A Milsim Sandbox Game Experience - A Possible Case Study for the Recreation of Dominance/Discrimination, Systems of Power/Powerlessness, and Rebellious Acvitivty(s) - part 1

My first actual entry will be an interesting one I think. This was intended to be a single post but quickly became a two parter.

Many people play video games and the industry surrounding it has surpassed the movie industry, in America and abroad, in terms of total revenue. Along with this has emerged the vein/genre of gamers known as casual gamers, think Angry Birds and social games like Farmville. Congrats, if you play/have-played those games, you're a casual gamer. This has brought even more people into the gaming enclave as a result. However I bet most would find it extremely interesting that games are sometimes used as research tools.

For this entry I will have to do a bit of explaining I feel. First, I am a self-professed gamer, and it is actually one of my primary means of relaxation and entertainment. I've spent years immersed within the gamer sub-culture as it is very much a part of my life so my knowledge of games, while admittedly not perfect, is rather extensive. Then again what is literally perfect in this world, eh?

For the purposes of this discussion I'll be looking at a particular type of game: sandbox games. The term sandbox game is derived perhaps best from the analogy of a child playing in an open sandbox, where said child is free to do what ever they want, and is only limited by the constraints of their imagination and tools at hand, to create new things out of the sand. Thus sandbox games are games with open-ended and open-world environment, which historically have allowed for interesting experiments to take place within their digital environments.

While sociology seems to have been somewhat reluctant to adopt this sort of testing methodology (as far as I know its not a common form of research testing within sociology but I could be wrong), psychology research often can involve small games or the use of video games as a mean of conducting more open ended testing.

The situation I shall use for my analysis arose in a gaming group that I commonly play with. This group (which shall remain nameless for the sake of anonymity) focuses its attentions and efforts on a milsim (short for military simulations) game series called Arma, and recreating an authentic military structure and experience in a relaxed atmosphere. This type of group is what has become colloquially known as a realism unit within the gaming community. This unit, in particular, has three distinct divisions: the main infantry body broken down into three teams of 8-12), and three smaller support-role oriented divisions: aerial division (for transportation of troops, assets/materials, and close air support [CAS] and other air support functions),  a small recon/sniper team (5-6 people) and a heavy weapons/support section (typically dealing with machine guns [7.62 mm in size, and up], mortars, and heavy anti-tank weapons).

If you're already rolling your eyes its admittedly not for everyone, so stuff you opinion and focus on whats below.

The group is currently comprised of a mixture of civilians, military (both active/former duty service men), and active duty/former police, and its membership is comprised of a mixture of people from across the globe, but is primarily composed of US, and Canadian.

The game series (the Arma series) itself is produced by Bohemia Interactive Studios, and is derived from their Virtual Battlespace commercial software series, which is commonly in use with many militarys across the world as part their training of soldiers. As a result, while a very-accurate simulation, is not without its problems: such as limiting game mechanics or game-isms to make the experience of playing more enjoyable and tolerable...Remember folks, games are meant to be fun and simulations of real life can be very boring!! So some sacrifices (in terms of realism) are sacrificed for the game to be more playable and fun in general.

Anyway, enough background-ing.
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The particular incident in question happened recently during our regular Wednesday gaming night. Wednesdays are typically reserved for missions, basically scenarios that are written by group members to follow a narrative story (as much as one can have in a chaotic and random open-world sandbox game). Mission nights usually follow/involve a theme that is picked for that particular month, or help to emphasize a key-point from our Monday "training" nights. We typically play on a variety of maps to change up the different possible scenarios, environments, and the like. For a working definition of a map think of it as the level, world, stage, or zone that shall be played on. Thus a map encompasses all the playable physical land, (land, water, bridges, buildings/structures, trees, and terrain features, ect that can be played on), and objects that can be interacted with while playing.

The mission in question occurred on the Zargabad map for Arma 2. Zargabad is a  facsimile of a nondescript town in the Middle East region, featuring a sizeable built up urban area as the central city named, unironically, Zargabad), and smallish outlying villages/compounds in a mostly desert-ish landscape. Map features of note include airable lands to the north and northwest of Zargabad proper, a small military styled base to the north east of Zargabad, and numerous oil fields/pumps to the south of Zargabad. The mission involved two different teams, or what is commonly known as a TvT (team vs. team) environment and is a deviation from group's largely PvE (player vs enemy-AI) focused missions.

