War Games

Propaganda? Recruiting tool? Whatever you call it, glorifying war to children is pretty screwed up :

Rather than evacuating a crew of aid workers, the Army detachment was shepherding a few dozen programmers, designers and marketers who have been working on one of the Army’s latest recruiting tools: a computer game called, simply enough, America’s Army.
[. . .]
America’s Army lets users play soldier online, band together with other Internet warriors and battle enemies in detailed 10-minute scenarios that the Army says are more realistic than any other game. It is available free for downloading at americasarmy.com.
[. . .]
Likewise, while the equipment and uniforms in the game are designed with maximum realism in mind, the same approach does not apply to other aspects of the military experience, like death and injury. In contrast to other popular computer games, in America’s Army limbs are never blown off. Instead, wounds are marked by a puff of red smoke. Maimed foes never writhe or scream in agony.

“We have a Teen rating that allows 13-year-olds to play, and in order to maintain that rating we have to adhere to certain standards,” said Chris Chambers, a retired Army major who is now the project’s deputy director. “We don’t use blood and gore and violence to entertain. That’s not the purpose of our game. But there is a death animation, there is a consequence to pulling the trigger, and we’re not sugarcoating that aspect in any way.

“We want to reach young people to show them what the Army does, and we’re obviously proud of that. We can’t reach them if we are over the top with violence and other aspects of war that might not be appropriate. It’s a choice we made to be able to reach the audience we want.”

A puff of red smoke? Why don’t they just have rainbows and unicorns fly out of the wounds?

If they really want this game to accurately reflect the military experience, they should have the game completely take over the computer so the player can’t check email, browse the web, do any work, etc. for as long as the game is in progress. Every day the player must complete a mission, regardless of what else is going on in their “real” life. The game continues like this for six to nine months or so, after which the game is in “reserve” mode and may restart itself at any time. If the player dies in the game, their harddrive is reformatted. If the player is only maimed, the screen shows nothing but a static photo from the inside of a military hospital for a few weeks and a few random keys on the keyboard stop functioning completely. Sounds pretty shitty, huh? Well, so is getting shipped off to war.


posted by greg on February 17, 2005 @ 4:11 pm

4 comments

  1. Whatever happened to ‘Hopscotch?’

    The Talent Show reviews a new ‘game’ put out by the US Army. They’re straight up about it that it’s a recruiting tool, and they kept the blood and gore to a minimum so that it would be suitable for…

    Trackback by jenniebee — February 18, 2005 @ 9:13 am

  2. And it should all end with a rave scene…

    I just heard on Democracy Now that they’re giving troops Ecstasy now to try and combat post-traumatic stress disorder…

    Comment by Mona — February 18, 2005 @ 12:48 pm

  3. Maybe there could also be a way to hack the game and go into “chickenhawk” mode, where any of these excuses can ‘end’ the game, allow you to declare “Mission Accomplished,” and prance around on an aircraft carrier. But that mode would only be available to those with political connections/money or a combination of the two…

    Comment by Michael — February 18, 2005 @ 2:40 pm

  4. There’s a story about that today in Salon. It looks like a drug trial that has been ongoing is now being extended to troops.

    Every time I see the words “post-traumatic stress disorder” I can’t help but think of George Carlin’s brilliant rant on the subject :

    There’s a condition in combat. Most people know about it. It’s when a fighting person’s nervous system has been stressed to it’s absolute peak and maximum, can’t take any more input. The nervous system has either snapped or is about to snap.

    In the first world war that condition was called shell shock. Simple, honest, direct language. Two syllables. Shell shock. Almost sounds like the guns themselves. That was 70 years ago.

    Then a whole generation went by. And the second world war came along and the very same combat condition was called battle fatigue. Four syllables now. Takes a little longer to say. Doesn’t seem to be as hard to say. Fatigue is a nicer word than shock. Shell shock…battle fatigue.

    Then we had the war in Korea in 1950. Madison Avenue was riding high by that time. And the very same combat condition was called operational exhaustion. Hey we’re up to 8 syllables now! And the humanity has been squeezed completely out of the phrase now. It’s totally sterile now. Operational Exhaustion: sounds like something that might happen to your car.

    Then of course came the war in Vietnam, which has only been over for about 16 or 17 years. And thanks to the lies and deceit surrounding that war, I guess it’s no surprise that the very same condition was called Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Still eight syllables, but we’ve added a hyphen. And the pain is completely buried under jargon. Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.

    I bet you, if we’d still been calling it shell shock, some of those Vietnam veterans might have gotten the attention they needed at the time. I bet you that.

    Comment by greg — February 18, 2005 @ 2:43 pm

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