Comments on: Xbox controllers used in the military – life mimicking art?

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:44:02 +0000

I think if you’ve got any links with the military, it seems like common sense to do this, no big deal. But to the rest of the us, it’s pretty weird to discover that some parts of some war games are actually a lot closer to reality that we realised.

By: Michael Wales

Michael Wales — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 11:39:16 +0000

So, the government hires a contractor that opts to re-purpose already developed technology (the game controllers) which, being familiar with the contracting world, I imagine they are selling to the government for a mere $300-500 rather than hiring a contractor that custom develops controllers for $3000-5000. This is just the price of the controller, we’re not counting support, training, the robot/drone/device the controller operates/etc. yet.

I’m failing to see the issue here…

By: Joseph McCullough

Joseph McCullough — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 18:48:18 +0000

I’m an avid FPS fan, though I tend to stick to more unrealistic games like Left 4 Dead and Halo. However, seeing the COD4 compared with the real thing really did freak me out. And the fact that controllers my brother and I use to play super mario are also being used to destroy…it’s kind of surreal, I don’t think I can actually take it all in yet.

By: Jungle Strike (Genesis) retrospective « The Gamesylvania Blog

Jungle Strike (Genesis) retrospective « The Gamesylvania Blog — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 11:38:23 +0000

[...] Xbox controllers used in the millitary – life mimicking art? (90percentofeverything.com) [...]

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:53:38 +0000

Thanks for the link to Ender’s Game, Kris! It’s funny to see that it’ll be coming out as an Xbox game later this year… now where did I put my tin-foil hat?

By: Kris

Kris — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 22:03:54 +0000

“…technology has advanced to the point that allows us to design weapons of war that are almost indistinguishable in use from children’s toys.”

Very interesting post! I don’t want to get all sci-fi on you, but this made me think about the novel “Ender’s Game.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_game

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 08:20:17 +0000

I didn’t really mean to get a discussion about whether violent games might be desensitising kids.

The point I was trying to make was that some levels in some games are uncannily realistic. In the case of the two clips above, the utterances of the air crew are verbatim in places, and the scenario is almost the same – in the real clip they are told not to hit a mosque, but only the people nearby. In the game, they are told not to hit a church. It’s obvious the game designers have worked hard to base the level on this exact footage. This is a bit weird. What’s even weirder is the fact that the very same game controllers are now being used in the military. Art imitating life imitating art.

If this trend continues, then you could argue that at some point in the future, gameplay control skills and real-life military vehicle / weapon control skills might be almost identical. This is a strange thing to consider. A big win for army recruitment and training, anyway.

By: Cennydd

Cennydd — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:17:33 +0000

Interesting post as always Harry, but I feel I have to speak in defence of the games developers when you say “most kids will associate footage like this with harmless play, massively dissociated from reality.”

Kids shouldn’t be playing these games: Call of Duty 4 has a 16+ PEGI rating and Modern Warfare 2 is a BBFC 18 certificate. I don’t subscribe to the notion that violent games are desensitising today’s youth. If there is laxness in the system it is the fault of parents and retailers, not the developers, who have as much right and imperative to dramatise extreme situations as do filmmakers.