Anti-war groups protest U.S. Army's gaming league sponsorship
- April 23, 2007 00:00 AM PST
The U.S. Army's recent decision to sponsor the Global Gaming League has drawn criticism from a number of pacifist organizations, who claim that military recruitment is being sold to the youthful gaming masses just like any other advertised product.
By Eugene Huang
America's Army - under fire for glamorizing the military
A number of pacifist groups have come out in protest of the U.S. Army's recent two-million dollar sponsorship of a channel on the Global Gaming League website. These groups, consisting of anti-war and anti-recruitment organizations, have taken issue with the army's usage of video games as a recruitment tactic, the AFP reports.
Although a range of military and "militainment" games will be playable on the channel, much of the focus will be placed on the U.S. Army's own creation, America's Army. The FPS, first released as a downloadable game in 2002, remains popular to this day much in part to the fact that it can be played free of charge. Play on the U.S. Army's Global Gaming League channel will also be free, although signing up for the channel requires that each player agrees to receive "additional contact from the Army" in return.
It's tactics like these that have motivated anti-military activists like Rick Jahnkow, co-founder of the Project on Youth and Non-military Opportunities.
"It is part of [the U.S. Army's] campaign for the last 20 years to invade youth culture with militarism," he proclaims. "It affects the way young people think. It affects their world view. That is a very dangerous thing."
Oskar Castro of the American Friends Service Committee agrees, offering his opinion that games like America's Army show only half of what it takes to be a soldier in the middle of a military conflict.
"If it is virtual reality, why don't you see people screaming for their mother while they die?" he asked. "If you are going to show what war is like you should show what war is like. You don't have 'game over' and start again. 'Game over' means you come home in a body bag and a casket."
Castro cites from personal experience that he has met youths who have expressed a strong interest in becoming soldiers after extensive exposure to America's Army. Jahnkow chalks this up as a result of positive market branding, comparing it to what any company would do to advertise a product.
"The emphasis went from asking people to join military as a patriotic gesture to more along the lines of the ways companies sell tooth paste," he added.
No comments in the AFP news piece were extracted from a representative of the U.S. Army.
