Britain To Recruit Spies From Video Game

Britain To Recruit Spies From Video Game

rawstory.com

One of Britain's intelligence agencies will embed advertisements into popular video games this month in a bid to attract new recruits.

The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's intelligence listening post, will embed the adverts as billboards in video games including "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent" in a bid to attract "computer-savvy, technologically-able, quick-thinking" recruits.

(visit the link for the full news article)

That is pretty wild, but it makes sense when you think about it. Video games these days require exponential amounts of training and skill in order to operate at a refined level. Games that are so realistic they are as dramatic as real life.

Some of the finest minds of our day are champion gamers.


rawstory.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

The army was also using video games to recruit. I believe there was a game you could only get for the Xbox if you joined the Army.

I recently saw a commercial where two people were playing a military stealth/recon game, and then the soldier on tv told them something like, "Why are you still sitting on the couch and playing this game when you could be living it in the real world?"

I laughed. If they expect kids to risk their life and kill others, rather than play a game for an hour, then they need to get a new marketing group.

Indeed Americas Army, Its the Official Army game for the U.S.

The problem with this though is they are trying to imply its the same thing in real life as in a game.
In a game I can switch it off, I can cheat, I dont need to be fit, I can pause it, I can die and respawn, I can fire the biggest guns after pulling them out of nowhere and fire it with a click of a button, I can do acrobatic skills that im too fat to do really, training consists of an obstacle course, I feel no fear, no guilt, no hunger, no thirst, no pain, no aches, no pain.

If they are aiming to recruit people who cant distinguish between the game and real life with a mindset of "oh, I can own noobs at counter strike, that must mean I can for real!!?!" then I cant help feeling concerned for just who they are putting weapons in the hands of.

[edit on 19/10/07 by eagle32]

Originally posted by eagle32
If they are aiming to recruit people who cant distinguish between the game and real life with a mindset of "oh, I can own noobs at counter strike, that must mean I can for real

It makes the job of desensitising new recruits at bootcamp all the more easier and more effective if the videogame-mindset has already become ingrained.

A British Army recruitment ad that is currently running depicts two young soldiers performing recon for the squad with hand-launched UAVs controlled by a white Xbox 360 D-pad and then 'playing' a live-fire flight-sim

Originally posted by AllSeeingI
The Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), Britain's intelligence listening post, will embed the adverts as billboards in video games including "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent" in a bid to attract "computer-savvy, technologically-able, quick-thinking" recruits.

(visit the link for the full news article)



I dont doubt this technique, but SC: Double Agent has been out for a while now, and the only thing on billboards in the game (that ive noticed) is Nutrigena for men adds and Nokia adds. Maybe i missed their recruitment posters...

My thoughts:




www.ctrlaltdel-online.com...

I'm well-trained in Battlefield 2 that I feel like I can apply for the army if I wanted to.

There's probably many games that can encourage you to get in army...and they already been around for a long time.

[edit on 20-10-2007 by TheoOne]

I've been thinking about this one.
Let's say that a games company gets together with the US military, as has happened. And then the US military decides to throw some rather interesting or secretive research towards the game.
There's a theory about "Silent sound", a way to influence peoples emotions and feelings through audio, so that'd be an interesting soundtrack.
Then there are the Russian guys who've done something similar.
I think games are a great medium for mass effect programming, with regards to the desensitisation incurred through playing, the confidence gained (which translates to real life to some extent re above post, however how far is questionable), and perhaps, and this is my theory
I think that potentially to some extent modern militaries in conjunction with the video game industry and media have been working to create a Gladio/Red Dawn style scenario of a left behind guerilla army of civillians that has been preprogrammed via readily available and not overly suspicious means.
These would be easy to introduce into any country.

The relationship between the American Psychiatry Association and US military mind control experiments in the old days is well documented, and recently there was an attempt to categorise video game addictoin as a genuine psychiatric disorder in itself.

Um if anyone wants to have a look at where the programming might be if it exists, I'd check out ArmA (Czecheslovakian version), or BF2, or quite possibly America's Army.
While these games may not make you go out and join the army, they may well encourage the ideology of self defence of ones nation to some extent.
Anyways, be interesting to see what people think of this one, I know it's a slight diversion from the main topic, but I'd love to know what people think modern mind control techniques in conjunction with video games could potentially do.

[edit on 20-10-2007 by pandorashope]

The only reason I would contemplate joining MI5 or MI6, is so I could expose their crimes against the British people and the rest of the world. I certainly wouldn't do their bidding, that's for sure. They are probably looking to recruit people who are easily brainwashed and without any morals or ethics.

[edit on 20-10-2007 by kindred]

Is i possible, that maybe they are using Halo3 as one of there "recruitment" of there soldiers? If so, there going to be doing a pretty good job then. great find AllSeeingI.

O and, one last thing. What if this really works and they mass the army of America? What would be the point, once there through with Iran, Iraq Israel... who else would they need an entire fleet of people for? I'll let you guys ponder that. ( I'm not saying the defeat of Iran or Iraq... will make any difference in the Earth, I'm just saying, what will the point of an army be?

reply to post by TheoOne


Battlefield 2? Oh come on. If you aren't even playing Project Reality, you aren't even close to understanding strategical elements of true warfare. Not even Project Reality truly depicts true war, but, it is the closest when it comes to war simulation.

Battlefield 2.

Pfft.

Kiddie stuff.

Well with regards to where and why, Armed Assault (ArmA)'s alternative version is known as Virtual Battlefield Simulator 2.0, and has been marketted to multiple militaries including the american. ArmA is the civillian version.
America's Army is an obvious propaganda exercise and with america believed to be the world leaders in that technology, it would make sense.
If such a thing were possible the purpose would obviously be to give a nation which buys the product another 5% in time of war, however, I think theres room for a big trojan horse there, as you never know the full intentions of the programming if it exists, ala PROMIS/INSLAW backdoor style thing but potentially worse.
Imo it's the most realistic warfare simulation out there and I've played desert combat, bf2, poe2, project reality, swat 4, ghost recon, fsw, rainbow 6, stalker (some of the symbolism in that game re mkultra styles is interesting) and a few others.
Anyways, as far as purpose goes, Gladio was a pretty big black op about getting the masses to move, the idea was a resistance army to stop communism, sponsoring of right wing groups.
If you can do the indoctrination via a computer game that makes it easier.

It's a useful thing to know how to make a desensitised army of potential revolutionaries or guerillas or freedom fighters sitting in the background of an otherwise peaceful society, however it's something you want to do in someone elses back yard not your own.
It has advantages in times of genuine threat to sovereignty.

This was a project back before video games, and it wouldn't surprise me if a descendant of the project somehow leaked into Eastern europe somewhere, like czecheslovakia.

added: Oh and re Halo 3... Anyone else notice that the two thumb sticks, feels in a way like you are using similar muscles to what you would use to line up the front and rear sights on a gun? I do hear Halo players tend to be crack shots.
It really wouldn't surprise me if Halo had multiple uses.

Or it may just be an unintended side effect on some people from video games.

[edit on 20-10-2007 by pandorashope]

With the rapid advancement of home game-console technology, it can only be a matter of time before we see some form of VR peripherals to attatch to MMP-Combat games such as Halo

Can you imagine the sensory experience of playing Halo3+ on the next generation of console whilst wearing a plug-in HUD Master-Chief helmet and an axis-tracking add-on handheld assault rifle/controller?