If you’ve played either of the recent Call of Duty “Modern Warfare” games, you’ll be aware of the disturbingly realistic air attacks you can carry out on other players.
Call of Duty 4 (Computer game):
It seems that the grainy monochrome footage is easy to mimic on an Xbox 360 or PS3. The first time I saw footage like this was on CNN during the first Gulf war. It was horrible. Today, most kids will associate footage like this with harmless play, massively dissociated from reality. I really recommend taking a look at both videos – the similarities are staggering.
Real life:
What you may not know is that modified Xbox 360 controllers are used to control military hardware in real life. This isn’t “new” news – wired ran an article on it back in 2008. Around that time, the British army ran an TV Ad that showed a soldier controlling a UAV (Unmanned Air Vehicle) using a modified Xbox 360 Controller.
Still from British Army TV ad
The army later confirmed that this was indeed real hardware, though, somewhat amusingly, were quick to point out that they had removed the Microsoft branding. There are some more examples of game console controlers used in the military here, here and here.
A spokesperson from Rayethon (An American defence system manufacturer – who make cruise missiles among other things) was quoted here as saying “We feel we have to take advantage of the fact that all the kids are growing up with video games”. In the same article, another system vendor was quoted as proudly stating “If you can use an Xbox, you can use this”.
I can’t imagine the games console designers being happy about their work being used in military applications. Still, there’s not much they can do about it. If it’s an effective control device that requires minimal training then it’s inevitably going to get appropriated.
More Xbox controllers in the millitary. Image credit: Popular Mechanics
Through the history of humanity, boys have played with toy spears and swords – I suppose this is just a natural continuation, and nothing out of the ordinary. What’s weird is that now, for the first time, technology has advanced to the point that allows us to design weapons of war that are almost indistinguishable in use from children’s toys. Stranger than fiction.
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.
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.
“…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
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?
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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.
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…
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.
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