From Joystick Nation, to Joystick Empire... Am I wrong to be freaked out by the sight of J.C.Herz, notable and admired digital and games guru, becoming project leader for a US Defense Dept initiative called Cascade, which will (and I quote)
identify emerging technologies, modify as needed, and shepherd them through the Defense Department's Kafka-esque bureaucracy so that they can be used by operators in the field. Focus areas are social software and computer games. Current clients include Special Forces Command, the Undersecretary of Defense (Intelligence), and DARPA.
Of course, everyone needs to keep an eye on what DARPA - the US's own state-run innovation factory - is up to. (GBN's futurist Eamonn Kelly told us yesterday at the Scottish Parliament that DARPA other big thing isn't technologically enhanced soldiers, but biologically enhanced soldiers. Eeek!). But this player is serious - see Herz's piece from Defense Horizons, April 2002:
Game industry customers may be the future officers and enlisted recruits of the military. The current generation grew up playing online. The social ecology of computer gaming is what they have grown to expect from networked simulations and multiplayer virtual environments. This ecology drives them as gamers and as learners. The question is whether the military will harness those dynamics to transform itself, or whether this generation of soldiers will transform the military, over a longer of period of time, despite itself.
Question: are there any peace-niks in the games industry who lose an ounce of sleep about this entertainment-military complex (even though the relationship is long and historical)? Or about those who get involved? (I've blogged once or twice about this before). Just fascinated to know.
