks, but are turned-off by what they see as anti-competition habits by those who hold the license and I know a good number who do and hate certain license holders who uncaringly throw their weight around.

If you are an FPS gamer and play those video games that pay licenses to real steel companies, it would be interesting to read your participation in the comments section of the video as shown above. You can click here to comment. We do have your own opinions which do not reflect the position of Popular Airsoft, but we'll just let it out as part of an intelligent debate.