The ARMY Retreated From Twitch, But Its Influence in Games Doesn’t End There
Just last month, the US ARMY suspended operations on its Twitch account due to the fact that they may have violated the first amendment, and for staging fake giveaways which rather than netting kids with some sweet new gaming hardware, only landed them on a recruitment website. The video linked above depicts one of the ARMY’s streamers claiming that streaming was their only assignment, proving the obvious, that the account is nothing more than a recruitment tool. Even if these events hadn’t already made it abundantly clear, I firmly believe that the military should have no presence on a platform like Twitch. I mean, I also don’t think they should be allowed in schools, let alone any other place where they can trick kids into thinking their only chance at upward mobility in life is to go overseas and bomb civilians, but that’s besides the point.
The ARMY’s presence (as well as the NAVY’s) on Twitch was just another moment in a longstanding history of the armed forces trying to reach out to the youth through the use of media which they connect with. It’s a very simple tactic and I don’t think it’s worth explaining how or why it works. Also, it’s not a very unique proposition considering the Pentagon dumps millions of dollars every year into funding film and TV productions which could be used to entice younger people to join up, or at the very least, to present a very deliberately designed image of the military to the US public. From Transformers to Captain Marvel, and even Captain Phillips, if the military is in it there’s a very high chance they’ll look good- and that’s no coincidence. Even if they’re not an important part of the story, the military’s appearance is meant to plant a seed in your mind, remind you of who they are and what they want you ‘think’ they represent.
This is why the Twitch account in particular was so egregious to me. If an impressionable kid goes to watch a game of League of Legends, and the streamer is good at it, the prospective viewer is likely to stick around. Now imagine that the streamer in question is wearing a uniform, which prompts discussion in the chat, and this begets information which has been perfectly tailored to entice our young viewer into thinking about the benefits of joining the ARMY. Our viewer learns about how much money he’ll be making, and it sounds reasonable. I mean, hell, these guys are even going to pay for his college after he finishes his first few years of service. By joining the military this kid sees an opportunity at a life which is markedly better than the one he has now and possibly one he could never achieve on his own. In the ARMY he will find steady work, better opportunity, and “purpose.” Best of all, he can still play League of Legends. The military won’t change him; I mean it doesn’t seem like it affected the guy on screen.
See? Soldiers can still play Magic: The Gathering! Just like you! The military can’t be that bad!
The military’s involvement in video games doesn’t stop there either, of course. It should go without saying that the military sees a lot of potential in taking the image they so delicately craft for consumption and turning it into an interactive experience where would-be recruits can embody this patriotic idealism themselves. I’ll never forget the day when I was a stupid kid and my older brother came home from high school and handed me a disc, which he told me was video game. A free one, at that! It was a “realistic looking” modern military shooter for the PC. This would have been around the time that Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and its sequel Modern Warfare 2 were at the height of their ground-breaking popularity, so being a 10-year-old kid at the time- I was totally into the idea of getting something like this for free. The game was called America’s Army, and unbeknownst to me, this was a game which was made for the same reason today’s Twitch account was. It was given out to kids in high schools so that they would equate going to war with playing a FPS in their family computer room and hopefully use one of the many avenues provided to them by the game and its respective website to find out more about joining the ARMY. And while this trivialization of war wasn’t explicitly stated, you don’t have to look much further than the game’s slogan: “Empower Yourself, Defend Freedom.”
The boxart for America’s Army.
Action games and shooters in particular are the quintessential genre of power fantasy in video games, especially for young boys. And even if the argument could be made that these games weren’t intended to make the player feel powerful (they can’t by the way), slogan aside, and rather instead follow realistic military procedure, there’s no way that this game or any of its future versions capture the trauma that comes with going to war. It’s not possible a video game could never do that, even if it set out to do so. Sure, you can drop white phosphorus on those kids in Spec Ops: The Line but I don’t think that’ll give you nightmares, let alone illicit a response from you that’s greater than maybe audibly saying, “whoa, that’s kinda fucked up.”
In fact, America’s Army is only interested with being realistic to a degree of hobby-grade interest. Albeit, a hobby in which the target audience might be deeply invested- but its superficial representation nonetheless. Firstly, these games are Rated ‘T for Teen’ by the ESRB, because they need to be able to legally distribute this game to kids for free online- and you can’t get ‘em in early if they can’t play the game until they’ve already possibly graduated high school. This means that none of the games can depict violence in any realistic manner. They can’t feature swearing, and they can’t explicitly reference drug use, sex, or sexual assault. All things which I associate with the military far more than executing perfectly drilled maneuvers on the battlefield. Secondly, none of these games are about performing “realistically” in combat at all. In fact they resemble arcade shooters like Call of Duty far more than they do a military simulator such as ARMA. In community-submitted gameplay clips which are being posted to the game’s own YouTube channel on a regular basis, you’ll see quickscoping, grenade spamming, hip-fire bullet spray, and headshot flicks with split-second reaction times.
