Are games our escapist fantasies, or our outlets for dealing with reality? Either way, why is our most common gameplay choice the pursuit of war?

This series of lessons explores possible disparities between the general population and the military, especially among military recruits. Students compare data and statistics on both populations and use various algebraic and statistical methods to compare the two groups.
Resource Type: Curriculum

Source: Radical Math

It’s not about the rush that we feel when we kill things, it’s about why is Jason on the side of killing and why the player is on the side of killing, which is a very different question. I don’t know if I’ve explained the subtlety of that, but part of what I’m trying to do with Far Cry is ask the question overall of whether life should be easy and fun, or whether it should be difficult and rewarding. And what love is, also. I was very much inspired by an article that Jonathan Franzen wrote in the New York Times about falling in love with tech devices. It’s called something like, “Liking is for cowards. Go for what hurts.” Basically, you could say that article inspired this game. Real love, he argues, is painful and hard. And a lot of times, not fun. It’s work. This tech love, on the other hand, is all fluff. It mirrors yourself back at you.

This game is an examination of that issue. The game attracts people like a tech device. Gameplay loops are based on tracking people without being hard. 

Abstract
This paper uses a political economic (Bettig & Hall, 2003; McChesney, 2000; 2004; 2008; Meehan, 2005, Mosco, 2009; Wasko, 2005) lens to examine the U.S. government’s video game, America’s Army. America’s Army is a first-person shooter game available for free online that has military recruitment as its primary goal. The U.S. Army launched America’s Army on July 4, 2002; it has been downloaded more than 42 million times and has a virtual Army comprised of 519,472 “soldiers.” This paper studies the history of the government production of America’s Army and uses industry and government records to explore the current ties between the public sector and transindustrial gaming conglomerates. The issue of the video game and its intended youth audience becomes even more problematic when one considers how the government combines its strength with powerful corporate interests to disseminate violent media to adolescents with military enlistment and commodification as primary goals. As a result, this paper conceptualizes the “government-gaming nexus” to explain the relationship between the U.S. government and private transindustrial media organizations to better understand how that structure functions in society. Praxis strategies focus on ratings, education, and regulation.

Margot Susca, Ph.D.
The Florida State University
College of Communication and Information

Four by six inch postcards, arranged four up on legal sized card stock for printing. Postcard supports the Winning the Peace national high school leafleting campaign and provides activist groups with four separate counter-recruitment themes that support the landing page information that the winningthepeace.org landing page elaborates upon.

Place this letter size document in a plexiglass document holder as a tabling display and youth can scan with their cell phones to direct them to the winningthepeace.org mobile phone version.

You can order a freestanding plexiglass document holder from Dazzling Displays or find one in your local office supply store.

Wisconsin military alternatives such as: money for college, job training/skills, direction in life, discipline, to be part of a team, travel, to serve their country, to get out of trouble with the law, physical training, even citizenship.

Womens International League for Peace & Freedom Teaching Resource
Peace Resource Center
Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Anne Hoiberg
May 23, 2022

Color PDF