For almost as long as there have been video games, there have been video game controversies. Critics once warned of a world of couch potatoes made fat, violent, antisocial, and misogynistic thanks to hours of staring at the screen, controller in hand. Violent video games and addiction were even blamed after the 1999 Columbine High School shooting. But the Mortal Combats and Dooms of the 1990s were tame compared to the ultra-realism of the war games of the early 21st century, which have haven't shied away from taking on current events. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and especially the specter of terrorism, have become popular themes for game developers -- and bestsellers, at that.
The military is now trying to harness the potential of video games for more nuanced versions of war, designing games that reflect the current trend towards counterintelligence strategies , rather than the entertainment industry's focus on blood and gore. As Michael Peck points out in "Confessions of an Xbox General," games such as the U.S. Army's UrbanSim deal as much with rebuilding sewers as firing rockets, pointing to evolving ideas on the skills needed for modern warfare.
It remains to be seen if the entertainment industry will follow suit and embrace a more thoughtful approach for console colonels. But as the seven games below show, video game warfare adapts almost as quickly as does its real-life counterpart -- but not without growing pains.
Hitman 2
One of the first post-9/11 video games to cause a stir, Hitman 2 let players step into the shoes of a retired assassin forced back into commission by treason and required to knock off targets around in the world: Sicily, St. Petersburg, Japan, Malaysia, and India. The game, released in Oct. 2002, offered 20 different missions and high-level bad guys to shoot.
Controversially, some of those targets wore turbans, and were pegged in the game as terrorists. However, Sikhs complained that the scene featuring the turbaned men looked exactly like the interior of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the site of a 1985 massacre of hundreds of Sikhs by Indian troops. The game maker quickly agreed to remove the scenes, which were deemed racist and offensive.
America's Army
One of the most popular military games of the last decade, America's Army, turns the gamer into a potential recruit -- literally. Developed by the Pentagon, this online combat game is used to inspire players to enlist, boosting military recruitment during a time when the U.S. military was stretched thin by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. According to Peter W. Singer, who first wrote about the game for in 2010, the game's technology is not dissimilar to some of the tools used in actual battles, including the guiding of unmanned drones. Players also get to shoot at generic Middle Eastern and Central Asian insurgents.
Millions of people have played the game, making it one of the top 10 downloadable games online. The Chinese government even tried to ban it. And as for swelling the ranks of the U.S. Armed Forces, it's been incredibly successful. "One study found that the game had more impact on actual recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined," Singer told NPR.
As Wired noted in 2008:
"Even in the United States, the belief that the Defense Department uses the America's Army game series as a military recruitment tool is controversial," blog GamePolitics notes. "It's probably not surprising, then, that Empowered Muslim Youth, an Islamic blog, accuses America's Army of "brainwashing."
Since its original release on July 4, 2002, 14 different versions of the game have been released, each with new features and missions. However, critics have noted that one of the game's stated goals -- fun for the player -- is inherently problematic. War isn't supposed to be fun.
Americasarmy.com
Homefront
The year is 2027 and the United States has been invaded and occupied by a nuclear-armed Greater Korean Republic. Kim Jong-Il has died, Kim Jong-Un has taken over and invaded South Korea, Japan, and finally, the United States, which becomes a police state where "high school stadiums have become detention centers, and shopping malls shelter armored attack vehicles," according to the game's publisher, THQ. This is the "terrifyingly plausible" premise behind Homefront, where players are invited to "join the resistance, stand united and fight for freedom against an overwhelming military force."
Released in March, 2011, Homefront was promptly banned in South Korea. Yet in the United States, it became one of THQ's best-selling games -- setting a record for U.S. pre-orders for the publisher, with over 200,000 copies sold before the launch.
According to former CIA officer Tae Kim, who worked with the developer on Homefront:
We created this world in which Kim Jong II dies and his son, Jong Un, unites North and South Korea, taking control of its economy, military personnel and hardware.... At the same time, the U.S. economy is in a decline and there's a pullback of the U.S. influence and military bases overseas that North Korea is able to take advantage of. In the Middle East, a new conflict between Israel and Iran ties up the European powers and Russia. The U.S. has withdrawn from Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving a power vacuum. China, which has invested so much in the U.S., has become entrenched internally trying to contend with a massive recession that's the result of the U.S. turmoil.
Terrifyingly plausible, indeed.