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For this particular scenario the group as a whole was divided into two main groups: Blufor (Blue force); and Redfor (Red Force). Blufor was divided into two distinct subgroups: local police (numbering 4-6 people in size), and US Marines (around 8-10 people). Redfor was also divided into two distinct subgroups: citizens (around 8+ people), and insurgents/terrorist forces (3-5 people). These subgroups effectively became each player's given role for each each instance of the scenario/mission.

Throughout the entire night, the scenario was run multiple times (4 or 5 times total). Before each new instance/start of the scenario, players were swapped in/out of the various groups and roles to ensure players had gotten to play each subgroup/role at least once.

The scenario for the mission

 As US forces in the area begin their withdrawal from the region, the transfer of duties over to the local government and its agencies has begun. Elections are being held within the town of Zargabad, as part of the transition to a new government system: a large influx of civilians are coming from outlying areas to the city of Zargabad to participate in the voting process for the election of the new government.

Insurgent activity is expected to be high within the town of Zargabad proper. The current situations provides insurgent forces within the area them with a prime target and opportunity given the increased visibility from media (international and local both), military, and political interests afforded to this event. Terrorist activity, snipers, and IEDs and VBIED attacks are likely.

Blufor: Police are to secure and maintain a small cordon zone around the main building in which voting will take place. Marines are to enter into the area and provide support, working alongside the local police forces, to ensure that the voting process remains uninterrupted.

Redfor: civilians are to head towards the voting center and vote. Insurgents are to disrupt the process as much as possible through violent means; once an insurgent dies however they loose their "insurgent" role and revert to being a citizen upon respawn (a term denoting a new life after dieing within a game), and proceed to follow the above rules and conditions for civilians.

Blufor RoE (Rules of Engagement): Police: Do not fire unless fire upon. Marines: Do not fire unless fired upon or your life is threatened.

Redfor RoE: Insurgent: None. Civilians: Go forth and vote, and be annoying.
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Thus, each group was given a loose set of rules on how to operate and behave, and the game was launched for us to enact our roles. And boy did we ever..

More later on

~WhtsTh@?

The beggining

So I suppose I should post a bit about myself before I get going.

I'm a 29 y/o white male, currently enrolled at Oregon State University with the College of Liberal Arts as a Sociology major. I've lived a good majority of my life in small towns within the rural areas of Oregon, and college was honestly my first real exposure to the "rest of the world". That sounds cliche I know, but its the truth. Small town rural life, especially when not near any readily accessible large population center, has a way of limiting your potential life experiences to an nth degree.

My hobbies are wide and varied, but include a good amount of video-gaming, reading, writing, playing music, and on the rare occasion surfing. I currently suffer from Chron's Disease, and a few other medical issues to boot. More on that later possibly.

Well that was briefer than I expected..Anyway.

My interests in sociology started in my local high school, officially, but had always been there since I was younger. As a self-professed individual who leans towards introversion I've always been that someone on the "outside looking in".  So to pass the inevitable boredom that high school in America seems to breed, I'd usually observe my classmates, groups of people, or just random individuals in general: People watching if you will. Come high school sociology class though I finally found out just what I was doing: I was being an ignorant sociologist.

"Ignorant sociologist"? Huh, whats that?! - Thats probably what you're thinking right?

Now don't get me wrong, not everyone who sits there on a park bench and people watches is a sociologist and I'm not trying to paint myself  (at that point in my life) AS one. I'm merely trying to highlight where the beginnings of my interest in sociology emerged from. I think its important to distinguish between the two for many reasons, some of which I hope to go into later on. Just watching people and observing them is fine, but without a structured perspective for analysis are you really going to learn anything from it? Sociology class in high school is what really helped me to see the need to lend a scientific methodology and perspective to making observations. After all, without it what are you really doing?..Besides being some weird person on a bench staring at people.

So from high school I went to college at Oregon State, with the intent of being a engineer...then a nuclear engineer, computer scientist/programmer, video game developer..You can see where this is going right? Cliche' youth stepping out on his own for the first time listlessly trying to decide what to do with themselves. The college experience in a nut-shell there folks; minus all the booze, drugs, and sex.

Eventually I dedicated myself, after some exposure to more fields of education, on liberal arts and concentrated on sociology and psychology. Now I'm preparing to make the wonderful leap out into "the real world" that awaits us all post-graduation and looking forward to spending some time in a dead-end job as I try to find gainful employment post graduation. As gainful as employment can be with a sociology degree that is.

So here's to my sarcasm and wit hopefully being charming enough to keep a minor audience of readers and people around, while I try and talk about various subjects from a sociological perspective.

Cheers

~WhtsTh@?