America's Army Music Festival Exhibit Modified After Complaints
I have absolutely no illusions about why the Army creates video games. They are trying to drum up recruits. Glorifying war is really about the only way they can do it, especially with the US troops over seas, it's hard to say that they are not going to throw you on the first flight to the middle east.
The presence of Army created video games has evolved past simple first person shooters. I've been to a couple of shows where they have setup Exhibits where people can hop into a war simulator, and people are really beginning to object. At Wisconsin's Summerfest, protesters objected to the fact that the simulators were allowing children were able to sit in the cabin of a Humvee and fire shots at virtual people.
Under the combat scenario initially presented in the game, fest-goers as young as 13 could hop into a Humvee simulator and fire machine guns at near life-size human likenesses on a computer screen.According to a description of the game on the Army's Web site, an Army ground task force attempts to rescue trapped aid workers and refugees in the imaginary city of "Nradreg" from a "well-armed genocidal faction."
The spirit of the even does seem in contradiction with the spirit of Summerfest. As a result of the protest the human targets were replaced with inanimate objects.
America's Army Exhibit Replaced at Music Festival Following Protests [Game Politics]
Asterick
Posted to Video Games on 3 July 2008
· Comments (3)
Other stuff like this: army, concert, protest, summerfest, war simulators
I don't know if I'd say "glorifying war". They're basically just games that say, "Look, this is what it's like to be a soldier in combat".
Damn those pesky protesters! The military is a-ok in my books, except for that silly ban on the openly gay.
How come members of Congress, state senators and reps and city council people jump all over video games for violence yet say nothing when the army promotes video game violence....and REAL violence? The double standard makes me sick to my stomach.