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| Are video games just propaganda and training tools for the military? | Are video games just propaganda and training tools for the military? |
| (7 months later) | |
| It's Monday night, the kids are in bed, and I am trying to kill Osama bin Laden. I stalk through his Abbottabad compound and I aim my rifle at the first person I see, only to discover he's my brother in arms, aka "OverdoseRocks". So I walk downstairs into a prayer room, at which point my gun accidentally goes off. Then the mission is over. We were victorious. | It's Monday night, the kids are in bed, and I am trying to kill Osama bin Laden. I stalk through his Abbottabad compound and I aim my rifle at the first person I see, only to discover he's my brother in arms, aka "OverdoseRocks". So I walk downstairs into a prayer room, at which point my gun accidentally goes off. Then the mission is over. We were victorious. |
| Next, I join US servicemen during the 2007 surge in Iraq. For about three minutes I kick about a palm-lined boulevard, strafing apartment buildings. I am ambushed. In my dying moments, I am presented with an advert for a game in which I can embody a cheetah and kill an antelope, but I have had enough bloodshed for one evening. | Next, I join US servicemen during the 2007 surge in Iraq. For about three minutes I kick about a palm-lined boulevard, strafing apartment buildings. I am ambushed. In my dying moments, I am presented with an advert for a game in which I can embody a cheetah and kill an antelope, but I have had enough bloodshed for one evening. |
| I have been on the Kuma Games site, an online entertainment developer and, according to reports on Iranian television, an international distributor of military propaganda. Kuma produces a range of games, from second world war air-battle shoot-'em-ups for the History Channel, through to the carnivore-themed I Predator, a tie-in for the cable station Animal Planet. Yet it's the company's Kuma\War series of topical military games, as well as a more discreet line of Arabic-language first-person shooter games, that have piqued media attention. During a televised confession on Iranian TV, alleged US agent and former marine Amir Mirzai Hekmati said he had worked for Kuma, and it was a CIA front company. | I have been on the Kuma Games site, an online entertainment developer and, according to reports on Iranian television, an international distributor of military propaganda. Kuma produces a range of games, from second world war air-battle shoot-'em-ups for the History Channel, through to the carnivore-themed I Predator, a tie-in for the cable station Animal Planet. Yet it's the company's Kuma\War series of topical military games, as well as a more discreet line of Arabic-language first-person shooter games, that have piqued media attention. During a televised confession on Iranian TV, alleged US agent and former marine Amir Mirzai Hekmati said he had worked for Kuma, and it was a CIA front company. |
| Though his words cannot be regarded as the unvarnished truth, publicly available government documents indicate that Hekmati had been a Kuma employee, while Kuma's CEO, Keith Halper, admits to taking on military work. If his words are true, Kuma\War are only one of a number of bloody titles produced under varying degrees of military aegis. | Though his words cannot be regarded as the unvarnished truth, publicly available government documents indicate that Hekmati had been a Kuma employee, while Kuma's CEO, Keith Halper, admits to taking on military work. If his words are true, Kuma\War are only one of a number of bloody titles produced under varying degrees of military aegis. |
| In 2001 Syria's Afkar Media published Under Ash, in which players take on the role of Palestinians fighting off an Israeli assault; they followed this in 2005 with Under Siege, and in 2008 non-violent children's game Road Block Buster, in which players take on the role of "'Maan' the boy with a thousand way[s] to get over any barrier or road block implanted by Israeli Defense forces". In 2003, developers linked to Hezbollah entered the market with a Special Force series, a set of PC war games set in Lebanon. | In 2001 Syria's Afkar Media published Under Ash, in which players take on the role of Palestinians fighting off an Israeli assault; they followed this in 2005 with Under Siege, and in 2008 non-violent children's game Road Block Buster, in which players take on the role of "'Maan' the boy with a thousand way[s] to get over any barrier or road block implanted by Israeli Defense forces". In 2003, developers linked to Hezbollah entered the market with a Special Force series, a set of PC war games set in Lebanon. |
| In 2007, Iran's Association of Islamic Unions of Students released Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue; a first-person-shooter game wherein players aim to free two Iranian nuclear scientists kidnapped by the US. The game was published in response to Kuma's Assault on Iran, which was based around a US assault on an Iranian nuclear facility. | In 2007, Iran's Association of Islamic Unions of Students released Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue; a first-person-shooter game wherein players aim to free two Iranian nuclear scientists kidnapped by the US. The game was published in response to Kuma's Assault on Iran, which was based around a US assault on an Iranian nuclear facility. |
| There are also more formal offerings from the world's leading powers. America's Army, a free online simulator, was published by the US military in 2002 to aid recruitment. The British army launched their online game Start Thinking Soldier in 2009, to drive interest among 16- to 24-year-olds. Then in May last year, China's People's Liberation Army unveiled Glorious Revolution, a Call of Duty-style game for both military and domestic markets. | There are also more formal offerings from the world's leading powers. America's Army, a free online simulator, was published by the US military in 2002 to aid recruitment. The British army launched their online game Start Thinking Soldier in 2009, to drive interest among 16- to 24-year-olds. Then in May last year, China's People's Liberation Army unveiled Glorious Revolution, a Call of Duty-style game for both military and domestic markets. |
| This is all in addition to numerous game-like training tools, from language apps through to tank-driving tutorials, which are used to educate recruits around the globe. | This is all in addition to numerous game-like training tools, from language apps through to tank-driving tutorials, which are used to educate recruits around the globe. |
| "For decades the military has been using video-game technology," says Nina Huntemann, associate professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk University in Boston and a computer games specialist. "Every branch of the US armed forces and many, many police departments are using retooled video games to train their personnel." | "For decades the military has been using video-game technology," says Nina Huntemann, associate professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk University in Boston and a computer games specialist. "Every branch of the US armed forces and many, many police departments are using retooled video games to train their personnel." |
| Like much of early computing, nascent digital gaming benefited from military spending. The prototype for the first home video games console, the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, was developed by Sanders Associates, a US defence contractor. Meanwhile, pre-digital electronic flight simulators, for use in both military and civilian training, date back to at least the second world war. | Like much of early computing, nascent digital gaming benefited from military spending. The prototype for the first home video games console, the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, was developed by Sanders Associates, a US defence contractor. Meanwhile, pre-digital electronic flight simulators, for use in both military and civilian training, date back to at least the second world war. |
| Later, the games industry began to repay its debts. Many insiders note how instruments in British Challenger 2 tanks, introduced in 1994, look uncannily like the PlayStation's controllers, one of the most popular consoles of that year. Indeed, warfare's use of digital war games soared towards the end of the 20th century. | Later, the games industry began to repay its debts. Many insiders note how instruments in British Challenger 2 tanks, introduced in 1994, look uncannily like the PlayStation's controllers, one of the most popular consoles of that year. Indeed, warfare's use of digital war games soared towards the end of the 20th century. |
| "By the late 1990s," says Nick Turse, an American journalist, historian and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, "the [US] army was pouring tens of millions of dollars into a centre at the University of Southern California – the Institute of Creative Technologies – specifically to build partnerships with the gaming industry and Hollywood." | "By the late 1990s," says Nick Turse, an American journalist, historian and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, "the [US] army was pouring tens of millions of dollars into a centre at the University of Southern California – the Institute of Creative Technologies – specifically to build partnerships with the gaming industry and Hollywood." |
| It's a toxic relationship in Turse's opinion, since gaming leads to a reliance on remote-controlled warfare, and this in turn makes combat more palatable. | It's a toxic relationship in Turse's opinion, since gaming leads to a reliance on remote-controlled warfare, and this in turn makes combat more palatable. |
| "Last year," says Turse, "the US conducted combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. There are a great many factors that led to this astonishing number of simultaneous wars, but the increasing use of drones, and thus a lower number of US military casualties that result, no doubt contributed to it." | "Last year," says Turse, "the US conducted combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. There are a great many factors that led to this astonishing number of simultaneous wars, but the increasing use of drones, and thus a lower number of US military casualties that result, no doubt contributed to it." |
| Many closer to the action take a different view. Justin Crump served in the British army for seven years and has been a reservist since the early 90s; he saw active duty in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to enlisting, Crump was also a keen gamer. | Many closer to the action take a different view. Justin Crump served in the British army for seven years and has been a reservist since the early 90s; he saw active duty in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to enlisting, Crump was also a keen gamer. |
| "I learned my tactics playing games in the 80s," he says. "In the recruitment interview I said I'd been flying simulators for a few years." | "I learned my tactics playing games in the 80s," he says. "In the recruitment interview I said I'd been flying simulators for a few years." |
| While Crump recognises the military's involvement in early games development, he believes the computer industry has outpaced military simulators. | While Crump recognises the military's involvement in early games development, he believes the computer industry has outpaced military simulators. |
| "With 30-year procurement programmes, you'll be spec'ing simulators in the 80s and 90s," he says. Imagine ordering Space Invaders to be played in the Xbox era, and you realise why the British military has had to improve some of its simulated training to keep the attention of new recruits. | "With 30-year procurement programmes, you'll be spec'ing simulators in the 80s and 90s," he says. Imagine ordering Space Invaders to be played in the Xbox era, and you realise why the British military has had to improve some of its simulated training to keep the attention of new recruits. |
| Crump laughs when recalling the mechanical tank trainers he used in the early 90s, as well as the Laserdisc system used for training on the Challenger 2 tank, back in 1998. "We asked: 'Why aren't these things on CDs or a flash drive?'" | Crump laughs when recalling the mechanical tank trainers he used in the early 90s, as well as the Laserdisc system used for training on the Challenger 2 tank, back in 1998. "We asked: 'Why aren't these things on CDs or a flash drive?'" |
| For a taste of how war games and armies might work best, try Steel Beasts. Developed by eSim, an American firm with ex-US and European army personnel, Steel Beasts is perhaps the world's most successful tank-training simulator. "We wanted to develop a computer game that would be both entertaining and educational," says Nils Hinrichsen, eSim's marketing director, "which at the same time would offer a bit of 'trigger time', but with accurate procedures and ballistics." | For a taste of how war games and armies might work best, try Steel Beasts. Developed by eSim, an American firm with ex-US and European army personnel, Steel Beasts is perhaps the world's most successful tank-training simulator. "We wanted to develop a computer game that would be both entertaining and educational," says Nils Hinrichsen, eSim's marketing director, "which at the same time would offer a bit of 'trigger time', but with accurate procedures and ballistics." |
