Word count 1052 not including title/references/conclusion heading
How and why have the military forces contributed to the video games industry?
I aim to find out exactly what the military contribute to the advancement of technologies used in the game industry as well as what they gain from their help.
Some notable recent technological advancements that have both helped the military and universities worldwide is the introduction of the cheap and effective body tracking equipment made by Microsoft, the Kinect.
The creation of the Battlefield 3 simulator, for channel 5’s The Gadget Show was the most advanced publicised simulator concerning foot soldier combat.
The basic necessity of a video game is to have a functioning computer. The first video games were very simplistic and were made from what was at the time a very simple circuit board with various components to give the player the capacity to control.
Computers were originally invented for military purposes in the 40s and 50s.
How and why have the military forces contributed to the video games industry?
I aim to find out exactly what the military contribute to the advancement of technologies used in the game industry as well as what they gain from their help.
Some notable recent technological advancements that have both helped the military and universities worldwide is the introduction of the cheap and effective body tracking equipment made by Microsoft, the Kinect.
The creation of the Battlefield 3 simulator, for channel 5’s The Gadget Show was the most advanced publicised simulator concerning foot soldier combat.
The basic necessity of a video game is to have a functioning computer. The first video games were very simplistic and were made from what was at the time a very simple circuit board with various components to give the player the capacity to control.
Computers were originally invented for military purposes in the 40s and 50s.
The US Army utilizes video games as a recruitment tool openly, with the development of the Americas Army game series. The game has had a huge number of players making it to the top 10 played shooters between 2002 and 2008. The game is a close representation of basic training with an online competitive mode. The amount of information about basic training within the game has attracted recruits and has reduced the number of drop outs significantly.
This is a serious game, one which entertains as well as giving the player insight and promoting behaviour which will help in, in this case training, education, and health objectives in the military.
The UK’s military has created a campaign for recruitment with both
adverts and a flash game. The game has very simplistic 3d environments with
very simple goals. The player has very few controls and the experience isn’t as
polished as the fully fledged game made by the American Military. (The British
Army, 2009)
Further training in the army can be risky to do in a combat situation which is why they utilise virtual reality to give the soldier an idea of what they will need to overcome. They are using game controllers to both train with and use bomb diffusing robots for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Robillard, 2011)
Further training in the army can be risky to do in a combat situation which is why they utilise virtual reality to give the soldier an idea of what they will need to overcome. They are using game controllers to both train with and use bomb diffusing robots for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Robillard, 2011)
The video game industry is the most important industry for digital
3D as it is the biggest industry for the art form. This is mainly because most
of all games are created with the intent of giving people a new environment to
explore, which more often than not is best appreciated with as lifelike
graphics as are available to the consumer. The military however don’t need mind
blowing realism in visuals, although it does help with immersion.
For hardware to be cheaply available for the military there needs to be a lot of demand, from the consumer market. The demand for computer hardware rises as the world digitalises. People need more powerful computers year on year. It is this demand that keeps companies like Intel and AMD producing more and more powerful and efficient processors and graphics cards. The video games industry helps to feed this process by making demanding games, creating a constant need to upgrade. It isn’t just these industries that help keep costs low for the military, but a combination of many industries that support each other and help to create a more cost effective product. Profits rise and the cost of the product falls closer and closer to its production cost.
In medical training virtual reality workbenches are used to project 3d images of bodies so that the person training and the real medical staff can experience the operation properly. This way they can have a very natural feel to the operation.
The same workbenches are very good for military use as well because they can show the battlefield very accurately allowing for easy decisions to be drawn from the environment available. A good model of the battlefield will help reveal enemy encampments and potential bottlenecks.
In gaming virtual reality has played a part but it hasn’t been of a very good standard until recently. The earliest virtual reality kits were very basic with poor visuals due to very limited hardware, but now with cheaper much more powerful equipment 3D graphics has started to enter the mainstream. Nvidia’s 3D vision kits use very fast monitors to display the image of each eye successively very quickly switching between the two. The glasses worn are shutter glasses unlike the ones used in cinemas and the I-max. These glasses are powered and shut one lens at a time to give the illusion of a 3d image being produced.
The other main competitor in graphics equipment provide another way for better immersion in game in the form of Eyefinity which is a way of displaying one programs image across multiple displays. The most common use of this is in gaming where a player will have a much more extended peripheral vision giving them a much more pleasant experience and sometimes even an advantage over others in online play.
Virtual reality has proven useful in the aviation industry as it avoids the need to build several different prototypes. By using virtual reality, engineers and designers can work together to make virtual working models of planes and other aircraft in a virtual environment that simulated real life physics which means full sized models do not have to be made. This saves both time and money which means their designs can be even better in a much shorter time span. This technique has been utilised by NASA to create a helicopter and Boeing to make their latest aircraft. This method of production has made planes safer.
The military have turned to game companies to create training applications for their recruits. The goal of these is to produce an experience close enough to reality for the participant to remember key learning objective that can be applied to field practice. There is no intention of entertainment value for these programs so they lack story and levels, but they still need to keep the participant attentive. (McNamara, 2008)
Conclusion
The military forces have benefited greatly from utilising
videogame software to both attract new recruits and train them, making a
better, safer world. The popularity of first person shooters and their inherent
militarised theme has made the people a lot more likely to think of the
military as a viable career path.
References
The British Army (2009) Start Thinking Soldier Available from: <http://www.army.mod.uk/startthinkingsoldier>[Accessed 14 Nov 2011]
Robillard, Tracy. (2011) Picatinny advances EOD training with video game technology Available from: <http://www.army.mil/article/53259/>[Accessed 15 Nov 2011]
McNamara, Jennifer. (2008)Education and Training: Beyond Serious Gaming Defence management Journal, 41 Available from:
<http://www.defencemanagement.com/article.asp?id=342&content_name=Education%20and%20Training&article=10182>
[Accessed 13 Nov 2011]
