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Thousands of Videogame-Playing Soldiers Could Shape the Future of War (theatlantic.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the war-games dept.

An anonymous reader quotes the Atlantic: As far as video games go, Operation Overmatch is rather unremarkable. Players command military vehicles in eight-on-eight matches against the backdrop of rendered cityscapes -- a common setup of games that sometimes have the added advantage of hundreds of millions of dollars in development budgets. Overmatch does have something unique, though: its mission. The game's developers believe it will change how the U.S. Army fights wars. Overmatch's players are nearly all soldiers in real life. As they develop tactics around futuristic weapons and use them in digital battle against peers, the game monitors their actions.

Each shot fired and decision made, in addition to messages the players write in private forums, is a bit of information soaked up with a frequency not found in actual combat, or even in high-powered simulations without a wide network of players. The data is logged, sorted, and then analyzed, using insights from sports and commercial video games. Overmatch's team hopes this data will inform the Army's decisions about which technologies to purchase and how to develop tactics using them, all with the aim of building a more forward-thinking, prepared force... While the game currently has about 1,000 players recruited by word of mouth and outreach from the Overmatch team, the developers eventually want to involve tens of thousands of soldiers. This milestone would allow for millions of hours of game play per year, according to project estimates, enough to generate rigorous data sets and test hypotheses.

26 of 216 comments (clear)

  1. Yeah, totally real war! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wish there was a game, that did the oppisite of traditional shooters: Not show any of the "fun" of serial murder, but show all of the pain and suffering caused.

    Semi-dead people, bleeding like pigs, begging like children to save them. The horrible screams. So much blood and torn flesh. Your closest pals with everything below the hip ripped off. Children running screaming through the street. People snapping and getting crazy. Having to look everyone and their relatives in the face! Flashbacks for decades.
    Or just huddling in a half-bombed building, with snipers everywhere around, and no bullets or radio left, deciding whether to starve to death or run into certain death.

    It should be illegal, to show something without its real consequences. These kids have no fuckin clue what awaits them if real combat happens. So in a way, making such a game, is at least partially responsible for their deaths and the deaths of those they murder. It is not so much better than that 70 virgins in heaven fairy tale, is it?

    1. Re:Yeah, totally real war! by NoSleepDemon · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh yeah man, that'd be sick! Some mechanics I've thought of just off the top of my head:

      A Sanity bar - you have to maintain your sanity by looking away from your dying friend's mutilated bodies, especially the eyes. Hearing their screams also decreases your sanity, so you need to quickly zip passed people who are suffering (or end it with your trusty shovel) to get through levels.

      Savior Points - You accrue points by putting people out of their misery, and you get a bonus combo multiplier that counts up if you save people within one second of each other, again with your trusty shovel or one of several savior's items, such as crow bars, wrenches, wooden crates or your foot.

      World-wide Locales - There are so many awesome environments this could take place in, including deserts, cities, the countryside and even soon, the border between China and North Korea.

      Achievements - This would tie into how you save people, whose models would have many different hit locations (think Soldier of Fortune). You could save someone by stoving their head in, or by crushing their arms off (so that they stop thrashing, which would give you a thrasher bonus). Blood and entrails would obviously be realistically modelled using PhysX.

      I dunno man, I think you're really onto something here. You should probably create it, you'll want a suitably fucked up game engine for such a fucked up idea. Say, Amazon's Lumberyard?

    2. Re:Yeah, totally real war! by Austerity+Empowers · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Legacy of Valor - Returning home missing an arm or a leg, being passed over for employment because, it turns out, limbs are helpful. Having to pay for your groceries with food stamps while everyone cheerfully tells you "Thank you for your service". Then as the teenage boy loads your pickup, you hop in and drive with hand controls.

      Hero's Courage - Players can experience constant flashbacks (maybe this can be shaped by sanity bar or savior point balance) to that time when you saw your friends torso blown off, or when you had to mercy kill them.

