From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games

US Army Sniper School in Halo

 

One of my students at Bard, Andy K----, told me he heard a rumor that the US Army was offering sniper training in Halo 3...I'm not an Xbox Live guy so I did some digging on the internet.

At 405th.com, poster Sean Bradley says that

On the XBL dashboard I've noticed a few little ads of a cross promotion between Halo 3 and the US Army referring to a sweepstakes and Halo 3 Sniper Training video series. I couldn't find the vids located anywhere in the marketplace, just through a clickable ad that occasionally appeared in the dashboard. Last night I accessed the ad, and it took me to a page in the dash that had four videos to download as well as a pic you download to enter the sweepstakes. I DL'ed two of the vids (XBL was running crazy slow so I didn't have time to get them all) and it was really informative.

Bradley says the vids are

1. Know Your Weapon (overview of long range weapon efficiency in H3)
2. Sniper School Beginners Tactics
3. Sniper School Intermediate Tactics
4. Sniper School Advanced Tactics

A Halo blog posts directions for finding the vids on Xbox Live.

You can find the first of them posted to YouTube. Note the "just like in real life" comparisons.

 

(The most disturbing thing about this video is that the narrator appears to be Canadian. Americans do not pronounce their "t"'s so sharply. Government funded agencies shouldn't be supporting the aggressive Canadian dollar.)

Here's the listing for the US Army Sniper School contest on Xbox's site. This contest is closed, but now there's a US Army Heavy Weapons contest. For both contests, players need to register their gamertag for a chance to win limited edition Halo merch.

Clearly Halo 3 is being targeted by the Army as a primer marketing venue. See:

+ An older Army/Microsoft co-lab: A blogger at Gemaga.com posted Microsoft's press release for the US Army's sponsorship of the first Halo Championship Tournament.

+ Gamepolitics reports back in September 07: "Military Recruiters Snag Underage Players at Halo 3 Launch Bash"

America's Army: SUV Responder

Wired links to a story on the America's Army official site about 28-year-old Paxton Galvanek of Silver Spring, Maryland, who claims that his in-game combat medic training helped him respond to and treat victims at a car accident last November. According to AA's site, "This is the second time an America's Army player has reported successfully using medical skills learned through playing the game to respond in a life-threatening situation. "

Link: Man Imitates America's Army, Saves Lives, Wired.com (via eyeteeth's del.icio.us feed)

US Navy Filled with Pot-Smoking Nerds, Apparently

The US Navy's 15th Helicopter Mine Countermeasures Squadron is apparently rife with geeks: Kotaku points out this military patch that features the Halo plasma sword as part of its heraldic crest.

(Considering their choice of Steppenwolf's "Magic Carpet Ride" for their official Operation Iraqi Freedom video montage, one assumes they're full of aged stoners too.)

Link: Halo: Halo Celebrated In Military Heraldry.

Army Organizes New Video Game Office

Wired reports that the Army is setting up a new office devoted to video games.  TPO Gaming  "will focus on using videogame graphics to make those dull military simulations more realistic, and better-looking." 

According to Training & Simulation Journal, the Army hopes TPO Gaming can centralize and streamline the use of gaming for training:

The creation of TPO Gaming comes as senior Army leaders worry that units are heading down to Best Buy to purchase video games for training. Maffey expressed concern at a recent conference that units were spending their training funds to acquire commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) games. “Units should not have to spend training dollars to purchase training simulations,” he said. “If Army units are expending training funds to purchase games, there is probably an unfilled training requirement.”

“We do not want to tell the commanders in the field they cannot spend money and train with games. However, we do want to ensure that commanders get the best training tools and that the Army spends its limited resources wisely in the procurement of those tools,” Maffey added.

Millar said units should approach TPO Gaming with their requirements rather than go out and buy games. “I don’t have the authority to tell commanders what they can and cannot do. But what I do have is the responsibility to speak for the Army on what gaming technology fills which gap.

(Via Selectparks)

Games for Troops

Worth spreading the word on Veterans Day!

Gamepolitics highlights a new nonprofit called Fun For Our Troops, created by military wives, that passes video games on to US troops. The group was recently profiled in the Bucks County Courier Times. They're looking for money, gift cards, and donations of game devices from 2005 or newer.

