The Political Games Surrounding Video Games

Rayonic writes "We all know the issue surrounding those who want to ban violent games, but a TechCentralStation editorial asks - can playing war games influence your political sensibilities? The media, for instance, are usually very ignorant of what goes on during military maneuvers. But a few days of playing Ghost Recon or America's Army might make you more knowledgeable than the average reporter (or even lawmaker), as the writer argues that 'the spread of military knowledge via wargaming might lead to political changes in the way war is perceived by Americans'."

Comments

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori

[Ford Prefect]

I noticed that too - I've become worryingly adept at identifying types of gun, and I'm an pacifist from the UK whose only real-world sightings of guns are of those carried by the police officers at airports. I'm hugely pro-gun-control, partially because I've seen vaguely realistic simulations of what these devices can do. Point, pull trigger, kill. Reload.

I sometimes wonder if politicians were to play realistic, multiplayer computer games, they'd perhaps get an inkling of what actually goes on in warfare and the utter, horrible randomness of it all, and perhaps be a bit more hesitant in sending in the troops.

Unlike books and films, there's no viewer-friendly plot - you can very easily get taken out by a sniper, or be shot in the gut by a teenager who was hiding behind a door with an AK47. There's no writer in the background keeping the characters alive for a happy ending or a sufficiently poignant death. It's just - bang! All the heroics and all the training in the world can't always protect you from a wannabe teenage martyr with an assault rifle.

But in real life there's no respawn. You're just another number on the news, just another box on a plane.

Sweet and fitting? Bullshit.