There are more than 3.24 billion video players in the world today, and the value of the global video game market amounted to 195.65 billion dollars in 2021, and it is expected to reach 583.69 billion in 2030 with an annual growth rate of 12.9% during this period, according to what was recently reported by the “Grand” platform. Grand View Research.

The bulk of these war games attract hundreds of millions of players around the world, and to demonstrate the extent of their spread among the public, it is enough to know that one of them is "Call of Duty" has attracted more than 6 million active in 24 hours Only from the release of the last version of it in 2020, and this number has grown to more than 100 million active members in just 13 months of its presence in the market, according to what was recently reported by the “Statista” platform.

War games are big business in the world of electronic games, with the most successful releases attracting millions of players, and this type of game is inspired by real military technology, where developers of tactical war games go to great lengths to ensure that their products are, as closely as possible, an accurate reflection of the latest Techniques and tactics that are used in today's battlefields, says author Chris Lowe in a report recently published by the army-technology platform.

In fact, the relationship between armies and electronic games is reciprocal, as the developers of these games benefit from actual military plans and tactics in developing their games, and armies benefit from the advanced technologies that these games have reached in developing, drawing and implementing their war plans on the field.

On the ground, the relationship of the electronic games industry with armies and wars is deepening and entrenching more than ever, whether through technology used in officer training, tactics and war plans, building close relationships with veterans, or the fact that soldiers simply love to play, as Writer Stephen Powell says in his extensive report on this topic, which was recently published by the BBC.

“There is a very deep affinity with gaming between those who are actively serving in the military today and veterans,” says Dan Goldenberg, who previously served in the US Navy and now runs the Call of Duty Endowment, a veteran support organization for the popular video game franchise. younger warriors.

This connection, he adds, "is not going away, and it is continuing and deepening."

There are more than 3.24 billion video players in the world today (Shutterstock)

war game

Years ago, military leaders were planning, preparing, and testing their military tactics on a worn out map, changing the wooden models on the map, which represented the movement of troops on the battlefield.

Today, instead of all this, they play a video game in which they put their plans, tactics, and expectations for the course of the battle. The advanced technology used in building and designing modern games allows generals to do something similar to what their historical counterparts were doing, but in a more advanced and sophisticated way, as the writer mentioned in his report above. The remembrance.

"Video game technology has become incredibly powerful and useful" and it gives generals the ability to recreate all the complexities of the real world in the virtual world, said Joey Robinson of Impobable Technologies to the BBC.

A special program developed by Impopable under the same name allows you to virtually recreate realistic war scenarios, exploring them from an overhead viewpoint. of Heroes) or from the perspective of the person participating in the battle, as in the game "Counter Strike".

In this program - according to the author - the impact of cyber-attacks and misinformation that comes from the enemy is calculated, down to the demographics and infrastructure of the country on whose territory the battle is taking place, where all the countless aspects that can affect modern warfare are entered. , to the program that analyzes all this information, draws conclusions from it and provides it to the generals and leaders who actually run the war, "This is much more than just moving wooden models on an old map as was the case in the past."

“Threats can come from anywhere today, and it is very difficult to understand how they are evolving and impacting the battlefield, and it is very difficult to start planning and training for dealing with these problems,” Robinson explains.

We enable decision makers to experiment with ideas, test new strategies and equipment, and train forces to deal with these complex and ever-changing environments. No unexpected surprises.

“It is not just a theoretical exercise in which game technology is used to visualize the battle, but rather a model that can be actually applied to the military operations that are taking place now, which means providing a huge advantage to commanders on the actual battlefield,” Robinson explains.

But he refuses to disclose - for security reasons - whether these technologies are currently used in conflicts and wars taking place in the world now, such as the Ukrainian war.

War games inspired by real military technology (Reuters)

A means of communication and recruitment

Stephen Powell confirms in his report that electronic games have recently become an essential part of the British Army’s strategy to deal and communicate with the public, from programmed visits to using games as an open part of its advertising campaigns and interacting regularly with people on broadcasting platforms such as the “Twitch” platform, where it has become a It is clear that senior officials believe that the millions who regularly play games in the UK are a key demographic to reach out to.

Speaking to the BBC, British Army Lieutenant-Colonel Tim Elliott explained: "The whole idea is to bridge the gap between the military and the public we serve."

Lt. Col. Elliot is the head of the British Army's esports department, and soldiers regularly participate in their online gaming sessions, showing off their gaming skills, speaking to the audience and building a community of viewers and followers.

"The military realizes that there is a growing distance between us and the public, so the idea is to try to bridge that gap, so that the general public understands what we're doing, and that we're basically human like them but in uniform," Elliott explains.

He stresses that there is a difference between this awareness-raising work and employment, as "we can interact with people, and they can ask questions to the soldiers, and receive answers without pressure, and the goal is to understand and overcome the ambiguity and misunderstanding surrounding the army, not the desire to recruit."

However, electronic game players have the necessary skills, such as the ability to communicate and react quickly in time to deal with the problems they face while playing, and these are all basic skills that the army needs, in addition to the fact that most of the players are young and at the ideal age for conscription and entry into the military service.

In fact, this relationship between the army and young players did not go unnoticed, and was not universally welcomed. In the past, for example, in 2019, there were criticisms of the distribution of recruits in the British army in a military publication in an issue of PlayStation magazine.

The use of broadcasting platforms is not limited to the British armed forces only, the US military has used the “Twitch” platform as a recruitment tool, and this move has sparked widespread debate about freedom of expression in the United States.

And yet, the great technological development that our world is witnessing today brings imagination so that it becomes another reality in a virtual world that seeks to achieve total immersion in a new and exciting human experience based on a long history of thought that tried a lot over time to make imagination a reality, and reality a fantasy, or as he said Our Sheikh Ibn Arabi, about 800 years ago, "is nothing but imagination."

Today, war is just a game, and games are bloody and merciless wars.