Game Worlds - Fundamentals of Game Design - page 109

THE PECULIAR MORALITY OF AMERICA'S ARMY
America's Army , a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter (FPS) game distributed
free by the U.S. Army, is intended to serve as an education and recruiting tool, teaching
players how real soldiers are supposed to fight ( Figure 4.14 ). It differs from most FPS
games in two significant ways. First, it requires that the player act in conformance with
the actual disciplinary requirements of the Army, so it detects and punishes dishonorable
behavior. The Army is anxious to make the point that soldiering comes with serious
moral responsibilities. Second, and rather strangely, all sides in a firefight see them-
selves as U.S. soldiers, and they see the enemy as rather generic terrorists. The Army did
not want to give any player the chance to shoot at American soldiers, even though they
are obviously shooting at one another. So a player sees himself and his teammates as
U.S. soldiers carrying M-16 rifles, but his opponents see him and his teammates as ter-
rorists carrying AK-47s. In other words, everyone perceives himself as a good guy and his
opponent as a bad guy, and the game's graphics literally present two different versions
of reality to each team. By avoiding a politically unacceptable design (letting players
shoot at American soldiers in a game made by the U.S. Army), they created a moral equiv-
alence: The question of who is in the right is purely a matter of perspective. America's
Army 's trick of displaying different versions of the game world to different players may
be unique among video games.
FIGURE 4.14 Our guys get the drop on somebody who also thinks he's one of our guys.