The paper discusses functions and aesthetics of military-themed and military-endorsed/commissioned games from Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig to America's Army. It contains examples and a design exercise to identify and contextualize bias in the procedural rhetoric of the games.
APM Welcome, APM North West Network Conference, Synergies Across Sectors
War Games (Remote Control 2014, Utrecht)
1. slide #1Remote Control Conference 2014, Utrecht
Workshop: War Games
Dr. Stefan Werning (University of Utrecht)
Saturday 13th December, 2014 (10-12)
2. slide #2Remote Control Conference 2014, Utrecht
Military Games:
America‘s Army (2002-)
• Basic military training as ‚tutorial‘
• Focus on a specific form of simulated
‚realism‘
– Psychophysical effects such as having to control
breathing when shooting a weapon
– Recorded original sound effects of weapons/equipment
– Simulated degradation of weapons
• Extending to different platforms
– Mobile version in cooperation with Gameloft
– Arcade version incl. Lightgun peripheral
– Adapted to new iterations of the Unreal Engine
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‚Counter-Games‘
• Special Force
– ‚Counter game‘ with regard to America‘s Army
– Similarly conceived as ‚recruitainment‘ and
propaganda tool
• Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful
Pledge
– Differentiates friendly/hostile environments by terrain:
forests deserts
– Sold 100000 copies, then freely downloadable
– Unlicensed appropriation of the CryEngine
• Quraish
– ‚Counter game‘ with regard to Age of Empires
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‚Anti-War Games‘
• September 12th
• All‘s well that ends well
• This War of Mine (2014)
• Expose ‚mechanisms‘ of military
conflicts by mapping them onto
familiar gameplay tropes
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Games in the discourse on war and military conflict
• Potential other discursive
functions of digital war games?
– Establishing military terminology and
abbreviations in ‘mainstream’ discourse
• Strategy games and dual-use examples like Full
Spectrum Warrior
– Suggesting manageability by providing
opportunities for (simulated) interaction
– De-singularizing events through iterative play-
throughs
• EX: Allied landing in Normandy in Medal of
Honor
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War games and public discourse:
The case of the German Bundeswehr
• Helicopter Mission (1994)
– Utilizes the isometric perspective popularized by
Desert Strike (1993)
– Only logistical missions
– Similarly tries to differentiate itself through added
realism such as wind
• Luna Mission (browser game, 2000)
– Controlling a reconnaissance drone
• Sports-related browser games on the
youth-oriented Bundeswehr website
– Games themselves as discourse object (irrespective
of the actual ‚content‘)
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Games and the playful appropriation
of (military) technologies
• Games foster systematic and
algorithmic thinking
– EXAMPLE: Military strategy games
• Assessing and prioritizing quantities
• Installing stable feedback loops (e.g. economic
systems)
• Planning and synchronizing several parallel
processes
• Playful interaction as a basic property
of algorithmic media
– Inherently playful forms of media use
• EX: Nukemap 3D and Nukemap
– Playful appropriation of (digital) technologies
• EX: GEWar
The same also applies to non-digital games!
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The interplay between (board) game design
and its military applications
• Johan Christian Ludwig
Hellwig, Versuch eines aufs
Schachspiel gebaueten
taktischen Spiels (1780)
– Addresses deficits of chess as a model
of warfare
• Projectile weapons and (information)
logistics
• Leopold Reißwitz, Kriegspiel
(1812)
– First modular board game
– Third party takes over the
‚computation‘
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The interplay between (board) game design
and its military applications II
• Board-game apparatuses in
military strategy
– For an evocative example from the context
of the Ardennes offensive in 1944 cf. Von
Hilgers, Philipp. 2012. War games:
a history of war on paper. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 36f.
• Subversion of familiar gameplay
topoi
– Juden Raus (1936) Pachisi
– Jagd auf Kohlenklau (1944)
• Built on traditional parcours games like
Snakes & Ladders
• Addressing issues from daily news through
cheap, mass-produced games
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Military Toys
• Clothespin dolls as ‚storytelling
systems‘
– Celia Pearce, „Game Theory of games“
• Little Wars (H.G. Wells, 1913)
• Johnny Seven (1964-69)
– Among the first de-realising depictions of military
contexts in toy design
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Military board and card games
• Mission Command (2003/04)
– Produced by the Army National Guard
– Distributed to children of distinguished soldiers of the US
army (Future Soldier Footlocker Kit)
• Daring Eagle (2004)
– Combination of a board and card game
– Differentiates between divisions and brigades as basic
units
– Units as tokens, weapons technologies as cards
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Identifying gameplay bias:
Cold War logic
• Diplomacy (1954/59)
– Overview, Rulebook
– 1914 map but played and created in a
Cold War context
• Missile Command (1980)
• Q: Differences between both
forms of rule bias?
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Modifying military board games
• Risk (1957)
– Also encapsulates Cold War rationality and the
logic of world domination
– Original material referenced the Napoleonic Wars
(rules themes)
• Risk Black Ops (2008)
Risk – Revised Edition (2008)
– Resource system based on cities and capitals
– Differentiated, even partially dynamic and open
mission goals instead of controlling territory
– Incentivizes a more defensiv, strategic playing
style
• Risk Legacy (2011)
– Sequences of interrelated game sessions
– Permanent modifications to the game itself
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Design Exercise
• A) Think about how to represent
aspects of contemporary military
conflict in a board/card game.
– Use Risk or Diplomacy as two potential frameworks or
design your own mechanism based on gameplay
patterns from other games.
– Also tangential solutions are possible:
• E.g. turning Monopoly into a game of financing warfare.
• B) Conceptualize or modify a board/card
game as a ‘counter game’.
• C) Conceptualize or modify a board/card
game as an ‘anti war game’.
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Thanks a lot for
your interest and
participation!
Notas do Editor
Diplomacy
spring/fall seasons
Negotiation phase (public and private, no game-enforced obligations) -> raises magic circle questions
Movement phase
Simultaneous execution (real-time),
Move, support (attack,defend), defend abstract macro-level conflict
No randomness
Same-strengths units
Fleet convoys to transport units
Only one unit in each region
Support determines who moves into a region, standoff, attack support
Unit disbanding in winter
Control more than half the SCs to win
Missile Command (Atari, 1980)
Unbewusste ‚Aussage‘: Keine Gewinnbedingung, kein Sieg möglich
Fordert den Spieler auf, unvermeidbare Verluste ‚abzuwägen‘