| Hinrichsen admits that Steel Beasts won't exactly top gamers' Christmas present lists. Yet it runs on PCs, allows users to edit their maps and layout, and has playback facilities, so players can learn from their mistakes. eSim charges armies a fee for customising the game to suit their vehicles so that it can be used for training. These adaptations are then included in subsequent versions of the game – which means they are available to other armies. | Hinrichsen admits that Steel Beasts won't exactly top gamers' Christmas present lists. Yet it runs on PCs, allows users to edit their maps and layout, and has playback facilities, so players can learn from their mistakes. eSim charges armies a fee for customising the game to suit their vehicles so that it can be used for training. These adaptations are then included in subsequent versions of the game – which means they are available to other armies. |
| Until now most militaries have bought bespoke simulators tied to particular weaponry, "and woe betide the army that changes specifications in mid-stream," says Hinrichsen. Instead, Steel Beasts can be fitted to suit any new armoured vehicle. Since its introduction in 2000, the game has been used by the US military and the armies of Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the Canadian air force. | Until now most militaries have bought bespoke simulators tied to particular weaponry, "and woe betide the army that changes specifications in mid-stream," says Hinrichsen. Instead, Steel Beasts can be fitted to suit any new armoured vehicle. Since its introduction in 2000, the game has been used by the US military and the armies of Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the Canadian air force. |
| From a certain point of view, any link between the games system in your child's bedroom and automated killing on the battlefield is grossly distasteful. Yet, if you accept the need for standing armies, and believe in the efficiencies of information technology, then it's hard to view Steel Beasts as anything other than a canny application of processing power. | From a certain point of view, any link between the games system in your child's bedroom and automated killing on the battlefield is grossly distasteful. Yet, if you accept the need for standing armies, and believe in the efficiencies of information technology, then it's hard to view Steel Beasts as anything other than a canny application of processing power. |
| It's quite different from Kuma\War games, which Huntemann calls "'soft propaganda', in the same way that Top Gun or John Wayne war films are soft propaganda". She also questions whether glitzy online games really drive gamers towards the frontline. "When you look why people enlist," she says, "it is overwhelmingly tied to history of military service in the family, socio-economic status and the current state of the economy." | It's quite different from Kuma\War games, which Huntemann calls "'soft propaganda', in the same way that Top Gun or John Wayne war films are soft propaganda". She also questions whether glitzy online games really drive gamers towards the frontline. "When you look why people enlist," she says, "it is overwhelmingly tied to history of military service in the family, socio-economic status and the current state of the economy." |
| Crump agrees. "I find some of the modern first-person shooters ridiculous," he says. "If people joining are expecting that sort of thing they are going to be disappointed." | Crump agrees. "I find some of the modern first-person shooters ridiculous," he says. "If people joining are expecting that sort of thing they are going to be disappointed." |
| He questions whether those drawn to blameless gore even aspire to a life of service. Recalling a trip to a paint-balling range with some army friends, he says: "There were some other really tooled-up guys there, and they didn't know we were military." Crump put it to the opposing side that, if they enjoyed firing guns, they should enlist. "They said: 'No, too dangerous, wouldn't want to,'" he recalls, quite surprised by their response. Yet he wasn't so startled by the outcome. | He questions whether those drawn to blameless gore even aspire to a life of service. Recalling a trip to a paint-balling range with some army friends, he says: "There were some other really tooled-up guys there, and they didn't know we were military." Crump put it to the opposing side that, if they enjoyed firing guns, they should enlist. "They said: 'No, too dangerous, wouldn't want to,'" he recalls, quite surprised by their response. Yet he wasn't so startled by the outcome. |
| How did those weapons-loving gamers do against him at paintball? | How did those weapons-loving gamers do against him at paintball? |
| "They lost." | "They lost." |
| Comments | |
| 241 comments, displaying first | |
| 18 March 2012 9:20PM | |
| I am surprised that this question is even being asked. It's been pretty clear for the passt decade or two that the main purpose of war games is to teach a new generation how to fight battles and become desensitised to death and destruction; seems to have worked pretty well judging on our population's general lack of reaction to 40,000 innocent Libyans killed by our own forces to protect the 4,000 Libyans killed by Gadaffi's henchmen. | |
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| 18 March 2012 10:10PM | |
| Must kill Anti-American leaders, death to all humans. | |
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| 18 March 2012 10:37PM | |
| training Britons fattest, laziest kids to fight tomorrows war, in ways that will only make them fatter and lazier | |
| good plan. | |
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| 18 March 2012 10:37PM | |
| I think it's all part of Western society's infantilisation, possibly part of affluenza - so many middle class adults are forever in a sheltered cocoon of eternal adolescence, playing games, obsessing over which fashion or pop music is ''cool,'' throwing a tantrum when they're shafted like the working class have been for decades, screaming that their being treated like everyone else is fascism (''the cop was rough with Toby, it's a police state man''), and mistaking their chi chi student sit-ins with tai chi workshops for revolution (''Occupy dahling, we're overthrowing capitalism with our jazz hands, yah?'') - then wondering why everyone else is laughing at their cluelessness and mistaking this contempt for a massive plot. All this whilst only selectively supporting actual revolutions (just like our governments). | |
