A Chinese video game has players shooting U.S. soldiers. When is a game just a game and when is it a legitimate threat?
一隻中國video game 要玩家射殺美軍士兵. 依樣野幾時會由遊戲變成真正既threat?
Here in the United States, we have America's Army, a free first-person shooter-style video game produced by the U.S. Army that, aside from being a popular and polished game, doubles as a recruitment tool.
Wired is reporting that the People's Liberation Army in China now has its own game called Glorious Mission that runs along the same vein as America's Army. Says Wired:
"But there's one key difference between the American and Chinese 'shooters.' Where the bad guys in America's Army are generic Middle Eastern or Central Asian insurgents and terrorists, the enemy in Glorious Mission is apparently the U.S. military. A TV report offers glimpses of an American-made Apache gunship crashing in flames."
The premises of U.S.-centric military shooters like the Call of Duty or Battlefield series have either trended toward battles against enemy militaries from actual wars—a historical perspective, if you will—or, as Wired puts it, "generic" insurgents and terrorist groups.
Though U.S.-based games may pull up short from claiming actual military outfits as enemies outside of a historical context, "America's Army has been criticized for having a subtle, propagandistic effect on young players," says Wired, adding, "In Glorious Mission, the politics are anything but subtle."
