The paper discusses functions and aesthetics of military-themed and military-endorsed/commissioned games from Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig to America's Army. It contains examples and a design exercise to identify and contextualize bias in the procedural rhetoric of the games.

1. slide #1Remote Control Conference 2014, Utrecht
Workshop: War Games
Dr. Stefan Werning (University of Utrecht)
Saturday 13th December, 2014 (10-12)

2. slide #2Remote Control Conference 2014, Utrecht
Military Games:
America‘s Army (2002-)
• Basic military training as ‚tutorial‘
• Focus on a specific form of simulated
‚realism‘
– Psychophysical effects such as having to control
breathing when shooting a weapon
– Recorded original sound effects of weapons/equipment
– Simulated degradation of weapons
• Extending to different platforms
– Mobile version in cooperation with Gameloft
– Arcade version incl. Lightgun peripheral
– Adapted to new iterations of the Unreal Engine

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‚Counter-Games‘
• Special Force
– ‚Counter game‘ with regard to America‘s Army
– Similarly conceived as ‚recruitainment‘ and
propaganda tool
• Special Force 2: Tale of the Truthful
Pledge
– Differentiates friendly/hostile environments by terrain:
forests  deserts
– Sold 100000 copies, then freely downloadable
– Unlicensed appropriation of the CryEngine
• Quraish
– ‚Counter game‘ with regard to Age of Empires

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‚Anti-War Games‘
• September 12th
• All‘s well that ends well
• This War of Mine (2014)
• Expose ‚mechanisms‘ of military
conflicts by mapping them onto
familiar gameplay tropes

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Games in the discourse on war and military conflict
• Potential other discursive
functions of digital war games?
– Establishing military terminology and
abbreviations in ‘mainstream’ discourse
• Strategy games and dual-use examples like Full
Spectrum Warrior
– Suggesting manageability by providing
opportunities for (simulated) interaction
– De-singularizing events through iterative play-
throughs
• EX: Allied landing in Normandy in Medal of
Honor

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War games and public discourse:
The case of the German Bundeswehr
• Helicopter Mission (1994)
– Utilizes the isometric perspective popularized by
Desert Strike (1993)
– Only logistical missions
– Similarly tries to differentiate itself through added
realism such as wind
• Luna Mission (browser game, 2000)
– Controlling a reconnaissance drone
• Sports-related browser games on the
youth-oriented Bundeswehr website
– Games themselves as discourse object (irrespective
of the actual ‚content‘)

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Games and the playful appropriation
of (military) technologies
• Games foster systematic and
algorithmic thinking
– EXAMPLE: Military strategy games
• Assessing and prioritizing quantities
• Installing stable feedback loops (e.g. economic
systems)
• Planning and synchronizing several parallel
processes
• Playful interaction as a basic property
of algorithmic media
– Inherently playful forms of media use
• EX: Nukemap 3D and Nukemap
– Playful appropriation of (digital) technologies
• EX: GEWar
The same also applies to non-digital games!

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Taking a step back …

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The interplay between (board) game design
and its military applications
• Johan Christian Ludwig
Hellwig, Versuch eines aufs
Schachspiel gebaueten
taktischen Spiels (1780)
– Addresses deficits of chess as a model
of warfare
• Projectile weapons and (information)
logistics
• Leopold Reißwitz, Kriegspiel
(1812)
– First modular board game
– Third party takes over the
‚computation‘

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The interplay between (board) game design
and its military applications II
• Board-game apparatuses in
military strategy
– For an evocative example from the context
of the Ardennes offensive in 1944 cf. Von
Hilgers, Philipp. 2012. War games:
a history of war on paper. Cambridge, MA:
MIT Press, 36f.
• Subversion of familiar gameplay
topoi
– Juden Raus (1936)  Pachisi
– Jagd auf Kohlenklau (1944)
• Built on traditional parcours games like
Snakes & Ladders
• Addressing issues from daily news through
cheap, mass-produced games

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Military Toys
• Clothespin dolls as ‚storytelling
systems‘
– Celia Pearce, „Game Theory of games“
• Little Wars (H.G. Wells, 1913)
• Johnny Seven (1964-69)
– Among the first de-realising depictions of military
contexts in toy design

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Military board and card games
• Mission Command (2003/04)
– Produced by the Army National Guard
– Distributed to children of distinguished soldiers of the US
army (Future Soldier Footlocker Kit)
• Daring Eagle (2004)
– Combination of a board and card game
– Differentiates between divisions and brigades as basic
units
– Units as tokens, weapons technologies as cards

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Identifying gameplay bias:
Cold War logic
• Diplomacy (1954/59)
– Overview, Rulebook
– 1914 map but played and created in a
Cold War context
• Missile Command (1980)
• Q: Differences between both
forms of rule bias?

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Modifying military board games
• Risk (1957)
– Also encapsulates Cold War rationality and the
logic of world domination
– Original material referenced the Napoleonic Wars
(rules  themes)
• Risk Black Ops (2008)
 Risk – Revised Edition (2008)
– Resource system based on cities and capitals
– Differentiated, even partially dynamic and open
mission goals instead of controlling territory
– Incentivizes a more defensiv, strategic playing
style
• Risk Legacy (2011)
– Sequences of interrelated game sessions
– Permanent modifications to the game itself

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Design Exercise
• A) Think about how to represent
aspects of contemporary military
conflict in a board/card game.
– Use Risk or Diplomacy as two potential frameworks or
design your own mechanism based on gameplay
patterns from other games.
– Also tangential solutions are possible:
• E.g. turning Monopoly into a game of financing warfare.
• B) Conceptualize or modify a board/card
game as a ‘counter game’.
• C) Conceptualize or modify a board/card
game as an ‘anti war game’.

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Thanks a lot for
your interest and
participation!