| Interestingly, this seems to have been particularly the case in the anglosphere - there are spoilt clueless permateens everywhere, of course, but we do seem to have a particularly high percentage. I do wonder what the heroic International Brigades of the 1930s who went voluntarily to help fight Franco - sorry, the interventionist shills for a neocolonial crusade maaaaaan - would have thought of the contemporary Tobys and Sophies - not a lot at a guess. | |
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| 18 March 2012 10:40PM | |
| Some so-called "first person shooter" games are sponsored by the US Department of Defense, allegedly because they teach useful hand-eye co-ordination skills to potential soldiers. Actually, the training is somewhat more than just a matter of co-ordination. | |
| One such game is nominally about extraterrestrial mining. While the objective is to set up mining colonies, the colonies keep being attacked without warning by alien spaceships that have to be shot at and destroyed. Players are taught to kill instinctively without thought. | |
| Unfortunately, not everyone is a natural born killer. Some players develop neurotic emotional disorders complete with nervous ticks, short attention spans and atrophied social skills. The rest are ready to fight in America's incessant military misadventures. | |
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| 18 March 2012 10:44PM | |
| * Britain's | |
| SputnikMonroe BRITAIN'S fattest, laziest typer | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:40AM | |
| Huh. I thought it was Grand Theft Auto that was destroying 'our yoots'. Or Ozzy records. Or something. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:41AM | |
| It would be better if we could flip this around and make actual war virtual. No real people died or got hurt - all battles between people's took place in a virtual world. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:44AM | |
| The very fact you can buy a Blackwater video game is troubling enough. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:49AM | |
| Ok, but kids and men have been interested in war and fighting as leisure since the beginning of time.. | |
| I mean, is this really qualitatively different from me playing cowboys and Indians when I was a lad, from boys playing with toy soldiers in the generation before me, and kids having pretend sword fights, building model spitfires, etc ? | |
| Even most organised sports and games have their origins in some sort of military training | |
| It's simply always been a fact that military and fighting themed leisure activities have always been the most dramatic, fun and exciting for boys. | |
| Surely just the modern iteration of these longstanding tendencies, rather than any emerging conspiracy. | |
| L | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:52AM | |
| Simulators are big money even for the larger development studios and so are things like graphical and 3d developments then used for real time maps. The studios are tied in with some arms manufactures producing output for them but this is a global trade. Yes there is some propoganda pull for the video games market but its generally pretty crude a bit like the film industry or developed as part of cultural hegemony where for example it would be unacceptable to shoot US soldiers for a US audience (Look at the furore of killing a US soldier in Battlefield 3) the games simply aren't going to sell or are going to have to justify choices to the audience. There are market influences for what is a big buisness limiting creative output as in a number of industries of a similar vein. Inevitably the military and states do have an interest in a growing entertainment media as they had an intrest in film and photography it has applications beyond entertainment from advancing software development to producing simulations and virtual 3d maps that can be manipulated. 'Real life' applications are simply a byproduct as is propoganda but there has to be a question how closely this actually simply follows the trodden narrative already laid out for the medium by cultural issues of the development teams and their audiences. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:52AM | |
| Suffice it to say, I am more worried about political and cultural elites openly advocating for endless war (and lying about the same) without paying any real price. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:55AM | |
| I'd rather lose at paintball that be in the military. Getting PTSD, losing your wife and being on £22K isn't my idea of a career. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:55AM | |
| This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs. | |
| 19 March 2012 12:57AM | |
| Oh COME ON. Really? I mean seriously? | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:58AM | |
| You should never write an article if your headline question can be answered simply with "NO". | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:58AM | |
| I mean, is this really qualitatively different from me playing cowboys and Indians when I was a lad, from boys playing with toy soldiers in the generation before me, and kids having pretend sword fights, building model spitfires, etc ? | |
| The thing is that most of those games were - for the most part - played by and intended for children; yes, there were always adult collectors of model soldiers, Airfix plane makers and enthusiastic reenactors of historical battles, etc., but they were hardly a major demographic. Now the games are aimed specifically at (nominal) adults, in fact aren't even legal to be sold to children in many cases. And surely that definitely is different to previous generations. | |
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| 19 March 2012 12:59AM | |
| Read Marcuse. He wrote about the "death and leisure industries" society that we live in. Helicopters named after slaughtered native Americans and 4x4;s for picking up the kids based on battlefield vehicles. Marcuse understood the heart of darkness that underpins our so called civilisation. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:02AM | |
| More importantly what is the internet porn industry training us for? | |
| ...Apart from arm-wrestling, that is. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:03AM | |
| Generally, if a games developer also makes military sims, it'll be used as a selling point to market their game. It's an open part of the industry. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:06AM | |
| I'm glad this article has a screen grab to make it's point. The kids will be wowed and take up arms after exposure to such realistic and vibrant media manipulation. | |
