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Protesting the war in a video game

March 8th, 2007 by Double Tap

I play America’s Army on a regular basis. The crowd that plays it is generally pro-military (but not always conservative), it’s fun to play, and the Army has kept it pretty realistic and accurate - at least as much as an on-line game can be.

It was developed as a recruiting tool, but has gone far beyond that in its playership. I’ve met plenty of other U.S. military playing, as well as players from throughout the world (along with hundreds of pimply-faced teenage boys).

Well, like all things military, even this little game has developed its own form of anti-war protests. In this case…

University of Nevada art professor Joseph Delappe is doing with his small bit of “performance art” in the military-funded game America’s Army.

Instead of playing the game as it was intended, Delappe logs in and runs around without firing a shot, eventually getting killed by his fellow players. As his character dies, Delappe broadcasts the name of a real American soldier killed in Iraq, an act he’s performed 1,273 times so far, according to Salon.

Some anti-war activists are obviously sympathetic to his cause, but one America’s Army player and military recruit compared it to “crash[ing] a Girl Scout meeting by yelling through a megaphone that they should vote his candidate in to office.”

Honestly, I think this guy’s an idiot, but whatever. Most of the players I’ve met aren’t even out of high school yet, or not even a U.S. citizen, so his affect on the body politic is very limited. Yes, it’s his form of free speech, but it sounds like a huge waste of time. But then again, my wife has told me that playing computer games is a huge waste of time…

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