Glorious Mission
China's plans to increase the size of its naval fleets are well-known, but a new first-person-shooter game backed by the People's Liberation Army shows that China is also seeking to bolster manpower, too. And it's taking a page out of the U.S. book, using Glorious Mission to train and recruit soldiers. Much of it is modeled on America's Army, where players start off with basic training before deploying to the battlefield. The game has been praised by bloggers for its graphics and Chinese troops have clearly been happy to incorporate it into their training regime.
But while America's Army's targets are generic bad guys, Glorious Mission isn't trying to fool anyone: you're aiming at soldiers in the U.S. Army. It's a none-too-subtle hint and, according to Wired, might be misleading Chinese recruits into thinking that the United States is "destined to be China's enemy."
Of course, China isn't the only one to follow the Pentagon in using video games as a training or recruitment tool. Hezbollah came out with a shooting game called Special Force 2, which allowed gamers to battle Israelis. Even NATO has a game, Boarders Ahoy!, that features negotiations with pirates. (Reviews were, not surprisingly, tepid.)
Medal of Honor
Electronic Arts' Medal of Honor was originally a first-person shooter game set during World War II, but a recent reboot launches players into the heart of Afghanistan's counterinsurgency. The reboot, released in Oct. 2010, revolved around the U.S. Army Rangers' fight against the Taliban. "Medal of Honor is an authentic look into today's war," wrote the game's executive producer Greg Goodrich in a press release prior to its release. "Inspired by real people and real events, the game puts players in the boots of today's warrior -- from the infantry ground pounder to the Tier 1 Operator."
What sparked controversy surrounding the Medal of Honor reboot was not the standard single-player mode, but the multiplayer campaign, where you can play as the Taliban -- and shoot at U.S. troops. Karen Meredith, the mother of a fallen U.S. soldier, appeared on FoxNews to decry the game, saying, "War is not a game, period, and the fact that they've already done games about World War II, that's far removed from our current history. And people aren't dying in World War II anymore, that's far removed."
Shortly after the media caught the story -- and before the game's actual release -- EA removed the name "Taliban" from the multiplayer version and renamed it "Opposing Force." Despite the criticism, EA reported sales of the game were "off to a great commercial start" upon its release.
Six Days in Fallujah
The second Battle of Fallujah, codenamed Operation Phantom Fury, took place in November 2004. It was one of the bloodiest battles in the Iraq War, turned 200,000 Iraqis into refugees, and killed thousands more, including more than four dozen Americans. Just five years later, Atomic Games came up with the idea for the game Six Days in Fallujah, where gamers play in an intense urban warfare scenario modeled on the experiences of actual U.S. Marines, some of whom collaborated with the game's developer, offering up diaries, photos, and videos to aid in the realism.
"What we are trying to do in the experience is to help people feel and understand just a little bit of what it is like to be a Marine in a modern war," Peter Tamte, president of Atomic Games, told ABC News. Families of fallen soldiers protested the game's release, and the game's initial publisher dropped out of the project. But Atomic Games persisted, calling Six Days in Fallujah part game, part documentary.
"This is not a 'kill 'em all, let God sort 'em out' type of game," Capt. Reed Omohundro, who commanded a company of Marines during the battle of Fallujah and consults for Atomic Games, told ABC. "If you make a choice that is not on the moral high ground -- you shoot an innocent, for example -- the game is over for you."
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
In Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, released in 2009, players pursue an ultranationalist Russian leader named Vladimir Makarov. Players can take part in a terrorist attack against civilians and also work to defend a bombed-out capital city.
Prior to the game's release, footage from Modern Warfare 2 showed a character killing "unarmed civilians with a group of terrorists at what looks like LAX airport in Los Angeles," according to the Telegraph. The game's publisher issued a statement saying:
The scene establishes the depth of evil and the cold bloodedness of a rogue Russian villain and his unit. By establishing that evil, it adds to the urgency of the player's mission to stop them.... Modern Warfare 2 is a fantasy action game designed for intense, realistic game play that mirrors real life conflicts, much like epic, action movies. It is appropriately rated 18 for violent scenes, which means it is intended for those who are 18 and older.
The game eventually became the second best-selling video game of all time in the United States and Britain, but not without further controversy. In Jan. 2011, some recalled scenes from the game, particularly those controversial bits at the airport, in the aftermath of the terror attack on Moscow's Domodedovo Airport, which killed dozens. The mission -- called "No Russian" -- encourages the player to massacre civilians.
