Remember that Halo Hololens demo? Well, the Army is using hololens and the tech:
That's eerily similar to what we heard about at E3, though the video didn't show much:
I ended up getting curious about whatever small connection there was and looked some things up. I've always heard games like CoD/Battlefield/America's Army/etc be used as examples of the military-entertainment complex so i'm really shocked at just how much effort was put into using Halo as a recruitment tool.
the army experience center spent $12 million on some arcade in north philly (they had the lowest enrollment rate at that time) aimed to get young people interested in the army, weird but they have games like america's army, but this stood out:
whatever, not too strange. it eventually closed and they chalked it up as an experiment.
but then i found out that the army experience center actually came after the "Virtual Army Experience" which was essentially a traveling road show that allowed civilians to experience combat. not only were you required to give all info to participate but they tracked you while you were inside the experience:
which was also around the time of the army strong campaign and right before Halo 3's release.
As great as the Believe campaign is, I thought it was weird that the Army won awards for it.
The Army also sponsored the first Halo 3 Xbox Live tournament and set up 3 basic training challenges up to the tournament (sniper school, heavy weapons, vehicles) in return for Microsoft allowing them to have their own blade on the dashboard to advertise it and the army:
now i'm not saying this was all coordinated just because the army tested using Halo to recruit young adults or because Halo 3 had those us army zunes, but:
Source: https://www.slideshare.net/mccannny/army-halo-3-integration-with-gaming-1604165
and a presentation from the president of one of the marketing teams also talks about using games (direct reference to AA, Halo and Battlefield 2) as recruiting tools. Lots of talk about leveraging a killer game:
https://ams.aaaa.org/eweb/upload/webcasts/digital07/johnson.pdf
The head of 343 Industries also just left for a new position on the hololens team to widen its use as an education tool, which seemed like a weird coincidence. I also think it's funny they directly reference Halo when talking about future weapons:
https://www.army.mil/article/95316/...ncements_in_modern_warfare_weapons_technology
https://www.wired.com/2012/11/emp-grenades/
https://gizmodo.com/256147/covenant-beware-us-army-developing-plasma-shields
Stars and Stripes (acknowledged in an above slide) posted a pic of SOCOM's new exosuit:
and when China said we were making iron man suits, they used a cap from a Halo fan movie:
So even if it's not being used to recruit, i wonder what power it holds as propaganda/american exceptionalism. Does this bother you any; is there anything wrong with the army using these types of tools to recruit new soldiers?
That's eerily similar to what we heard about at E3, though the video didn't show much:
I ended up getting curious about whatever small connection there was and looked some things up. I've always heard games like CoD/Battlefield/America's Army/etc be used as examples of the military-entertainment complex so i'm really shocked at just how much effort was put into using Halo as a recruitment tool.
the army experience center spent $12 million on some arcade in north philly (they had the lowest enrollment rate at that time) aimed to get young people interested in the army, weird but they have games like america's army, but this stood out:
whatever, not too strange. it eventually closed and they chalked it up as an experiment.
but then i found out that the army experience center actually came after the "Virtual Army Experience" which was essentially a traveling road show that allowed civilians to experience combat. not only were you required to give all info to participate but they tracked you while you were inside the experience:
which was also around the time of the army strong campaign and right before Halo 3's release.
As great as the Believe campaign is, I thought it was weird that the Army won awards for it.
The Army also sponsored the first Halo 3 Xbox Live tournament and set up 3 basic training challenges up to the tournament (sniper school, heavy weapons, vehicles) in return for Microsoft allowing them to have their own blade on the dashboard to advertise it and the army:
now i'm not saying this was all coordinated just because the army tested using Halo to recruit young adults or because Halo 3 had those us army zunes, but:
Source: https://www.slideshare.net/mccannny/army-halo-3-integration-with-gaming-1604165
and a presentation from the president of one of the marketing teams also talks about using games (direct reference to AA, Halo and Battlefield 2) as recruiting tools. Lots of talk about leveraging a killer game:
https://ams.aaaa.org/eweb/upload/webcasts/digital07/johnson.pdf
The head of 343 Industries also just left for a new position on the hololens team to widen its use as an education tool, which seemed like a weird coincidence. I also think it's funny they directly reference Halo when talking about future weapons:
https://www.army.mil/article/95316/...ncements_in_modern_warfare_weapons_technology
https://www.wired.com/2012/11/emp-grenades/
https://gizmodo.com/256147/covenant-beware-us-army-developing-plasma-shields
Stars and Stripes (acknowledged in an above slide) posted a pic of SOCOM's new exosuit:
and when China said we were making iron man suits, they used a cap from a Halo fan movie:
So even if it's not being used to recruit, i wonder what power it holds as propaganda/american exceptionalism. Does this bother you any; is there anything wrong with the army using these types of tools to recruit new soldiers?