| Until a government invests more than a game's studio in their efforts to corrupt minds they are wasting their time and our money! | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:08AM | |
| But Clint Eastwood films like 'Kelly's Hero's' and the speghetti westerns where intended for adults as where numerouse other films that had violence at there core. Video games though hard to compare to the film industry because of there interactive element and often non specific narrative simply enable engagement of the process at a different level. The difference between a film and a photograph if you will is similar between that of video games and film. It doesn't inherently suggest an infantalisation and violence is but one of the narratives presented by video games sports franchise ect. also being key stock. But then even considering its violent output I think it is wrong to jump to judgement there are a lot of things you can get away with in cinema you can't in video games and perhaps never will be able to. An obviouse example being the Holocaust because as a new medium it is still facing conservative voices in opposition to its developments and thus its voice as a medium. Violence isn't inherently wrong and niether is its depiction it seems alien and has being a main stay of art for pretty much the entire existance of human creativity from cave paintings to Rubens 'Massacre of the innocents' it is inaccurate to single video games out as overtly obssesed with violence or as infantalising throught its depictions when artistic output for thousands of years created by and for the viewing and plesure of adults has depicted violence. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:09AM | |
| Often thought video games like these should include civilian non-combatants, so you can get to see the little kids blown to pieces and lose points for your sloppiness. | |
| We need to decontextualize collateral damage. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:09AM | |
| thankfully i only played Horace Goes Skiing as a child and now smoke weed all day instead of being in the army | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:13AM | |
| Surely the interactivity is a new feature though? Literature and art have always dealt with the big subjects and war's one of the biggest, and have always romanticised them to some degree, but they were never previously (not even in cinema) something that the audience could actively be part of, join in with, ''play'' along with. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:14AM | |
| Essentially no one plays these games. It's a distinct minority of people that would bother with games like kuma/war. Most people can distinguish between that kind of soft propaganda and pure entertainment (with a propagandist streak I think it might be safe to say) like Call of Duty and whatnot, which is vastly more popular and widely played. | |
| This is a worthwhile story but it's undermined in the eyes of anyone that knows a bit about contemporary videogames (and they're really, really popular so that's quite a lot of people) when such people read headlines like 'Are video games just propaganda and training tools for the military?', which tend towards the sensationalist (I realise that's most likely the work of a sub than the writer but the point I'm making is still valid). | |
| And the next time I'm at the water cooler and some baby boomer walks up to me and says something along the lines of 'oh yeah, video games are just training our young to be super soldiers for the military innit', then I'll know who's to blame when I'm inwardly exclaiming: 'for fuck's sake'. | |
| Where's Charlie Brooker's take on this? | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:15AM | |
| There was a total conversion for (I think) Unreal Tournament some years back called 'America's Army' which was sponsored by the US Army as a recruiting tool. It was quite realistic; the weapons didn't have mystical capabilities and if you got shot you tended to die. The point made by this game was that results came from care and teamwork, not gung-ho 'shoot anything that moves' gameplay. This is reflected in recruitment policy where selection for the forces requires a lot more from a candidate than just a willingness to be cannon fodder. | |
| These games are simulators and they can be used for entertainment or for training. The line is blurred. Personally I'd be a lot happier if the military and the people they're fighting could slog it out in a MMOG and leave the rest of us in peace to live our lives. | |
| (..and you've not even touched on the similarity of a flight simulator program and something with an armed Predator on the other end.) | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:17AM | |
| what the hell are you on about? | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:26AM | |
| From their website it looks like Kuma Games are trying to convince America's youth to be soldiers, or dinosaur hunters, or leopards :? | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:36AM | |
| No I think its an old feture if anything only recently has art become something you didn't have to engage with or work for. For a long time story telling was pretty much the only medium open to the vast majority of people that may be considered art beyound what they could create themselves or craft on a small scale within communities or what wealthy patrons provided. Story telling as an artform and a trully mass one for a long period of its history has being interactive it required engagement with a listener. Epic poems like the 'Illiad' a great telling of war provide a lot of the cultural baggage for the entire of europe and one of those key tales that gets replicated was originally reliant on listeners because it wasn't written down but consined to memory. It was lyrical and a process that required participation. The same with drama only in recent memory has theatre become a passive experience classically audiences engaged where loud and unruley. This is a culture that continues in some theatre and in some parts of the world culturally through cinema with the audience actively in disscussion whilst events unfold before them rounding the experience off as a communal and interactive experience. Interactivity in art is very old and is essential after all a lot of it is about engagement and the demonstration of skills to create engagement with an audience. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:37AM | |
| As a gamer I can safely say that America's Army 3 is a buggy piece of shit and if anyone decides to join up on the strength of that particular game then I'd argue it's natural selection in action. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:40AM | |
