I like the bits about giving people resources to teach critical thinking—we need more of that.
But otherwise I generally come away unimpressed and skeptical of these sorts of initiatives—these well intentioned orgs talk a great game and then reveal their misunderstanding of the space with lines like “Historical war games are being released, where people can rewrite histories in favour of threat actors.” lol yeah, we all played as Persians vs. Teutons in Age of Empires. It was fine.
But is this new? There have long been "propaganda" games, especially right-wing and nationalist titles, and they are generally awful. And throughout this entire report, and reading some of the linked reports, all I can find mention of is a mod for Hearts of Iron and game scenes being used out of context for propaganda. For all the talk about games being a "new" front in information wars, they offer very few examples.
I was expecting stories about recruiters on COD, Helldivers 2, and Roblox.
I like the bits about giving people resources to teach critical thinking—we need more of that.
But otherwise I generally come away unimpressed and skeptical of these sorts of initiatives—these well intentioned orgs talk a great game and then reveal their misunderstanding of the space with lines like “Historical war games are being released, where people can rewrite histories in favour of threat actors.” lol yeah, we all played as Persians vs. Teutons in Age of Empires. It was fine.
But is this new? There have long been "propaganda" games, especially right-wing and nationalist titles, and they are generally awful. And throughout this entire report, and reading some of the linked reports, all I can find mention of is a mod for Hearts of Iron and game scenes being used out of context for propaganda. For all the talk about games being a "new" front in information wars, they offer very few examples.
I was expecting stories about recruiters on COD, Helldivers 2, and Roblox.
I suppose the US State Department had no issue with war games such as Call of Duty representing US war crimes as Russian war crimes - https://www.vice.com/en/article/modern-warfare-the-highway-of-death-and-call-of-dutys-exploitation-of-the-past/ - or whitewashing Reagan's disregard for international law - https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/opinion-why-ronald-reagan-s-appearance-in-call-of-duty-is-drawing-criticism
This is not only hipocrisy, but a warning that the hammer of censorship is coming to video games as well.