Defense contractor power-ups

IN THE NEWS
First, we had America's Army, a computer game designed as a recruitment tool for the US Army. As a free download, America's Army had an instant audience of highly caffeinated, twenty-something males, always ready to avoid the $49.95 MSRP for the normal first-person shooter like Battlefield 2 and Call of Duty.

I thought America's Army was, on balance, relatively harmless. It didn't gloss over the violence of the battlefield, and it took pains to show that organization and tactics, not speed and bravura, normally carried the day. Much like Ghost Recon, there were not the endless "re-spawns" when you died in simulated combat. If you're worried about video games providing an unrealistic portrayal of violence, that's a more significant difference than you might think.

I've just given you an encapsulation of the controversies around America's Army, including its unsubtle recruitment pitch.  Now, we have Future Force Company, a free game in the same vein, distributed by the defense contractor SAIC:

Future Combat Systems (FCS) will transform the U.S. Army's Current Force to a more lethal, agile Future Force to achieve battlespace dominance. The F2C2 video game demonstrates the FCS wireless network-centric operating system that seamlessly links advanced communications and networking systems with soldiers, platforms, weapons, and sensors.

In other words, Future Force Company is a simulation of the hardware that the US military may purchase and deploy by 2015, the "future" that Future Force Company attempts to simulate. While I can live with a recruitment pitch for a public organization, the US Army, I can't quite stomach a commercial for the equipment private contractors hope the Army will purchase.

While we're at it, why not think about developing a game that depicts counterinsurgency, not just conventional warfare? No unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) in Future Force Company will be able to peer into the politics of future battlefields. The tactical benefits of the Army's modernization program are fine, but the operational effects will be severely limited in conflicts like Iraq,  Afghanistan, and the Balkans. That might be a more useful lesson for the soldiers of the future than, "Wow, this new hardware is neat!"

[Thanks to Armchair Generalist for the link to Future Force Company.]

Comments

[J.]

I remember a while back - early 90s? - there was a first-person shooter game based on the Vietnam conflict. It was crude, but you basically were the point man of a four-man Marine squad slogging through the jungle, and Charlie would pop up from time to time as well as a few North Vietnamese regular forces. Not exactly a counterinsurgency game, but it was interesting in that the mood of the uncertainty of jungle warfare was approximated.

You are right about the commercialism of the SAIC product - I haven't tried it yet, mean to look at it this weekend, but it is a pretty obvious attempt to garner public support for an acquisition program that is way overextended and in peril of being cut back. That said, it's certainly of interest to have more simulation-based acquisition efforts on the market that can demonstrate the concept under which the program is intended. Certainly gets the idea across more effectively than paper studies, and one can then question the assumptions made in the simulation to better guide the acquisition program. At least that's the theory.

I think a counterinsurgency campaign game would be a great idea. Need to pitch it to the creators of "Total War" or "Europea Unverisalis" or even Gary Gigax's company. Or maybe they're too rooted in conventional warfare...