| Military entertainments are part of male life, its as simple as that. | |
| People who actually play games like Steel Beasts are not indicative of gamers, they tend to be hard-core Walts who dress up in uniforms to play their over-priced, shoddy-graphics bore-fests. Call of Duty is no more a recruiting tool for the army than Strictly Come Dancing is a recruiter for the Royal Ballet. | |
| I've been playing Rome: Total War for nearly ten years, at no point have I felt the need to oppress a Carthaginian | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:40AM | |
| There was a game donkies years ago called America's Army produced by the military and released to the general public. Sooooo hardly closed doors stuff. It's really taken you about 10 years for you to hear about this? Have you been living under a rock? | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:41AM | |
| Well this is a load of crap. | |
| How can the fact that America's Army exists be evidence of video games brainwashing kids? Yeah, it's a propoganda tool. But it also happens to be awful. You need a gaming PC for it (which most won't have), and its a frustrating, clunky mess. Kids won't play it. | |
| The comparison between a playstation controller and the Challenger controls is laughable. Who knows, maybe they chose that shape because it's ergonomic? I mean, every other controller uses a similar shape. Which is besides the fact there's no way that thing handles like a dual shock. Did you know that UAV drones are often controlled with Xbox 360 controllers. Is it because it's durable, ergonomic and precise, or is there an evil agenda behind it all? | |
| Most military games are awful and sold in the same way awful action movies are sold and might influence kids (who shouldn't even be playing them in the first place). The only "mass market" shooter which is comparable to what you're saying is Call of Duty, and even then any idiot can see it's hardly indicative of reality, and has only taken the Michael Bay mass market route very recently. | |
| And there are TONS of military simulators. ARMA is incredible, and I'm just getting into the DCS series. They do everything you described Steel Beasts does, except far more realisticly. Technically, if I were to join the Russian airforce I'd be able to fly a Ka-50 right now. Do I have any intention of doing so? No. | |
| The few propaganda games that do exist are all awful, the only mass market pseudo propaganda tools are barely so, and the actual games that would be considered "training" are brutally difficult (and hence your average joe would give up on pretty quickly), typically neutral and focus entirely on simulation with no narrative, and quickly teach you that you probably wouldn't want to be in a war. I remember my first time playing Operation Flashpoint when I was about 10 and getting killed as soon as I popped my head over a hill, and had to start the 30 minutes I lost all over again and didn't even get to fire a shot. I'd say that'll tell any kid more about war. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:47AM | |
| It's been pretty clear for the passt decade or two that the main purpose of war games is to teach a new generation how to fight battles and become desensitised to death and destruction Seriously? You think that games like COD prepares people to go to war, to actually kill people and remain calm whilst under fire. | |
| Clearly you never have and probably will never have the nerve to put on a uniform and do that job. Nothing can prepare you for being shot at. | |
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| 19 March 2012 1:52AM | |
| Could I be a dinosaur hunter leopard with a big honking gun that can shoot camels from space in their ships before they dock and steal all our cheese? | |
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| 19 March 2012 2:01AM | |
| anything you want birthday boy | |
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| 19 March 2012 2:09AM | |
| So they create, distribute, play and posess these games that openly condone and inspire and support violence - violence against people, violence against armies, vilolence against other nations. | |
| How come the irraidiated people of the West not aware of these but so aware of how much violence the Koran asks for - everyone posting in message boards, dialling to talkback radios or coming as "experts" in TV channels seem to know that these days. How come the great peace-loving people of the West cannot get rid of this evil from their own youth's mindset? | |
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| 19 March 2012 2:22AM | |
| Yeah, kids never played cowboys and Indians before. It never happened. | |
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| 19 March 2012 2:24AM | |
| Read Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card for the future of wargames. | |
| I'll stick to Civ IV. | |
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| 19 March 2012 2:28AM | |
| Crump laughs when recalling the mechanical tank trainers he used in the early 90s, as well as the Laserdisc system used for training on the Challenger 2 tank, back in 1998. "We asked: 'Why aren't these things on CDs or a flash drive?'" | |
| First flash drives appeared on the market in 2000. And those were puny, no way they would have held a full game. | |
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| 19 March 2012 2:58AM | |
| I skimmed through this looking for a single credible or respected game. I didn't find one. What a stunningly, disgusting Daily Mail level of shoddy, fact-free, exploitative rubbish. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:18AM | |
| Hmmm... I was invited to a conference on art and technology in the early nineties where there was much discussion of blue skies research into various technologies all of which clearly had military applications. The speakers were definitely at the creepy end of the scale. Rather put me off the direction I was moving in at that time. | |
| Leonardo Da Vinci's got a lot to answer for. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:20AM | |
| The SuperPope= | |
| I've been playing Rome: Total War for nearly ten years, at no point have I felt the need to oppress a Carthaginian __________________________ | |
| Liar !!!!!!!!! | |
| P.S. Total war is an awesome franchise. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:20AM | |
