Fank Thomas wrote:

But is there anything special to the Internet in these games?

As with most things Internet, costs of distribution will be low, reach to target audience could be high, and production costs could be low (I say could as America's Army is reputed to have a huge budget). So I’d say were are talking scale effects. Not sure with propaganda whether there are any key audience metrics e.g. you might be able to reach 60%+ of your target group through the net, are there tilt points due to, say, network effects which make the adoption of messages that much more efficient ? On games as conveyers of messages. I’ve asked around about whether averages score higher on standard advertising metrics for reception of brand message etc – however I have not come across any empirical studies and can think of theoretical arguments either way. Ren www.renreynolds.com ---- Original message ----

Date: Mon, 29 Sep 2003 13:35:18 +0200 From: Frank Thomas <frank.thomasftr@free.fr> Subject: [Air-l] arcade games as a political weapon To: air-l@aoir.org

Today the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel writes about the deliberate conception and use of arcade killer games in the Near and Middle East conflicts and provides some links to the relevant websites: a Syrian game: http://www.underash.net/emessage.htm a game produced by (or for) the Hisbollah: http://www.specialforce.net/english/indexeng.htm the chase for Talibans as a screen leisure : http://www.novalogic.com/games.asp?GameKey=DFTFD the most recent US military "acts of patriotism and bravery" as a civic education play : http://www.kumagames.com/kumawar.html The author also mentions a pro-Israeli war game "Israeli Air Force" without giving a link.

But is there anything special to the Internet in these games? I 'd say these are only the most recent developments within a long tradition. I remember tin or plum soldiers in the play boxes of my friends decades ago which had survived the war. They were conceived in the 1930s to mentally prepare the German youth for war. And I guess, there were also glorious British and French tin soldiers refighting past victories in the same era. Today's generation of plays to mentally prepare the war of the cultures is just a more recent version. Nothing special to the Internet, I guess, besides the increased incitives to identify with the Good.

Die Hisbollah shootert zurück

Von Christian Stöcker <mailto:dr_stoecker@web.de>

Dass das Pentagon Spielefirmen sponsert, um jungen PC-Fans das Militär schmackhaft zu machen, und gar Ego-Shooter für das Training nutzt, regt kaum mehr jemanden auf. Mit Ausnahme der Hisbollah, die dieser US-Propaganda nicht länger zusehen will: In ihren Computerspielen fliegen die Kugeln in die andere Richtung.l

http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzkultur/0,1518,267090,00.ht ml

Cheers Frank

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