How do you feel about military adverts in video game media?

This may be uniquely American? I have not seen any ads for the Canadian Armed Forces while engaging in any games media of any sort.

No idea what you're talking about to be honest, sorry.

I don't know what you're talking about, but no thank you. Do not like.

I'm in America, and I don't like how prevalent it is everywhere. You have to support it or you're unAmerican.

Games, specifically, like to advertise it as this carefree, casual thing and that bums me out.

Strange to see people say they don't know what you're talking about, if they are American. Military advertisements are everywhere.

Does it bother me? Not really.

The United States NEEDS a military and, thankfully, we have an all volunteer military. That's pretty awesome. This means that you don't HAVE to put on a uniform and go fight, as many countries would require you to do. So if you don't have to do that, I would think that the least you could do is put up with some advertisements persuading some people to join.

Do I think it's sad that they prey upon certain types of people? Yes, I suppose I do. But I also think that they're simply taking their message to where they believe it would be most effective, which is just good advertising.

Personally, I dislike gun/millitary nerds who WON'T enlist more than I do the ones who do. At least they have the courage to not just sit around fantasizing about it.

I don't understand why this-- or literally any other advertisement ever-- would bother someone. Vote with your wallet. If you don't like it, don't do it.

When I was in high school some ex-soldier cop came into my class. He was actually a pretty cool guy. He took our questions about law enforcement seriously and didn't get angry if someone critiqued the police force. But then after his presentation he showed us a video of him and his buddies in Afghanistan shooting M249 SAWs and started telling us how awesome it was to be in the army. Yeah. It probably was awesome for him but it was basically propaganda, with driving metal music and dudes funning around in the desert as if they don't have to go shoot at and potentially kill other men. I remember me and my buddy just looking at each other, mouths open, basically thinking "this isn't actually happening, is it?"

There was also a dude at that school who was a raging bigot, who would call homosexual students "faggots", who would refer to the special needs kids as "retards" and he specifically cited things like Battlefield for his desire to join the military, and that's where he is now. So good for him I guess. Really happy I never have to see him again.

This isn't about video games but man. It was stuff like that that made me question how much I enjoy Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Oh I live in Canada by the way.

Well that seems unreasonable. I think the idea is that he is saying that he feels sympathy for the young men and women who are joining the armed forces because the advertisements are playing into naivety and love of game. It's like luring children into a van with candy.

But, you know, the candy is respect, and the van is being shot.

It doesn't bother me any more than seeing any other advertisement. It's not like a kid on a power trip will make it through basic without having the dumbass knocked out of him unless he was going to maintain that jingoism regardless of whether he saw an ad for the military on his Xbox One or not.

Army recruiters can be the worst. They hook onto kids and tell them everything they want to hear. Sometimes they go so far as lying about what life in the military will be like, even though that's illegal. I had a friend who was a year older than me and he enlisted. He was excited to the point of being unable to think or talk about anything else as he finished out his senior year. I saw him the next year during the holidays and he was miserable. He said it was the worst decision of his life and he still had two more years to go. I never saw him again. I imagine he probably did fine and it got better over time. But still. his recruiter sold him a lie.

18 year old's are not children. If they can vote, get addicted to cigarettes, gamble and be put in jail, they should be held accountable for their decisions, just like any other adult on this planet. If you are lured into the army because of an advertisement, then you could probably learn a thing or two about maybe actually thinking through your decisions from enlisting in the army.

I'm not American so haven't really seen this (the UK military is always cutting back on troops these days so makes little effort to recruit, and the adverts when they do appear are mainly half-arsed cinema ones) Do you mean there are straight up adverts in games for the army? That seems kind of gross and Starship Troopers-y for sure.

@deerokus: Sorry, not IN-GAME adverts. I'm talking about commercials that play before you watch some CoD highlights (or something to that effect). I mainly see Marines and Army advertisements. The most the United States military has done regarding in-game advertising would probably be making their own game: America's Army.

I have no distinct opinion trending one way or the other about this; I remember seeing military recruiting commercials on TV long before more targeted online ads, and I never really minded those. Similarly, there are many other Internet ads in general that target people based on certain online activities more and more nowadays, so I am indifferent to the military taking that approach.

@nonused said:

Maybe update the thread title and initial post to make it more clear that you mean like, targeted streaming ads for military enlistment on Twitch or Youtube or something that come up right before CoD and Battlefield videos. That wasn't very clear from your initial post.

You might want to make that clearer in your initial post.

For the benefit of non-Americans, can someone post an example (and mention in what context it appeared).

I may be remembering incorrectly, but I think I've seen some of the same actual commercials used on both TV and in the context of pre-video or pre-stream ads on various online services such at YouTube and Twitch. I know the Navy has a pretty strong ad presence. The context I remember this one coming up on was in between a Twitch broadcast going online from offline (although the more I think about it, I may have actually seen it among YouTube ads as well):

The aforementioned link mentions it was originally aired on TV during the military service academies' collegiate football games, but I swear by it being used on Internet ads thereafter.

This is going in Off Topic. What a confusing post.

Canada has the best propaganda...

As for the advertisements, I don't see them. Maybe its because Canada is "at peace" right now and aren't putting out many ads or maybe the omnicient google ad machine has figured out i'm a mid twenties dude and not prime recruit material.

This isn't really the scope of this discussion, but I would like Canada's military to be a well maintained enterprise, appropriately funded, with an emphasis on ensuring our sovereignty. I would like for people to join the military because they are aware of the risks and realities of enrolment, but do so because the military (ideally) takes care of its people, who in turn professionally and judiciously take on the burden - for it should be a burden - of absolute power over life and death. I don't want a military composed of the scum of the earth who have run out of other options.

