The video game conspiracy

I don't know about creating grunts, but I have my own conspiracy about gaming being used to help continue dumbing down the masses. Things like world of warcraft or modern warfare... being used to stop people from opening up their own imagination. Why spend time trying to build a radio, (that may sound dumb, but I used to like to take electronics apart and put them back together to figure them out) or inventing something new and amazing, when you can sign onto XBOX Live and spend your entire youth in a fake world... doing fake things... But that's just my personal conspiracy.

I wouldn't say this is a conscious conspiracy, but I do think that the rise of video-games and the internet has led to the dislocation and disempowerment of the youth and people in general. The same way TV probably had a big role in the break down of community engagement and active lifestyles.

But the US Army made its own game did they not? I was reading a blog (that I am too lazy to find again) a few months ago, it was mostly about Hip Hop and culture creation - but it was talking about the recruiting techniques the military uses.

Like they will park at a mall in a pimped out Humvee with FPS games in the boot etc.

They definitely use it to its advantage.

Originally posted by Segador

Originally posted by Metallic Monk
Now, I'm not sure about this one. I think that many have thought about this but not really looked into it. But here is my reasoning at least. I'm not convinced of anything but I think it would be convenient for governments to do something like this if they were planning a war.

In recent years we have seen all these games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare and games like it and it seems to me that those who have these types of FPS games as their favourites are not allways the brightest bunch of people. But it's not that they sit there and just play the game in singleplayer. Then they play it for hours and hours on the net and competing with other people and get better and better at it every day.
What better way to train grunts than like this? Cheap and effective.

I played the Modern Warfare games myself and it's a classic sort of neo-cold war story with a little James Bond stuff thrown in there. It was actually good but not so awsome as everyone else seem to think.

No, War games are just a new gaming fad like platformers back in the 90's. It will all blow over pretty soon, retro remakes and abstract games are on the rise though.

And only idiots believe that playing COD will turn them into soldiers, action video games may increase vision by 40%(If I recall correctly) and gives you better reflex but turning people into soldiers? The Army has a few games they use as recruitment tools but they are god awful.

edit on 11-10-2010 by Segador because: (no reason given)

Halo: Reach made 250 million dollars on the 1st day of it's release last month. Seriously? Fad? Get informed.

Call of Duty Black Ops set to release next month has already surpassed that number...in PRE-ORDER'S alone.

Originally posted by Metallic Monk
I know it's not a complete soldier simulator. But it's a good propaganda tool. Scaring people of the russians and the chinese, the russians in this case.

No it's not. How many people do you know who scared of a race/group of people because they were going against them in a video game? More importantly, how many people are even paying attention to the race/nationality of they're person they're trying to kill? And if anything's propaganda here, it would be telling people that games are training children to be killing machines/xenophobes/racists. In fact, I believe Jack Thompson said something similar.

Well in the specific case of Modern Warfare 1 and 2 it did struck me as odd with the implemented ranking system, detailed information on how many "kills" one had, how many "deaths", accuracy, and all kinds of other statistics.It would make sense for a company like Activision to publicize or even sell the information of highly skilled players to the military and beyond without the users or the game industry being aware of that. The only problem I see with that is the actual recruitment of those players for whatever they can do best, or maybe its not about recruiting anybody but just about gaining information/statistics which in any case would be useful to the military.

reply to post by Metallic Monk


yup, fallout gets you ready for post nuclear wear...only no Vaults to hide in
BTW I love your BoS avie!!

It's not a bad theory but like one of the posters said before first person shooters are just the big thing in video games right now Halo really sparked the trend, me i'm not really into them i like Madden and Action/Adventure games plus some RPG's too, but there could be something too it, ya never know.

Originally posted by JudgedCover

Originally posted by Segador

Originally posted by Metallic Monk
Now, I'm not sure about this one. I think that many have thought about this but not really looked into it. But here is my reasoning at least. I'm not convinced of anything but I think it would be convenient for governments to do something like this if they were planning a war.

In recent years we have seen all these games like Call of Duty Modern Warfare and games like it and it seems to me that those who have these types of FPS games as their favourites are not allways the brightest bunch of people. But it's not that they sit there and just play the game in singleplayer. Then they play it for hours and hours on the net and competing with other people and get better and better at it every day.
What better way to train grunts than like this? Cheap and effective.

I played the Modern Warfare games myself and it's a classic sort of neo-cold war story with a little James Bond stuff thrown in there. It was actually good but not so awsome as everyone else seem to think.

No, War games are just a new gaming fad like platformers back in the 90's. It will all blow over pretty soon, retro remakes and abstract games are on the rise though.

And only idiots believe that playing COD will turn them into soldiers, action video games may increase vision by 40%(If I recall correctly) and gives you better reflex but turning people into soldiers? The Army has a few games they use as recruitment tools but they are god awful.

edit on 11-10-2010 by Segador because: (no reason given)

Halo: Reach made 250 million dollars on the 1st day of it's release last month. Seriously? Fad? Get informed.

Call of Duty Black Ops set to release next month has already surpassed that number...in PRE-ORDER'S alone.

edit on 11-10-2010 by JudgedCover because: (no reason given)

You misunderstood me, Modern warfare realistic shooters like Call of duty are fads just like space marines were fads late 90's and how platformers were fads early 90's and how World war 2 shooters were fads last generation.

Originally posted by ghostsoldier
Its also like how girls are programmed by playing with barbie to turn into prostitutes and boys are programmed with GI-Joe to turn into order obeying patriotic idiots.

heh, sort of.

Wasn't there some commotion about being able to play as "the Taliban" in a game to be released or something? I guess that's just confirmation some ppl see these games as propaganda tools.

With the rise in obesity and games being blamed partially I doubt this is anything close training at all since real fighting isn't done sitting front of a screen.