Would video games get you to join the Army?
The Army Experience Center in Philly: Recruitment tool or fun?
(Credit: U.S. Army)The U.S. Army has spent $12 million on a new facility in Philadelphia that abandons the use of recruiters selling the Army life in favor of video games and loud rock music, according to a Reuters report.
Dubbed the U.S. Army Experience Center, the facility at the Franklin Mills shopping mall in Philadelphia sports 60 computers preloaded with military video games, 19 Xbox 360 controllers, and video displays that "describe military bases and career options in great detail," Reuters reports.
Visitors to the center can play games that allow them to fire on enemy combatants from a Humvee or engage in helicopter missions where the player is firing on the enemy from an Apache or Black Hawk helicopter.
The center first opened in August as the first step in what is a two-year experiment on the part of the Army to recruit more service people. So far, the experiment has proven successful: Reuters reports that 33 full-time soldiers and 5 reservists have have joined the U.S. Army since its inception. More importantly, that recruitment tally bests the five "traditional" recruiting centers it replaced.
For its part, the Army says it's not necessarily trying to recruit young soldiers. Instead, it says the Experience Center is being used as a way to inform the public.
"What we are doing here is reaching out to Americans, giving them the opportunity to understand their Army," Maj. Gen. Thomas P. Bostick, head of the U.S. Army Recruiting Command, said in a statement. "Oftentimes, people have a negative perception of the Army, but the negatives are a very small part. Our soldiers are well-trained, well-equipped, and serving a great mission."
That's an interesting take, but one that deserves some more contemplation. Is the U.S. Army Experience Center really just a place to teach people about the "real" Army? Or is it a place to coax people into joining through video games?
Perhaps the answer to that question isn't so simple. Undoubtedly, people join the service for a number of reasons: stability, financial aid, patriotism, and education. But it's no secret that the Armed Forces have had trouble recruiting people in recent years, and although the military contends that it has met its quota for 2008, finding people to join isn't as easy as it once was.
Maybe that's why it has turned to video games to recruit new soldiers. After all, most of the people joining have grown up in an environment where first-person war games are the norm. Shooting a virtual character on-screen in Call of Duty has become second-nature.
Retired Lt. Col. David Grossman has written extensively on the impact that video games and U.S. Army simulators can have on the lives of children. He claims that video games and similar programs like the U.S. Army Experience Center "condition" soldiers to be "desensitized" to killing, and he even goes so far as to call some violent video games "murder simulators."
But an equally compelling argument can be made in proving that violent video games do not cause children to become desensitized and that the U.S. Army Experience isn't the first step in training potential recruits to kill.
But I digress. Based on the Center's recruitment figures so far, it's not a stretch to say the "experience" is working quite well for the Army. After all, if one game-equipped facility can replace five traditional recruitment offices, it certainly suggests that people are warming to the idea of joining the Army through video games.
Is it right to use video games as a means of recruiting soldiers? That's debatable. On one hand, the U.S. Army should have every right to recruit individuals as effectively (and honestly) as possible. But on the other hand, its use of video games suggests that it may be trying to glorify the real business of the Armed Forces.
In the end, compelling arguments can be made on both sides. Still, the question remains: would video games get you to join the Army?
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Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
Uh try again... i spent many an hour cleaning my blues and alphas for inspection, even my greens and dessert cammis, i was just enlisted as well.
Long Ceremonies - Check
Conducting Drills - Check
Cleaning Toilets - Try porta potties with my hands and garbage bags for gloves. They called my team Smurfs.
The rich join to blow stuff up. The middle class joins for a really crappy educational program and sometimes to blow up stuff.
One problem we face as a society is that the Army doesn't spend anything like the same resources on resensitizing them when they're discharged. Given the centuries of experience that have teaching normal people to be killers, and their lack of experience teaching trained killers to be normal people, that's not surprising - but it's something they ought to look at, given the number of trained killers who will be released onto our streets over the coming years. It's a tribute to the average soldier's common decency that there aren't more problems than there are.
HELL NO.
Anyone who enlists in the army simply because they happen to enjoy video games is a MORON.
Seriously.
And personally, I'd rather have 50 smart, devoted recruits in my army than 100 half-hearted morons.
But maybe that's just me?
hey, if they're aiming for realistic...you can't argue with that. =P
I don't care what anybody says: Video games do NOT desensitize anyone to violence. Watching the 10 o'clock news or any of those reality TV shows like, Most Insane Accidents Ever, do more to desensitize than any video game. Why you might ask? Because video games, are not real, and never will be. End of story.
:)
And to add to what you just said...I've played video games for years, mostly games that involve violence and some sort of shooting, and I can tell you myself, if it de-sensitizes at all, it's not much.
In 2007, I got held up at gunpoint by some robbers in a foreign country.
The feeling of not knowing if the trigger is going to be pulled is TORTURE.
And the tingling that starts in the upper neck and paralyzes the entire body is something no video game will ever be able to recreate.
No matter how good the graphics or intensity of the game.
1. They aren't honest about it, ever
2. They should not be allowed to recruit. Especially not in high schools, like drugs and weapons, military recruiters should be banned from all public campuses. If someone is interested enough, they will approach them. Someone tricked into it by lies is going to be a crappy soldier, airmen, sailor, or marine. When reality sets in, they became a hindrance. As a disabled vet, I have seen it time and again. People bought the line that it would be exciting join up and get a dose of reality. Then the real problems start. If they can not get enough to sign up based on desire to join, then that should tell them and the politicians something.
I can't say I 100% agree with the banning of recruiters from schools. The military is a viable career option, but I do agree that the recruiters are deceitful in their recruiting efforts. They need to approach it as business recruiters do. But the difference is that unlike business recruiters who have people knocking down their door, the military can't get people to even get people to give them a look with the truth. And that makes the military recruiters more akin to carnival game barkers trying to entice people with false hopes and claims.
There are heroes in the military, but not all military members are heroes.
Lying to kids so they can die in Iraq, for nothing, is not heroic. It is evil.
Stop diluting the word hero.
The rating for that game is M for mature which means 18 and older. If that is the case are they allowing teenagers and minors to play this game.
Then a dialog box comes up with "Will you follow these questionably legal orders?" and then gives you two options: "Yes" or alternately, "Spend Time in Jail".
- by zoodeht January 12, 2009 8:17 AM PST
- Would I join the military after playing a video game?? Answer: No. Not because I think its stupid or not real enough, its because I know there is more to the military than shooting someone. Their using this video game because of the fact you get to shoot people, which is the most discussed part of war and it appeals to the younger generations. Everyone thinks the military is about shooting people, its not even close. Sure if you are in infantry, then your chances of being in a firefight are higher. Bu what about being a navigator, mechanic, or a medical doctor. We never hear anything good about the war, especially from the news, they show the bad stuff because people are drawn to that. I personally don't watch the news, because its depressing. Now personally I was going to join the military (marines) but an opportunity opened and I took it. The reasons I was going to join the military are: serve my country, family members in WWII, and a new experience. I probably detoured from the main question but I wanted to get something off my chest. To end; I would like to know if anyone who commented or read the article has been in the military and what they think about the subject??
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