QAA Podcast - Premium Episode 163: "America's Army" The Recruitment Videogame (Sample)

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

A 2002 First Person Shooter made by the U.S. Army served as a recruitment tool for 20 years. It is now shutting down. Jake explores the post-9/11 environment that gave birth to it and the goals of its creators. Also features Jake's story "Elden Pillow" (??) Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week: http://www.patreon.com/QAnonAnonymous Episode music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz. America's Army at E3 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifAFfCziK_c "The Potential of America's Army the Video Game as Civilian-Military Public Sphere" by Zhan Li: https://cmsw.mit.edu/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/146381142-Zhan-Li-The-Potential-of-America-s-Army-the-Video-Game-as-Civilian-Military-Public-Sphere.pdf Merch / Join the Discord Community / Find the Lost Episodes / Etc: http://qanonanonymous.com

What's up QAA listeners? The fun games have begun. I found a way to connect to the internet. I'm sorry, boy. Welcome listener to Premium Chapter 163 of the Q&ONANANANANANAS podcast, The America's Army, the Real Enders Game episode. As always, we are your host, Jake Rockatansky, Julian Fields, and Travis View. Welcome, folks. Today, I'm in a bit of a pickle as the person writing this intro because Jake has chosen to cover America's Army, the video game where you basically learn to love and respect America's beautiful troops and to maybe even want to partake and leave your gamer chair and go and, you know, serve.

Today I'm going to be highly respectful of this entire thing. None of these words, you know, should be taken with a sarcastic tone because I am in jeopardy. And Father America must look benevolently on me, or things in my life are not going to go great in the next couple weeks. So I'm in a vulnerable state. I feel like shit. I said Jake when it came to saying my name. And I don't know what to tell you, folks. It's going to be quite an episode.

And put your patriotic boots on. And let's get this fucking show on the road. America's Army. The year is 2002. You, an enthusiastic gamer, armed with a cupa shell backpack, have braved L.A. traffic and arrived at the convention center nestled square in the heart of the downtown area. The purpose? To attend gaming's most hyped up event, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, otherwise known as E3. We once went there together. We did, we did.

And you just had a massive panic attack and ran away. It was a swishy shorts situation. How could I have had, looking back on it now, I'm like, that's the greatest place in the world. Like, how could I have had a panic attack there? No, you were freaking out, like, we hadn't even made it in. You were freaking the fuck out. I think you had, like, a bad coffee or something. I probably had, like, major imposter syndrome because we essentially kind of, like, warmed our way. Hey, we fucking got press passes fair and square based on this website I put together.

We were pressed past as fair and square, but it was kind of a warming, if I'm going to be honest. Hey, man, I had a great time. I got to see the presentation of Civilization 6 and get a little pen. I went and saw Ubisoft demo Steep, which was there skiing and snowboarding game. And I remember turning to one of the developers who was watching me play and being like, oh, good, you guys added like the tail slide on the right stick. That's good. That's accurate. Anyways, apologies for derailing.

The URIs 2002, a reminder. Let's go back. Perhaps you attended the 2002 E3 to maybe catch a glimpse of Doom 3. Id Software's much anticipated sequel to the beloved franchise. Or maybe you attended in hopes of getting some hands-on time with Metroid Prime. But as you stroll up to the grand doors of the convention center, something is wrong. You hear the loud call of a trumpet being played by a uniformed military officer. Suddenly, you're in the shadow of a large M1 Abrams tank parked outside the center.

You thought you were here to sample the latest. the latest and greatest video games, but instead are thrust into a military outpost, complete with armed personnel carriers, and fully geared up U.S. soldiers. A large banner framing the entire scene is flapping in the wind. It reads, America's Army. Before I get started, I wanted to cite the paper that I use for a lot of the primary research. It was written by Zahn Lee, who has his Masters in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University, and the papers titled, The Potential of America's Army, the Video Game,

as civilian military public sphere. Now, I'm going to be honest, this paper is kind of out of my education level. It was incredibly thorough. It was over 100 pages. Live, if you're listening to this episode, or perhaps I will message you privately. I want you to read the paper

because I think you'd probably get more out of it than me. And it's just fascinating. The amount of interviews he does, he talked to all of the original game developers, all of the main players, I mean, went deep into the community. I mean, just a really fascinating, fascinating paper, and we will link it in the show description. Hey, Liv, could you just take a look at these hundred pages for me?

Just so I can get it. I think she would enjoy it. No, no, no, we've already recorded the episode. I'd recommend it out of, because I think that she would find it interesting. No, we already have the episode. It's already out. I just need, like, your point of view for kind of like posterity. Yeah, just for fun, just as friends.

That's all. What's wrong with that? Nothing. In the years following the first Gulf War, there was a growing manpower concern in the United States Army. recruitment numbers just weren't what they used to be. From the late 1980s through the 1990s, the end of the Cold War had dropped recruitment numbers by 40%. Many in the public sphere were actually speaking out against the Gulf War and calling attention to the idea that the American military was actually occupiers

as opposed to liberators. This would not do. The inception of America's army was predominantly triggered by a 1997 National Research Council report that suggested that video games were a far better networking tool than defense research expenditures. Essentially that the gaming industry had such high demands that their technology

at creating virtual worlds was far superior to DARPAs. In a YouTube seminar just last month, one of the original heads of America's army, Mike Zida, spoke about the military's newfound interest in video games.

The games industry was building larger network environments than the military was, and it was building more accurately modeled 3D characters than the military was, and it was making very interesting strides into AI and machine learning technologies for AI characters in games. And the DARPA efforts were just a pale shadow of this. So this study was very important. It changed all of defense modeling and simulation to thinking

about we should build this with the game engine. On top of this, you know, the Army was no stranger in getting its fingers into entertainment. They had been running commercials and movie theaters in the 30s and 40s. They have and continue to piggyback on Hollywood and the entertainment industry to push a pro-military agenda to young people. After this report came out, Mike Zyda, who was the founding director of the modeling, virtual environments and simulation, otherwise known as Moves program at the Naval Postgraduate Academy,

was tasked by the Assistant Secretary for the Army's Office of Economics, manpower, and reserves, with coming up with a pitch for a U.S. government-funded video game. Zita came in with a couple of slides. He pitched. The Army loved the pitch. He was then paired up with Colonel Casey Wardinsky, who was the director of West Point Academy's Economic Office. Wardinsky had watched his 17-year-old son spend hours in front of his computer screen playing Counter-Strike, so he was no stranger to how effective the medium could potentially be, at the very least in holding young people's attention. What if the U.S. Army itself created a first-person shooter modeled after counterstrike

that could kill two birds with one stone, improve civilian opinion about the military, and potentially encourage teenage males the desired demographic to enlist themselves? Now, what's crazy is that I would listen to this whole seminar with Mike Zyta, and he said that the age that the United States Army was looking to capture with this video game, were males aged 11 to 14. Whoa, that seems a little low. I mean, what do you do then, wait for them to incubate? Exactly.

You have been listening to a sample of a premium episode of QAnon Anonymous. We don't run any advertising on the show, and we'd like to keep it that way. For five bucks a month, you'll get access to this episode, a new one each week, and our entire library of premium episodes. So head on over to patreon.com slash QAnonanonymous and subscribe. Thank you. Thanks. I love you. Jake loves you.