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Iraq War Veterans Protest America's Army Title 216
Via GamePolitics, a story reported by the St. Lois Post-Dispatch of frustrated war veterans protesting America's Army . Roughly 100 veterans of the Iraq war marched near an elaborate demonstration of the military-funded game, outside of an expo center in Missouri. Their shouts of 'war is not a game' must have contrasted sharply with the elaborate simulator the Army had set up to publicize their (already very popular) FPS title.
Re:They're Within Their Rights (Score:5, Informative)
It is, in fact, designed to be a recruiting tool (or extended advertisement), more than a simulation for the sake of accuracy or a game for the sake of entertainment.
Re:Games and Reality (Score:5, Informative)
Now does "Grand Theft Auto" train people to be a good car thief? Hell NO!. Now it COULD, however that would include teaching you how to bypass car alarms, pick locks, hot wire the ignition circuits, get past fuel line cut-off mechanisms, economics of the black market, what cars and car parts are currently worth, how to easily spot and recognize potential easy targets. But, it doesn't do that. It just lets you run around and get in the car and hit a button and you have stolen it, doesn't let you know how to actually do that stealing, which I believe is the reason why the game is fun to play, not tedious and hard work. I mean, if you had to know how to by-pass a proximity based keyless entry and ignition system for a car in the game by needing to either get and obtain (or make) a fake master key or intercept someone's key's code and clone it with another device, well, you should be out working as either a security expert at one of the said car manufacturers or something else, but you wouldn't be playing a time consuming game...
I would say that the shuttle astronauts play "video games" as well. Simulators can and are "games" in a sense. Heck go to any game store/website and there will usually be a category of games called "simulator". These simulate an environment and actually can teach the players important things. The more realistic the simulator (not just realistic graphics, but realistic physics, realistic environmental interactions), the more that the person using the simulator can actually learn. This is why airlines and aircraft manufacturers create "simulators" for their new planes and designed to train their pilots before they even enter a real plane. In fact, they create the simulator "before" they even build the first prototype and have pilots test things out and tweak things while in the design stage (i.e. moving a control to a different location, changing which information is located on what display, changing the orientation of a switch or knob, or control stick, moving a petal, etc., etc.).
Comment removed (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The Fuck? (Score:2, Informative)
Honestly if the fact that AA is trying to recruit can be considered disguised then I've got a well hidden bridge to sell you in Brookland, no one will know that it's there.