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Sunday Comics: Dead Island Development of the People’s Liberation Army video game, soon to be used to train China’s armed forces, seems to be coming along nicely since last we heard about it.
Gamers have needs. They have requests for the games that they play, some of these demands surprisingly specific. Today, let us consider the case by one gamer for the ability to shoot from a prone position and some accompanying news.
America’s Army may be the US military’s most super-effective recruitment tool, but that kind of effectiveness comes at a price.
Of all the US Army’s various recruitment methods – and they have many – it appears none are anywhere near as successful as a humble, free video game.
Virtual Heroes – the developers behind the America’s Army military simulator – have turned their hand to more socially useful, less killing-y areas with humanitarian aid simulator Virtual Peace.
San Franciscans who had an open afternoon took to the streets today to protest the work of Ubisoft and the United States Army, claiming that the America’s Army line of video games “has been developed by the United States Army to recruit children under the age of 17 in violation of the U.N. Optional Protocol and international law”. Fortunately, Wired’s Game|Life was on hand to capture the action, beat by beat.
In short, the protest group Bay Area Direct Action feels that, due to the ‘Teen’ rating of the America’s Army series, Ubisoft is in violation of “international law” by making joining the Army seem totally rad — just like sitting on your arse playing video games all day, instead of focusing on how you could be maimed or killed or mentally scarred for life.
Wired points out how wrong this is in between bouts of dissecting how ill-prepared the group was with clever signs, pun-laden chants and logic. Since it went down in San Francisco, so a genuinely crazy guy shows up. It’s worth a read.
Activists Protest America’s Army Game With Songs and Stickers [Game|Life][Image]
It’s the stuff press releases are made of, but the story is great to boot. Paxton Galvanek never had medical training, but he’d gone through medic certification in the America’s Army video game. Then one November night as he drove down the highway with his family, he watched as an SUV flipped multiple times in the opposite lane.
As his wife called 911, Galvanek pulled two injured passengers from the truck, assessed their wounds, and properly prioritised/administered treatment (direct pressure and elevation) to one of the accident’s more brutal injuries, a mutilated hand. In short, he did things just as he should have in a circumstance that could have ended even worse. And yes, Galvanek thanks his training in a video game for his performance under pressure:
