A Tale of Two Worlds: Virtual Reality and the September 11th attacks
This entry was created by a student in Stanford's Rhetoric of Gaming class. For more about the class and the assignment, click here.
For my research topic, I originally intended to write on governmental structure and how its relationship with the citizens of a country affects the games it produces. However, through my research of this topic I stumbled upon a perhaps more intriguing and certainly more defined topic: virtual worlds and their relation to the September 11th attacks. Much of what happened and the surrounding events were supported by the existence of a virtual world. Indeed, Slavoj i ek comments upon this relationship with the virtual world, writing that “’If there is any symbolism in the collapse of the WTC towers, it is not so much the old-fashioned notion of the “center of financial capitalism,” but, rather, the notion that the two WTC towers stood for the center of the VIRTUAL capitalism….’”
There are two significant ways in which the gaming world and the military world have interacted with regards to this attack: flight simulators and government-funded games. Elizabeth Losh of the University of California Irvine investigates the games funded by the government and they deep impact they had on the gaming and development world in her piece titled “Making Things Public: Democracy and Government-Funded Videogames and Virtual Reality Simulations” (This article can be found at http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1183334&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=33116903&CFTOKEN=47434535&ret=1#Fulltext ). This piece serves not only as an introduction to Tactical Iraqi and Virtual Iraq, two games currently funded by the United States government, but also as a sort of summary of the controversy surrounding the creation of these games.
Before the September 11th attacks even happened, the fighters of Al Qaeda took advantage of the advantages the virtual world can give in training. Truly, I believe that had it not been for the flight simulators available to al Qaeda soldiers on which to train, the September 11th attacks would have happened much later due to purely fiscal and practical reasons. Al Qaeda probably would not have had the funds to get and train on real airplanes, not to mention that doing so would certainly attract more attention than a group of men on hidden consoles. It is the existence of the flight simulators and their parallel relationship with the real world that allowed al Qaeda soldiers to become skilled enough to be able to apply their gaming skills to the real world and thus instigate the tragedy at hand.
After the attacks, President George W. Bush ignited the country with his declaration of war upon the Middle East: the War on Terror. Though it began as a mad hunt for Osama bin Laden, it eventually phased into the war on Iraq. Though it is unclear why Iraq was invaded and assimilated into American ways, the government is beginning to support the soldiers in a new way, namely, the creation of games which in some way help the soldiers as individuals as they prepare for or return from a tour in Iraq. Tactical Iraqi is a game created to “accelerate a soldier’s acquisition of spoken Arabic to assist in volatile tactical situations,” and is intended for use before a tour. The soldier plays as John Smith, a burly young American man on tour in Iraq whose first mission is to help rebuild a girls’ school. Through this character, a soldier can learn not only how best to communicate with the civilians on a personal level, but also learn key phrases in Arabic in a very applicable setting. Virtual Iraq, on the other hand, is a clean-up game of sorts, intended to assist soldiers who have returned from recent tours to recover from their Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The creation of these games, though certainly beneficial for the everyday soldier, set the gaming world on fire. The intention as well as the government funding brought the game development world into a whole new sphere of reality in which by creating virtual spaces, they could arguably be supporting the war. In fact, Gonzalo Frasca denounced those who are helping to make these games possible, telling them to “cut all ties to military projects” and alienating them by refusing to call them his colleagues. On the other hand, many fought back with the fact that these games help the soldiers as individuals and as people, and do not directly support the current war efforts. In these ways the virtual world has supported the tearing apart of the real world, and the two have begun to mesh in ways previously unthought of. The virtual world of the days of Pong is no longer quite as separate as we would like it to be, having real-world consequences and uses. What other tragedies or momentous events were supported by the virtual world? I will continue my investigation of this in the research paper to come.
Comments
Luisa,
I love the narrowed focus of your topic and find it really thought-provoking. The relationship of gaming/virtual worlds to both enabling and combating real-world terrorism is an original and exciting topic. Have you had a chance to look at Kuma War? We will probably be looking at it in class together -- it's a little different from the games you mention in your blog entry, but what it does is allows the average gamer to play through real-life military engagements. An interesting concept for the "armchair" soldier.
Also, I know that you will be revising this material for next week: don't forget that even in a blog entry you might want to include source information. For instance, I was really struck by the Frasca reference, but you don't leave me any clues as to where I could track down that longer commentary.
Excellent topic -- and excellent blog post!
Posted by: Christine Alfano, Stanford Instructor | April 29, 2009 11:29 AM
Hey,
your topic sounds really interesting. At first, it sounded extremely focused, almost too focused to write a paper on. But you transitioned into the slightly related topic of virtual games and how they allowed for training, which you demonstrated was a very interesting and nuanced topic. I also was struck by the Frasca reference because I was confused where they were from. But your topic as a whole looks very strong. I wish my own blog post was as good.
Posted by: Alex Quach | April 30, 2009 10:42 AM
Here is a US gov. doc on virtual reality training:
Instructional strategies for training teams in virtual environments: http://searchworks.stanford.edu/vufind/Record/7616621
Date is 2001, so it would give you some idea of what military was doing pre-9/11
Posted by: Chris Bourg | April 30, 2009 04:57 PM
First of all the subject of this essay is a new and an intersting one. the relationship between the virtual games and 11th september or wars in general. I see games are very useful for soliders as these games give them more war tactics and maybe increase their intelligence in war. however, these games are extremely dangerous for kids and extremists people because these games can give them the ideas to attack certain strategical regions or building and these games also increase rate of violence in the raising up generations who may be decision makers or terrorists. anyway, this is a good, focused essay and I am glad to read such a good work
Posted by: Ahmed Samy Lotf | May 16, 2009 03:33 AM
First of all the subject of this essay is a new and an intersting one. the relationship between the virtual games and 11th september or wars in general. I see games are very useful for soliders as these games give them more war tactics and maybe increase their intelligence in war. however, these games are extremely dangerous for kids and extremists people because these games can give them the ideas to attack certain strategical regions or building and these games also increase rate of violence in the raising up generations who may be decision makers or terrorists. anyway, this is a good, focused essay and I am glad to read such a good work
Posted by: Ahmed Samy Lotf | May 16, 2009 03:34 AM
First of all the subject of this essay is a new and an intersting one. the relationship between the virtual games and 11th september or wars in general. I see games are very useful for soliders as these games give them more war tactics and maybe increase their intelligence in war. however, these games are extremely dangerous for kids and extremists people because these games can give them the ideas to attack certain strategical regions or building and these games also increase rate of violence in the raising up generations who may be decision makers or terrorists. anyway, this is a good, focused essay and I am glad to read such a good work
Posted by: Ahmed Samy Lotf | May 16, 2009 03:34 AM
First of all the subject of this essay is a new and an intersting one. the relationship between the virtual games and 11th september or wars in general. I see games are very useful for soliders as these games give them more war tactics and maybe increase their intelligence in war. however, these games are extremely dangerous for kids and extremists people because these games can give them the ideas to attack certain strategical regions or building and these games also increase rate of violence in the raising up generations who may be decision makers or terrorists. anyway, this is a good, focused essay and I am glad to read such a good work
Posted by: Ahmed Samy Lotf | May 16, 2009 03:35 AM
Another very good article, very usefull!!
Posted by: Emerson | May 25, 2009 05:37 PM
We should make a distinction between "game" and "virtual reality". Althrough VR might look and feel like a "game", it is in fact training.
Posted by: Vouchers | July 15, 2009 07:39 AM
Good source of great articles. Very useful. You rock.
Posted by: hadhad | August 9, 2009 11:10 AM
I wonder if the creators of these flight sim games felt even a tinge of guilt after realising how their "baby" was put to use.
I dare say the exec's didn't as they are simply numbers people but it must be terrible being a lower level programmer/designer knowing you had a hand (albeit indirectly) in helping these people commit these acts.
Posted by: alex back | September 15, 2009 04:27 AM
This is really interesting area of discussion and I agree with you in many points.
The games can be useful for soldiers so they can train and learn some war tactics.
But in some games, you may find them humiliating other people like the invaded countries which will not like to see such games.
Posted by: العاب فلاش | November 1, 2009 01:37 AM
Goverments playing games whats new
Posted by: Alto | November 7, 2009 07:42 AM