From the group's website:

Our founder, Stefanie Shea, recently married SGT Michael Shea who became stop-lossed and is now serving his second tour in Iraq with the 101st Airborne Division. Despite his contract expiring mere weeks after he was scheduled to deploy, SGT Shea was sent overseas to serve the entire fifteen-month deployment. He, like many others, will miss two Halloweens, two Thanksgivings, and two Christmases, and two New Years. Stefanie wanted to do something special for her husband and the other service men and women serving overseas. After speaking with her husband, Stefanie learned that what the service men and women truly need is fun, relaxation, and an overall way to decompress. Luckily, the high-tech game systems of the 21st century can do just that! Stefanie embarked on a grassroots campaign to send these systems overseas to deserving troops. Stefanie asked Dana Brady, to lend her expertise to the cause. Dana partnered with Stefanie to establish "Fun for Our Troops," a non-profit organization (501c3 status pending). Dana has a special connection to our troops, as her husband, Jason M. Brady served in the First Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment and still has many friends in the military.

 

Link: GamePolitics.com » Blog Archive » Military Wives Form Non-Profit to Equip Troops with Video Games.

Quartering Soldiers

Seems that the America's Army brand is coming to arcades—after branching out into mobile, action figures, t-shirts, et cetera.

Comment from one poster on Arcade Heroes blog: "I expect that these games will be heavily vandalized."

For those of you reading along at home, check out pp. 140-5 of the book. In the 80s, military recruiters hit the arcades for some Last Starfighter style solicitation, so this is like full circle.

Link: America’s Army Coming to Arcades « Arcade Heroes.

R&R meets D&D

Ziggurat Con: Skedded for June 9, It'll be the first Dungeons and Dragons convention to take place in a country at war.  Named after the nearby city of Ur and "open to all allied military personnel and civilian contractors in Iraq."

Geeks who want to support our troops can donate 20-sided die and other materials for the effort.

Link: Ziggurat Con - The World's First War Zone Game Convention? | Gamegrene.com. (tipped off by Andrew Wearing)

Army Goes Casual

Dunno when these went up, but the Army's recruitment site GoArmy.com now has a set of Army-branded casual games available for potential enlistees looking to kill some time.

There's a very simple football game, a rifle marksmanship game, a "Patriot Missile launch simulator" and a more elaborate "Blackhawk Challenge."

As relatively basic flash games, there's not much here akin to the much-touted realism of America's Army. These titles present a much more distant relationship to real-world affairs. The football game is an extension of the branding benefits provided by Army athletics, and the Patriot missle game is rather abstract. The marksmanship game, for example, involves synching up two moving lines into a crosshair. Though I found this rather fun, I certainly hope there aren't any actual firing systems that work this way.

Link: GoArmy.com > Games & Downloads > Games.

Take it to the Next Level

A new Army ad targets gamers. Not obliquely, but head on:

Reminds me of an anecdote I found for the book about military recruiters haunting arcades in the 80s, giving joystick warriors free Cokes and quarters, then telling them they had stuff just like that but cooler in the service.

Noted on Joystiq, but emailed to me by Scott Jon Siegel

Nukes and Cyber-War

Interesting interview over at Guardian Gamesblog with Malcom Davis, a lecturer in Defense Studies with the Defense Studies Department of King's College London on how well military video games compare to the real thing.

Which weapons from current warfare don't seem to be used in videogames in your opinion? Why do you think that is?

I think one type of warfare missing from computer games, which may be used in the future is the weapons of mass destruction or effect (WMD/E) including chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and enhanced-explosive (aka CBRNE). These are proliferating at an accelerating rate, and there is greater risk that rogue states - such as Iran or North Korea - with access to such capabilities would use them in future wars to offset the technological superiority of Western military forces, or potentially transfer such capabilities to non-state actors like terrorist groups. In every sim I have tried (be it on PC or XBox 360) I have yet to see this type of warfare represented, or seen friendly forces having to take precautions against its use.

Interesting that these weapons haven't entered gaming, although there are of course nukes in Civilization and probably a few RTS games. Wonder if its because it would be too much of a "wild card" to the gameplay? Cuts into the notion of heroics?

Also interesting is his take on cyberwarfare:

In the lead-up to the 1999 Kosovo Conflict, and the 2003 Iraq War, Western military information systems came under intense cyber-attacks from hackers either within the Serb and Iraqi militaries, or contracted by their respective governments. The Chinese and the Taiwanese regularly engage in cyberwarfare exchanges across the Taiwanese Strait. China has 'People's Information Warfare Battalions' whose sole job it is to wage cyberwar against China's opponents. Cyberwar is going to be a key aspect of future conflicts as we are information-dependent and an enemy, which may not be so information dependent, can use cyberwar to launch strategic attacks on this opponent's military and society.

Now that would be an interesting game, although it wouldn't really allow for the macho cinematics of most military titles.

 

Link: "What is missing is the chaos of battle": what a military expert thinks about modern combat games from Guardian Unlimited: Gamesblog.