Regardless, there’s still a devotion to maintaining the aesthetic quality of military hobbyism. While the graphics are not very good, I mean this a free PC game made for cheap by the military, each weapon looks the way it’s supposed to and performs the way you’d expect in a game like this. Much like how if a player knows what a AK-47 handles like in one video game, they probably know what it feels like to fire one in another. To a certain type of player, who makes up what I’m sure is a less-than-insignificant portion of the playerbase for any modern shooter, this aesthetic adherence is extremely important. I mean, look no further than the comments of the very video I presented above.
In this comment, there is little concern for the fact that the feat they’re describing is very likely impossible with the M203 grenade launcher; which is what I believe to be the weapon this player is referencing. This player, like many others, understands how to be proficient and have fun with a computer game- but they’re also fluent in the names and appearances of real-world weaponry. And while this player may only think of this as off-hand knowledge related their hobby or even just the games they play; this first-name-basis with a grenade launcher isn’t a byproduct of playing shooter games. It’s intentional, but not necessarily on the part of the developer, although they are complicit in the process.
Did you know that the names and design of specific firearms are trademarked by the weapon’s manufacturers? If you were making a modern military shooter, it would actually be illegal for you to just put an M16 in there- or an M203 grenade launcher for that matter. Much like how Toyota doesn’t allow their cars to appear in games like Microsoft’s Forza over disagreements concerning their depiction, FPS developers strike licensing deals with weapon manufacturers in order to feature specific guns in their games. These deals can stipulate the ways in which the manufacturer’s “product” is displayed and treated, possibly even dictating how the gun performs within the game from a purely mechanical standpoint. This is a relationship which exists for no other reason than to ultimately promote the image of these weapons and endorse the companies that make them. It induces familiarity among the everyday public with the design and function of something like a M203 grenade launcher which is, frankly, fuckin’ weird.
Developers and publishers have been trying to distance themselves from these deals for years, but not a lot has changed as a result of these efforts. The Call of Duty franchise has tried to skirt these restrictions by setting their games in alternate timelines or the near-future, and even the far future for that matter. This works to an extent because the games become ostensibly science fiction at that point, but the players themselves don’t respond as well to games which take place in these “unrealistic” settings. Comparing the reception to the multiplayer components of 2018’s Black Ops IIII (yes, that is how they write the number 4, rather than actual roman numeral IV), to last year’s Modern Warfare reboot it’s plain to see that “realism” is preferred to the alternative. Again, this is another example of a military hobbyist aesthetic reaching its intended audience. The return to a contemporary setting full of real life firearms was seen by fans and marketed by publisher Activision-Blizzard as getting the series “back to basics.” While developer Infinity Ward produces hundreds of skins and other cosmetic accoutrements for each weapon, one only needs to scroll through the game’s subreddit to see players rejoicing over fan-favorite firearms making a return with each new patch, and to understand what actually makes these customers excited. Heads up, it isn’t the skins.
What inspired me to write this piece was something I saw on Twitter the other day. It was a promoted tweet which advertised a game where players raced drones. Apparently it’s based on a real league (the Drone Racing League, or DRL) of people who do just that, and it’s an interesting enough sport which can only exist in the modern day. The video was a professional drone racer going over a few of the settings in the game which might give players a leg up. However, it became clear after only seconds of watching, that this game and the video itself was sponsored by the US Air Force. The video is designed to look like anything that you’d normally see on a gaming-focused YouTube channel or popular Twitch stream. Now, I don’t think I have to explain why I find it so unsettling for the military to be investing in content which potentially familiarizes children and young people with the concept of becoming proficient at flying drones. Of course the drones used by the DRL are vastly different from the ones that the military has used to kill thousands of civilians overseas, but I don’t think that renders the optics of this comparison moot by any stretch of the imagination. Ultimately, this is propaganda created by the US military to entice young viewers into becoming interested in technology and organizations which are deployed across the globe and result in the subjugation, destabilization, and destruction of nations that cannot defend themselves from the reaches of US imperialism.
When consuming content, it’s important to think critically not just about the politics of the thing, or the nature of its release, but also the smaller decisions which are still just as motivated by politics and influenced by the ideals of its creators. The choices which are inextricable from the DNA of the art itself. You can’t make a shooter without guns, just like you can’t make a platformer without jumping. Furthermore, you can’t create a modern military shooter without taking on the aesthetic elements of modern combat. But that begs the question as to what other purposes those aesthetics serve, and to which people? Inevitably, you’ll have to make the decision as to what parts of that aesthetic you’ll paint in a positive light, and which you won’t, especially if your foremost concern is creating a game that’s fun rather a pointed indictment of the military-industrial complex. And judging by the kinds of games that make up the most popular within the shooter category, developers are far less concerned with the latter.
The US military has a vested interest in that mindset remaining prevalent within the gaming industry. Even if they don’t sponsor a game directly, they still benefit from realistic-looking depictions of the modern armed forces opting to devote themselves only to the hobbyist aspects of contemporary warfare within our popular culture. By choosing to allow the military and weapons manufacturers to infiltrate the gaming industry at any level, whether it be in development or content creation, there is a complicity among the community with actions committed overseas- and at home. Which is why I’m so glad to see that users on Twitch and legislators are taking a firm stand against the ARMY’s behavior on the platform.
Now, we just have to hope that that those changes can be made in other places as well.
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