      Defender of Democracy - As you lay on your deathbed, decades too early because of some drug they gave you before being sent to the field that hadn't been fully vetted, you can witness yourself in a gurney hooked up to a dialysis machine watching the guy who was the director of the research team that produced that drug, who has since been promoted to CEO, receive his multi-million dollar golden parachute as you finally suffer one last stroke and die.

    3. Re:Yeah, totally real war! by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Wasn't Soldier of Fortune a bit like that?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  2. Nothing ever changes. by geekmux · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Future of War should be an absence of it. Greed will never allow that to happen.

    We pretend replacing humans with bots on a 21st century battlefield is "progress". It's not. We've won a battle, but we're still waging war for profits sake.

    1. Re:Nothing ever changes. by Xest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sure but that's not just humans, that's just the very nature of existence. The whole universe and certainly life itself is built around conflicting forces to some degree or another.

      You're basically arguing that reality is harsh, you're right. Our biggest achievement will be resisting the very nature of existence if we manage it.

    2. Re: Nothing ever changes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Access to higher education and modern healthcare services including contraception and abortion has proven to be an excellent way to limit the uncontrolled breeding of humans.

      Unfortunately, there are a lot of religious assholes who abhor all of the above and are intent on forcing everyone else to live according to their beliefs.

    3. Re:Nothing ever changes. by Nidi62 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The Future of War should be an absence of it. Greed will never allow that to happen.

      Human nature won't allow it. We are a tribal species, and our psychology practically requires an "other". To get rid of war means fundamentally changing the way people are wired.

      But I agree with you that adding robots into the battlefield is not progress, but for different reasons I think. When you take away the human cost of war, you take away the political cost as well. The public doesn't really care if you are blowing billions of dollars in munitions and equipment to fight a war(in fact that might even help a politician's popularity here in the US, because it lets them claim they are patriotic and strong on defense), but they do care when they see thousands of dead and crippled soldiers returning home. If you want to stop modern war, you must make it so costly politically that no country would ever think to start one.

      --
      The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
    4. Re:Nothing ever changes. by Kiuas · · Score: 2

      We are a tribal species, and our psychology practically requires an "other".

      This is true, but here's a hypothetical: 'the other' doesn't necessarily have to be other humans. I mean, the age-old sci-fi theme is humans uniting as a species against an external threat once we realize we're not that different compared to aliens, but the external uniting force does not have to be aliens either.

      In this century we'll be facing multiple, complex issues and catastrophes caused by the environment rapidly changing. Armies across the world are masters at large-scale logistics and movements. My hope is we'll put these forces to good use by leveraging these abilities and having them for example rapidly deploy flood-barriers, maintain and deploy sources of power and deliver essential supplies to people in danger and so on. The best way to stave off global massive conflict is to try and enable people to stay and live where they are. If this is not done and tens or hundreds of millions of people turn into wandering hordes of refugees, we'll be in much deeper shit than we'd be if we decide to do the rational thing and allow the armies to put their logistical expertise to good use combating the actual root cause: the environment and its management.

      --
      "It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
    5. Re:Nothing ever changes. by goose-incarnated · · Score: 2

      If you want to stop modern war, you must make it so costly politically that no country would ever think to start one.

      That only works in the democratic countries, where the people can overthrow the rulers if the rulers go against the wishes of the people.

      In other words, this won't work for the majority of countries, only for a tiny handful who don't go to war anyway,

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    6. Re: Nothing ever changes. by geekmux · · Score: 2

      What you call "greed" is basic survival mechanisms. I want to eat and reproduce. I want as many of my children to eat and reproduce.

      You are welcome to suicide yourself and your offspring for this abstract retarded concept you've invented. In fact, I'm going to actively encourage you. You're a great person!

      Meanwhile, enjoy watching my 5 kids playing at the park when you're 70 and childless. I won.

      A nominal amount of Greed in order to survive is one thing. I'm not talking about that. When I speak of crippling Greed, I'm talking about the obscene levels we've reached today. I'm talking about the chasm between the 0.001% and the rest of the fucking planet that will ultimately suffer due to not treating the disease that creates ruthless Greed.

