Little kids like to play war. When I was a kid, it would be gender wars, cowboys vs. Indians and cops vs. robbers. Video games facilitate that need to make something at the end of a gun dead. In 1984, on the Nintendo Entertainment System, Duck Hunt tasked the player with shooting digital ducks with a gun that imitated the action. Yet in recent memory, games in which you have a gun in your hand and shooting digital enemies have become more advanced and the United States Army has taken note.
Gun peripherals (real world items that connect the player to the digital space e.g. the guitars in Guitar Hero) did not vanish in the 21st century; they grew and the gun peripherals grew with them. In this generation of gaming, the Nintendo Wii Zapper allowed players to put in their WiiMote and point and shoot at the screen. The games were no more than on-rails shooter games similar to Time Crisis and Ghost Squad seen in the arcades. Then in 2010, the PlayStation Move was released and it too served the same function but the games allowed for more movement, blurring the lines between avatar and player.
With this rise of gun peripherals, it was only a matter of time until a serious organization of our best and bravest expressed their interest. On January 12 it was reported by Kotaku that “accessories maker CTA Digital will be rolling out officially licensed U.S. Army video game products, including backpacks, headsets and rifle controllers.” The guns, from CTA Digital’s product page, have realistic camouflage and the U.S. Army logo on the side of each gun. I can almost understand the headsets and rifle controllers, but why would anyone want a backpack while they play video games? Typically, I want nothing but the clothes on my back while I lean back. That wouldn’t make me feel any more immersed in the shooter game I’d be playing -- it would make me feel foolish for spending money on a backpack for gaming.
The author of the article, Evan Narcisse, writes, “at best, accessories like these are innocuous curiosities. At worst, they're fetish objects for people who want these games to do more than entertain.” I can’t help feeling a little peeved that the gaming industry is being used for a form of propaganda. This also does not aid the video game industry’s case that video games do not make people violent. Any passerby is going to see these toys and get the wrong impression of gaming in general.
Email me at shfawcet@asu.edu with your opinions on gun peripherals and the Army’s interest in them.
