DRONES - Real life Videogames

There has been much media coverage in recent times about the use of military ‘drones’, often citing the fact that we are now in the ‘video-game age’ of warfare. Drones are unmanned aircraft which are controlled via a computer screen from anywhere in the world via satellite, and are used both for reconnaissance missions, as well as aerial strikes.
Originally hailed as bringing about an end to unnecessary casualties for the US, the fact that there is now a disconnect between the person controlling the drone and the violence caused is a topical issue. This problem is compounded by the fact that they are simply not that accurate in identifying terrorists, causing a vast amount of ‘collateral damage’ (a delightfully innocent term for innocent civilian deaths). According to New America Foundation research, only 67% of those killed in drone attacks are militants (re: http://conflicthealth.com/new-america-foundation-militants-67-of-drone-deaths/).

The problem here is that the lines are being blurred between representational violence and actual violence. There is little difference between what is on the screen for those controlling actual, real life killing machines and the screen we see when playing fictional videogames. Games such as Battlefield and Modern Combat are now incorporating missions which explicitly attempt to recreate the sensation of using a combat drone to destroy human targets. This is done through the use of a similar screen display as well as an attempt to imitate the controls of real life drones as accurately as possible. The fascination with realism in games has a long history, and this can be seen merely as a continuation of standard trends, but in this new context is begs us to ask one question: how is one expected to be able to tell the difference between these two seemingly identical experiences?

This relates to the common debate regarding videogame violence, however in a slightly different way to the traditional arguments of over-stylised, gratuitous violence. Here, the kind of violence videogames appear to be legitimising is simply acts of warfare. This is a very similar argument to Robert Yang’s (reading 8C), where he argues that the modern first person shooter games cause violence in real life not by traditional models of aggressive play leading to aggressive real life actions, but altering our predisposition to support real life wars that cause real deaths. Because the drone attacks one simulates when playing these games appear so clean, so safe, so detached, it furthers the idea of the enemies as the ‘other’, thus appearing to legitimise those wars which are currently taking place in such a way. These games are so frequently are situated in real life places, where real life wars are occurring right now, effectively placing you in the shoes of real life soldiers and giving the player the impression that modern wars are indeed ‘win-able’. Drones within gameplay, it seems, are merely the next step in legitimising acts of warfare.

For a good overview of Drone Warfare have a look (and a shudder) at this Aljazeera Video: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/07/201271872041648814.html