Army Opens New Office of Videogames 174
An anonymous reader writes "For the first time, the Army has set up a project office, just for building videogames. The military has been training troops with games for decades, of course. But this is the first wing of the armed forces dedicated exclusively for gaming. One of the first projects: a tool kit that would let soldiers "build and customize their own training scenarios — just like the Marines' did, adapting Armed Assault for military purposes."
Maybe I'll join back up... (Score:1, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, my time in the Army was great and all but it's not for me. Also real combat is just a tinsy bit different from America's Army. You do die easily in the game though and that is realistic of real combat involving infantry on both sides. Can't go rushing in or you die.
Customizing is good. (Score:3, Insightful)
Then the real training started.
Re:Maybe I'll join back up... (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Quick, Someone Call Jack Thompson... (Score:1, Insightful)
Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Sadly, you've got a point (Score:3, Insightful)
Which you won't be learning if you play by yourself.
Re:The first thing the headline brought to mind (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mr General Pops Up (Score:3, Insightful)
1. The U.S. army is fighting "terrorists" rather than domestic insurgencies.
2. Killing civilians is ok so long as it is in pursuit of "terrorists".
And, by implication, you appear to be arguing that it is morally justifiable to kill innocent people simply because guilty people use them (against their will) as human shields.
Just thought that observation was worth making.
Re:Mr General Pops Up (Score:3, Insightful)
Take the case of Afghanistan. Towns and villages are important militarily and that is why both the Taliban and US forces regularly pass through them or set up positions in them. The mere presence of a military force in a town does not mean they are "hiding behind civilians" although it certainly can endanger residents. A while ago a US solider being interviewed in Afghanistan described how he and his men had been ordered to set up position in a village. The villagers protested and wanted them to leave because they knew it made the situation more dangerous for them. The soldier radioed back to base and told them they were not welcome, but they told him to proceed as ordered. He then described how the whole village just packed up and left rather than remain in that situation.
Now imagine that the villagers never left that village because they were afraid looters would steal everything, and that the Taliban spot the US soldiers and start a mortar attack. If that mortar attack kills 10 civilians as well as soldiers, can the Taliban just use the excuse that the Americans were "hiding behind the civilians"? If the Taliban had air power, they would no doubt be bombing US occupied towns and villages and using a similar "hiding behind civilians" excuse.
The truth is that civilians do not seem to count for much these days. Western governments would rather lose 10 civilians than one soldier because military deaths are more politically costly than civilian deaths, especially if they are foreigners a long distance away. Normally the media do not make much of a fuss when foreign civilians die, its just a statistic. If they do make a fuss though, the politicians/military will just try to shift the blame onto the enemy in some way, often using the "hiding behind civilians" line. Sometimes they can even get away with labelling the civilians as combatants. It really is a case of sacrificing civilians to keep military casualties down.
The picture would of course change completely if western civilians were involved. If the government was seen to place the lives of soldiers above the lives of western civilians, there really would be widespread outrage. Imagine that armed terrorists had taken up position in a small US town. Do you think the President would order the town to be bombed from the air, possibly killing dozens of civilians? Of course not. Instead troops would be sent in on the ground, even though it would be safer for them if the town was bombed first.
Re:Sadly, you've got a point (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Bad news (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sadly, you've got a point (Score:2, Insightful)
If they really want to teach them just to work together towards a common goal, why not use a sports simulation, like ISS or NBA or whatever... in FPS if you're good enough you can ignore your teammates, this is not true in sports simulations. Soooo those would be better to teach teamwork then an fps, right?
Re:Makes sense. (Score:5, Insightful)
How exactly do you discuss a video game made by the US Military without mentioning the political considerations? I suppose we could only closely examine the framerates on various quad-core systems but that would require us to ignore some pretty important stuff.