| I can't believe the conservative scaremongering comments on here, especially not among educated Guardian readers - your reactions are identical to the horrified over-exaggerated reactions against new media like comic books, rock music, television that have come before. There has been a huge quantity of genuine medical research on the link between computer games and violence, you'll be glad to hear that you can stop posting apocalyptic comments because no clear link has been found. | |
| Computer games challenge people's minds, of course there is ridiculous violence (as in all media) but there are incredible educational challenges that open your mind to whole new ways of thinking, games where you have to control the flow of time to solve puzzles (Braid), games where you have to manipulate space with transdimensional portals (Portal 2), strategy games that require intense multitasking abilities (Starcraft 2), and so many games that are social friendly activities. There's so much for humankind to benefit from here and young people know that. Computer games are here to stay. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:21AM | |
| I can't believe the conservative scaremongering comments on here, especially not among educated Guardian readers - your reactions are identical to the horrified over-exaggerated reactions against new media like comic books, rock music, television that have come before. There has been a huge quantity of genuine medical research on the link between computer games and violence, you'll be glad to hear that you can stop posting apocalyptic comments because no clear link has been found. | |
| Computer games challenge people's minds, of course there is ridiculous violence (as in all media) but there are incredible educational challenges that open your mind to whole new ways of thinking, games where you have to control the flow of time to solve puzzles (Braid), games where you have to manipulate space with transdimensional portals (Portal 2), strategy games that require intense multitasking abilities (Starcraft 2), and so many games that are social friendly activities. There's so much for humankind to benefit from here and young people know that. Computer games are here to stay. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:25AM | |
| Military involved in games related to military. Almost as bloodcurdling as FIFA involved in FIFA 2011....... | |
| So, the televised confession. Do any of my Guardian friends think that the previous discussion with the fellow involved slightly more than some feathers tickling his feet.....? | |
| Come on people. Must do much better than this article. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:34AM | |
| An entire article based only on a single statement that was most likely obtained through torture. Shame on you. | |
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| 19 March 2012 3:40AM | |
| The next generation soldiers will all be sitting at home scoffing burgers and fries, directing drones and missiles and robots while downing copious quantities of Coca Cola. | |
| Saves a lot in barracks and training and drill and all that expensive stuff, so why not get in early and train them when they are kids. | |
| Makes good sense to me! | |
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| 19 March 2012 4:01AM | |
| "We asked: 'Why aren't these things on CDs or a flash drive?'" | |
| Because some plonker would leave it in a pub? | |
| But seriously, the delivery medium is irrelevant. It's the content that counts. | |
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| Comments on this page are now closed. | |
| Modern Warfare 3: what does it take to work on the world's biggest game? | |
| 4 Nov 2011 | |
| Keith Stuart: We talk to six members of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 development teams at Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer Games about their roles. And what skills would you need to work on a cinematic military shooter? | |
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| War games | |
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| Steve Boxer: Parents of teenagers need not fear the latest war videogame – and stopping them playing it could lead to some classic tantrums | |
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| It's a shadowy and lucrative relationship. But just how close are video-game developers with various military outfits? And how does it affect the games we play? | |
| It's Monday night, the kids are in bed, and I am trying to kill Osama bin Laden. I stalk through his Abbottabad compound and I aim my rifle at the first person I see, only to discover he's my brother in arms, aka "OverdoseRocks". So I walk downstairs into a prayer room, at which point my gun accidentally goes off. Then the mission is over. We were victorious. | |
| Next, I join US servicemen during the 2007 surge in Iraq. For about three minutes I kick about a palm-lined boulevard, strafing apartment buildings. I am ambushed. In my dying moments, I am presented with an advert for a game in which I can embody a cheetah and kill an antelope, but I have had enough bloodshed for one evening. | |
| I have been on the Kuma Games site, an online entertainment developer and, according to reports on Iranian television, an international distributor of military propaganda. Kuma produces a range of games, from second world war air-battle shoot-'em-ups for the History Channel, through to the carnivore-themed I Predator, a tie-in for the cable station Animal Planet. Yet it's the company's Kuma\War series of topical military games, as well as a more discreet line of Arabic-language first-person shooter games, that have piqued media attention. During a televised confession on Iranian TV, alleged US agent and former marine Amir Mirzai Hekmati said he had worked for Kuma, and it was a CIA front company. | |
| Though his words cannot be regarded as the unvarnished truth, publicly available government documents indicate that Hekmati had been a Kuma employee, while Kuma's CEO, Keith Halper, admits to taking on military work. If his words are true, Kuma\War are only one of a number of bloody titles produced under varying degrees of military aegis. | |
| In 2001 Syria's Afkar Media published Under Ash, in which players take on the role of Palestinians fighting off an Israeli assault; they followed this in 2005 with Under Siege, and in 2008 non-violent children's game Road Block Buster, in which players take on the role of "'Maan' the boy with a thousand way[s] to get over any barrier or road block implanted by Israeli Defense forces". In 2003, developers linked to Hezbollah entered the market with a Special Force series, a set of PC war games set in Lebanon. | |
