http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/08/03/1028157861740.html
Fight to the death: military versus the modder
By Katharine Neil,
Sydney Morning
Herald,
Raid terrorist training camps, gun down Middle Eastern
terrorists masquerading as refugees with your M16 and then discover proof that
"a foreign power is involved in acts of terrorism".
The United States Army invites you to fight alongside it in
the war on terror, from the comfort of your own home.
On the Fourth of July the US Army launched the computer
game,
But surely this is about more than promoting the army to
potential recruits. It's a cultural intervention to capture the "hearts
and minds" of
There's nothing new about playing soldier in games. A
popular example is the game Counter-strike, where players confront each other
as squads of terrorists and counter-terrorists.
With combat modelled by expert consultants on offer, it's no
surprise that some games industry journalists speculate that the US Army's take
on counter-terrorism could supplant Counter-strike as the world's most popular
online shooter.
To get an idea of what the cultural impact of this might be,
walk into any Internet cafe and ask what the kids are doing there. All over the
world, the answer will most likely be "playing Counter-strike".
The video games industry inspires incredible loyalty and
passion in its "game fans". But can a mass game-fan base translate
into a mass fan base for war? Is this the most brilliant tactic of its kind
since the Hitler Youth?
One might expect politicians and interest groups to be
kicking up a fuss.
The army's computer game is a weapon honed for fighting its
war on the ideological front.
Some clever strategist in the Pentagon has been having wet
dreams for months about this image: millions of American kids battling it out
online in virtual solidarity with their real-life counterparts engaged in the
ground assault on
In No Logo, Naomi Klein describes how carefully a
corporation constructs an image or "brand", and the more it thrusts
this intangible asset into public space, the more fragile and open to attack
the corporation's assets become. Culture-jammers can
use the corporation's branding strategy against it, because "any time people
mess with a logo, they are tapping into the vast resources spent to make that
logo meaningful" to uncover "the deeper truth hiding beneath the
layers".
In a sense, the army is constructing a "brand" in
order to conquer youth-market "mindshare" similar to the way Nike
constructed a mythology out of sportswear. It has rendered itself vulnerable by
taking its "brand" into a subculture where it has little experience.
The gaming world is a cultural "Wild West" where
nothing is sacred. Politically incorrect games such as Grand Theft Auto 3 lie
at the core of mainstream gaming. It's common for a PC game to end up cracked
and on a warez site shortly after release,
and gamers are actively modifying commercial games, legally and illegally.
"There are thousands of people who have the time and
the energy to use any hint or scrap of data left in any game project in order
to crack its secrets," according to one experienced modder
I talked to.
Gamers have already discovered cheat codes and a way to
modify the
Just as the hacktivist movement
came out of growing political awareness in hacker circles, could a similar
subculture emerge from within the game modding scene?
If it does,
But I have to salute the United States Army as well, for
being the first major public institution to recognise the video game as an important
cultural medium. It has approached the game as a conduit for ideas, not merely
the basis of a profitable industry.
Frightening as it is,
The author is a sound designer and programmer for the
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