Not Your Parents' Video Games [1]
Submitted by Diane Farsetta [2] on
"To promote America's Army: Overmatch [3], a free game created by the Army as a recruitment tool, a group of Army Special Forces personnel staged an urban tactical assault exercise outside the [Los Angeles] convention center" hosting the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3. The "helicopters, machine guns and face-painted soldiers leaping off tall buildings" startled and even "panicked" passersby. One retired Army major with the game project said: "This game is what we do in reality. We're the real deal." The Australian Financial Review reports on another trend [4] visible at E3: video game product placement [5]. "Such games provide an alternative channel as entertainment habits change. Television networks have already christened the decline in hours watched by males aged 18 to 24 the 'testosterone tune-out'... But games sales seem set on an upward curve."