| In 2007, Iran's Association of Islamic Unions of Students released Special Operation 85: Hostage Rescue; a first-person-shooter game wherein players aim to free two Iranian nuclear scientists kidnapped by the US. The game was published in response to Kuma's Assault on Iran, which was based around a US assault on an Iranian nuclear facility. | |
| There are also more formal offerings from the world's leading powers. America's Army, a free online simulator, was published by the US military in 2002 to aid recruitment. The British army launched their online game Start Thinking Soldier in 2009, to drive interest among 16- to 24-year-olds. Then in May last year, China's People's Liberation Army unveiled Glorious Revolution, a Call of Duty-style game for both military and domestic markets. | |
| This is all in addition to numerous game-like training tools, from language apps through to tank-driving tutorials, which are used to educate recruits around the globe. | |
| "For decades the military has been using video-game technology," says Nina Huntemann, associate professor of communication and journalism at Suffolk University in Boston and a computer games specialist. "Every branch of the US armed forces and many, many police departments are using retooled video games to train their personnel." | |
| Like much of early computing, nascent digital gaming benefited from military spending. The prototype for the first home video games console, the 1972 Magnavox Odyssey, was developed by Sanders Associates, a US defence contractor. Meanwhile, pre-digital electronic flight simulators, for use in both military and civilian training, date back to at least the second world war. | |
| Later, the games industry began to repay its debts. Many insiders note how instruments in British Challenger 2 tanks, introduced in 1994, look uncannily like the PlayStation's controllers, one of the most popular consoles of that year. Indeed, warfare's use of digital war games soared towards the end of the 20th century. | |
| "By the late 1990s," says Nick Turse, an American journalist, historian and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives, "the [US] army was pouring tens of millions of dollars into a centre at the University of Southern California – the Institute of Creative Technologies – specifically to build partnerships with the gaming industry and Hollywood." | |
| It's a toxic relationship in Turse's opinion, since gaming leads to a reliance on remote-controlled warfare, and this in turn makes combat more palatable. | |
| "Last year," says Turse, "the US conducted combat missions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. There are a great many factors that led to this astonishing number of simultaneous wars, but the increasing use of drones, and thus a lower number of US military casualties that result, no doubt contributed to it." | |
| Many closer to the action take a different view. Justin Crump served in the British army for seven years and has been a reservist since the early 90s; he saw active duty in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. Prior to enlisting, Crump was also a keen gamer. | |
| "I learned my tactics playing games in the 80s," he says. "In the recruitment interview I said I'd been flying simulators for a few years." | |
| While Crump recognises the military's involvement in early games development, he believes the computer industry has outpaced military simulators. | |
| "With 30-year procurement programmes, you'll be spec'ing simulators in the 80s and 90s," he says. Imagine ordering Space Invaders to be played in the Xbox era, and you realise why the British military has had to improve some of its simulated training to keep the attention of new recruits. | |
| Crump laughs when recalling the mechanical tank trainers he used in the early 90s, as well as the Laserdisc system used for training on the Challenger 2 tank, back in 1998. "We asked: 'Why aren't these things on CDs or a flash drive?'" | |
| For a taste of how war games and armies might work best, try Steel Beasts. Developed by eSim, an American firm with ex-US and European army personnel, Steel Beasts is perhaps the world's most successful tank-training simulator. "We wanted to develop a computer game that would be both entertaining and educational," says Nils Hinrichsen, eSim's marketing director, "which at the same time would offer a bit of 'trigger time', but with accurate procedures and ballistics." | |
| Hinrichsen admits that Steel Beasts won't exactly top gamers' Christmas present lists. Yet it runs on PCs, allows users to edit their maps and layout, and has playback facilities, so players can learn from their mistakes. eSim charges armies a fee for customising the game to suit their vehicles so that it can be used for training. These adaptations are then included in subsequent versions of the game – which means they are available to other armies. | |
| Until now most militaries have bought bespoke simulators tied to particular weaponry, "and woe betide the army that changes specifications in mid-stream," says Hinrichsen. Instead, Steel Beasts can be fitted to suit any new armoured vehicle. Since its introduction in 2000, the game has been used by the US military and the armies of Australia, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the Canadian air force. | |
| From a certain point of view, any link between the games system in your child's bedroom and automated killing on the battlefield is grossly distasteful. Yet, if you accept the need for standing armies, and believe in the efficiencies of information technology, then it's hard to view Steel Beasts as anything other than a canny application of processing power. | |
| It's quite different from Kuma\War games, which Huntemann calls "'soft propaganda', in the same way that Top Gun or John Wayne war films are soft propaganda". She also questions whether glitzy online games really drive gamers towards the frontline. "When you look why people enlist," she says, "it is overwhelmingly tied to history of military service in the family, socio-economic status and the current state of the economy." | |
| Crump agrees. "I find some of the modern first-person shooters ridiculous," he says. "If people joining are expecting that sort of thing they are going to be disappointed." | |
| He questions whether those drawn to blameless gore even aspire to a life of service. Recalling a trip to a paint-balling range with some army friends, he says: "There were some other really tooled-up guys there, and they didn't know we were military." Crump put it to the opposing side that, if they enjoyed firing guns, they should enlist. "They said: 'No, too dangerous, wouldn't want to,'" he recalls, quite surprised by their response. Yet he wasn't so startled by the outcome. | |
| How did those weapons-loving gamers do against him at paintball? | |
| "They lost." |