ABSTRACT
The release of the video game America’s Army on July 4, 2002 was surprising for a number of reasons, none of which was the use of a video game by the Army. As Terri Toles (1985) demonstrated more than twenty years ago, the use of video games by the military-industrial complex has long been a reality. It is no surprise then that ties between the military and video game producers have only grown stronger during the intervening years. As far back as the 1930s, the military was working with simulators to help train recruits (Level Three, 2007; Zeller, 2005). Various branches of the American military have come to rely on commercial video games including id Software’s first-person shooter (FPS) game Doom (1993) and Bohemia Interactive Studios’ Operation Flashpoint (2001) to assist them in training (McCune, 1998; Wadhams, 2005). The Army began deploying online gaming machines to bases overseas in 2006 as a means of boosting troop morale. The machines, which include 26 inch flat-screen monitors, computers configured for games and Internet access, are said to have cost over $7,000 apiece (Game time, 2007). Such expensive systems are certainly no hardship for a defense department that spends in excess of an estimated $4 billion annually on simulation equipment, games, and events (Vargas, 2004).