      A billionaire doesn't maintain a desire to become a trillionaire because of "survival mechanisms", so let's just drop that bullshit argument. There is nothing being served by perpetuating ruthless Greed, as it serves no one but those addicted to it. If the future of mankind relied upon culling the human population by 50%, Greed wouldn't give it a second thought to save it's own ass. The 2008 financial collapse was just a hint of what ruthless Greed is capable of, and we haven't done a fucking thing to prevent a repeat of that.

      Solve for Greed. Otherwise, mankind will be consumed by it.

    7. Re:Nothing ever changes. by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 2

      We are a tribal species, and our psychology practically requires an "other".

      This is true, but here's a hypothetical: 'the other' doesn't necessarily have to be other humans. I mean, the age-old sci-fi theme is humans uniting as a species against an external threat once we realize we're not that different compared to aliens, but the external uniting force does not have to be aliens either.

      I'm in disagreement. Humans have a core competency of aggression, and this aggression is mainly toward other humans. The sci-fi trope is merely wishful thinking.

      And if the "enemy" is climate, we won't unite to fight it. We'll kill other humans in a fight over dwindling resources and useable land. It will be a lot more like Mad Max than The 4th of July.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
  3. meh by jocarren · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I suppose you can only die once in the game and never play again in your life, otherwise their behavioural data would be worthless.

  4. Another Time-Capsule Slashdot Story? by Speare · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Hey, 1990 called and wants their headline back.

    Thousands of Videogame-Playing Soldiers Could Shape the Future of War

    There was a LOT of discussion about the "Nintendo Warriors" and the precision ordnance guided by soldiers with years of training in their parents' basements. Operation Desert Strike, and then later Desert Storm.

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
    1. Re:Another Time-Capsule Slashdot Story? by JaredOfEuropa · · Score: 2

      That concept from the 90s didn't have the "big data" magic sauce added yet. Back then, the idea was to use video games to train soldiers (or the notion that gamers would come ready-trained to operate modern weaponry). This time, the idea is to gather data and use it to select and evaluate new technology for the battlefield, and ways to apply it to best effect.

      --
      If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
  5. Enders Game by traldar · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are we finally reaching "Enders Game" age? Or have we already?

    1. Re:Enders Game by adosch · · Score: 5, Interesting

      BINGO! I was just going to say the same thing. This is straight out of Orson Scott Card realm. Not surprised by any of this, we're already seeing already for YEARS with the Air Force marketing drone operators as 'video game playing'.

      I'm not a true gamer by definition and levels of this, but the amount of Counter Strike, Half Life, Battlefield, Call of Duty and a like I've seen my college friends of old play in groups (a la LAN parties) and all that televised stuff now --- that game play and engines backing that are remarkably polished, realistic and the tactical intuition you develop would no doubt be a transferable skill for any future warfare.

      When I did my time in the service, I remember vividly remember the SNES MACS setup being a huge marketing tool at our unit and booths. It was a recruiters wet dream to bring in kids "hey you like Super Mario World, try this!" shit. Then, I remember being deployed to the motherland of Iraq for a stint in early 2000's, the name of the device in our up-armoured HMMWV's ran embedded Windows CE with a GPS and a few other sensors, then back in Kuwait or some of those master command camp areas, General's had all those up on a huge zoom-in map interface projected on a big 30-40' wall and would use that for surge and placement like they were playing 'Risk'.

    2. Re:Enders Game by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Drone operators demonstrate the problems with this approach quite well.

      While it undoubtedly protects the lives of the operators, it seems like it makes things worse for innocent people on the ground. This is true of all remote killing technologies such as missiles and bombs, and even guns to an extent. The closer you are to the actual killing the less likely you are to accidentally kill innocent people it seems.

      There is also the problem of operators going from a warzone to civilian life and back again every day. Turns out it's a stressful transition to make, when many assumed it would make life easier for them. Seems that it is actually harder to dehumanize the enemy when operating from a position of complete safety.

      Innocent people are exploiting this by ramping up psychological pressure on the operators, for example by placing large photographs of children on the roofs of their homes so that they are visible from the air. The hope is that it will make them hesitate before dropping bombs.

      In other words while being in an air conditioned office somewhere is physically much safer than being on a battlefield, it has simply changed the focus from inflicting bodily damage to inflicting mental damage and encouraged civilians to join in.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    3. Re:Enders Game by dabadab · · Score: 2

      The closer you are to the actual killing the less likely you are to accidentally kill innocent people it seems.

      On the other hand, being close to the killing seems to make it more likely that soldiers kill innocent people intentionally. I mean no drone raped anyone nor has a drone operator gone on a killing spree killing a whole village.

      --
      Real life is overrated.
  6. Hmmm.... by Rick+Zeman · · Score: 4, Informative

    ...apparently, there's a boy named Ender who is really good at this sort of thing....

  7. What a depressing thought by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 2

    The only desirable future for war is its complete extinction - not this. We still have SO much to learn as a species.

  8. 6 months from now by burtosis · · Score: 5, Funny

    The data is logged, sorted, and then analyzed, using insights from sports and commercial video games. Overmatch's team hopes this data will inform the Army's decisions about which technologies to purchase and how to develop tactics using them, all with the aim of building a more forward-thinking, prepared force...

    We have analyzed the data from over 2.4M games and the results are clear - we need:

    1) wall hacks
    2) aim bots
    And
    3)185k cases of RedBull

  9. Not learned the lesson from WW1? by petes_PoV · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Overmatch's team hopes this data will inform the Army's decisions about which technologies to purchase and how to develop tactics using them

    As German military strategist Helmuth von Moltke noted “No battle plan, survives contact with the enemy.” [ Wiki ]

    And this sort of "strategy" seems to make the basic error: that the enemy is playing by the same rules, or has had the same training that these soldiers - on either side - are employing.

    I fear this will go badly and catastrophically wrong. Probably the first time it's tried.

    --
    politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
    1. Re:Not learned the lesson from WW1? by petes_PoV · · Score: 2

      Who says we're going to fight jihadis for the rest of history?

      Which is the whole point.

      Coming up with fixed strategies and then discovering they don't work was exactly what von Moltke was criticising. It didn't work in WW1, It definitely didn't work in Vietnam - despite overwhelming technology, firepower, money, bombs and munitions. The russians failed in Afghanistan for similar reasons. The "plan" in Iraq seemed to be to destroy everything (that part succeeded) then to work out what to do with the rubble (that part failed hopelessly).

      The only thing the army - and it always the army - can say for sure is that the next adversary will be different from the last. And almost certainly different from what they trained for.

      --
      politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
  10. USA is number one. by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 2

    Last time I checked the USA is pretty much "keeping its guard up". They're probably the leading cause of death in quite a few areas of the planet.

    Yep, as it turns out, America has a larger defense budget than the next eight nations combined. "Keeping its guard up" is, in fact, what we spend the largest part of our taxes on. (Along with paying for the debt we accrued from building and equipping that army in the past.)

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/02/how-us-defense-spending-stacks-up-against-the-rest-of-the-world.html

    They're probably the leading cause of death in quite a few areas of the planet.

    No, not even close. Heart disease and stroke are still number one and two. http://www.who.int/mediacentre...

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com
  11. Re: :-) by hairyfeet · · Score: 2

    The USA is an oligarchy where the president and congress are nothing but a little puppet show to keep the clueless peasants entertained and bickering, the real power is in the hands of unelected bureaucrats, lobbyists, and the bigwigs at the Pentagon. Nothing the peasants do or say will have any effect on that, elect Trump or Sanders or Batman, it won't matter as they quickly come and go while the same power brokers remain.

    Read Butler's "War Is A Racket"and you will see that nothing has changed in the near century since his book was written, simply change the name of the countries involved and the corps calling for the wars and it could have been written in 2017.

    --
    ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.