This is one I remember particularly:

Like, I get what they're going for, but I'm still pretty uncomfortable with the overall implications (not necessarily for the individual; more America's militarism). This was at the front end of a Destiny video, for the record.

@bisonhero@turambar In my defense, I did say video game media, not video games themselves. Usually, for me at least, that connotes coverage of games, or productions surrounding games. Apologies if that means something else entirely, and my understanding was just off. In regards to what you guys were talking about, I don't think there are any actualbanner ads or commercials that play during, say, a free version of Candy Crush. And, outside of America's Army, I don't think the military has gotten involved with crafting a fantastical image of themselves (I feel a lot of games do that for them already, but that is a completely separate discussion; and, to be fair towards America's Army, that tries to be more an accurate simulation than a game, but I do feel they lost the plot a bit). I can't really see how they could do that without going full-on Blackwater. I feel the most brazen they got with it was with this older advertisement, leaving very little grey area to tread:

Again, though, that's much older. Now, from what I've seen, it's a lot more Starship Troopers-y, like someone else had mentioned earlier (although, obviously, less parodical). A lot of marines flipping guns around and talking about how special it is being a marine.

Or army advertisements focusing on a mixture of individual goals with nationalist undertones. I don't think that's wrong, necessarily, and I do agree with a lot of the points @bananasfoster brings up. But I'm still not comfortable with the context in which this material is viewed, as I stated earlier. Just because I don't fall for it doesn't mean that someone else doesn't either.

Although, based on the level of confusion some of the posters have, either this is a uniquely American thing or I'm the only one in the world without Adblock.

@duluoz said:

@clairvoyantvibrations said:

When I was in high school some ex-soldier cop came into my class. He was actually a pretty cool guy. He took our questions about law enforcement seriously and didn't get angry if someone critiqued the police force. But then after his presentation he showed us a video of him and his buddies in Afghanistan shooting M249 SAWs and started telling us how awesome it was to be in the army. Yeah. It probably was awesome for him but it was basically propaganda, with driving metal music and dudes funning around in the desert as if they don't have to go shoot at and potentially kill other men. I remember me and my buddy just looking at each other, mouths open, basically thinking "this isn't actually happening, is it?"

There was also a dude at that school who was a raging bigot, who would call homosexual students "faggots", who would refer to the special needs kids as "retards" and he specifically cited things like Battlefield for his desire to join the military, and that's where he is now. So good for him I guess. Really happy I never have to see him again.

This isn't about video games but man. It was stuff like that that made me question how much I enjoy Call of Duty and Battlefield.

Oh I live in Canada by the way.

Canada has the best propaganda...

As for the advertisements, I don't see them. Maybe its because Canada is "at peace" right now and aren't putting out many ads or maybe the omnicient google ad machine has figured out i'm a mid twenties dude and not prime recruit material.

This isn't really the scope of this discussion, but I would like Canada's military to be a well maintained enterprise, appropriately funded, with an emphasis on ensuring our sovereignty. I would like for people to join the military because they are aware of the risks and realities of enrolment, but do so because the military (ideally) takes care of its people, who in turn professionally and judiciously take on the burden - for it should be a burden - of absolute power over life and death. I don't want a military composed of the scum of the earth who have run out of other options.

I've occasionally seen television ads for the Canadian Armed Forces, but we keep it classy as fuck up here. I could only find this on a Korean Youtube channel, somehow.

You guys remember America's Army? It was a free FPS that came out quite a while ago that was paid for or made by (don't know which) by the United States military. It was pretty popular and there were actually a bunch of versions of it that came out over the years. I remember playing it when I was like 12 or 13 and thinking it was the coolest shit (I didn't have money to play a lot of other games then). It did make me want to join up. Really glad I didn't.

@nonused: @equitasinvictus: It occurs to me that America has learned to just get Keith David to voice all of your military recruitment ads.

As someone who "fell" for this over a decade ago (Cdn Forces, Army), I'll lend my two cents. Also, I was previously a recruiter and have since returned to the artillery

It's a volunteer army. Conscription is still technically feasible but by and large, the people who put on uniforms are there because they chose to do so. Members of the combat arms (infantry, artillery, armored, etc) are generally the hardest people to "keep" as their jobs are typically the most physically demanding, they face the worst working conditions, and they receive virtually no meaningful compensation for the actual hardship of their duties. Specialists (this isn't a rank in my country so I use the term generally here) and other "skilled" entrants generally have an easier time & get paid more - sometimes considerably more - so they tend to stay signed up a lot longer.

But for these frontline trades, there's a ton of attrition. Many people tend to leave these jobs fast, especially after tours. After a contract of a couple years, many will want to quit entirely or find a more relaxed military trade. We could pay these people more, arguably a reasonable solution considering the higher chance of injury and/or death they face, but since members of these combat jobs are often extremely numerous this would get pretty expensive. It's already difficult to get more money for the military as it is, so in practical terms it's nearly impossible to justify said increase.

The most economical solution? Reach new people who are genuinely interested in battle, in weapons, in the tactical and leadership qualities which are needed for combat trades. Let them give it a shot, and sure maybe only 1 in 5 stays for the long haul... but that's enough to train & lead future combat sections, most likely still composed of fresh soldiers who will probably only volunteer for a short time because of how tough it is being in the infantry (or artillery, or armor, etc). It's usually not fair, it's usually not fun, but then again neither is warfare.

Ads like the ones above are basically a way to try and invite people to at least consider what the good aspects can be like. As I said above, it's a volunteer army - but troops are still needed, and that means forces reserve the right to be inviting and show off their positive aspects to entice said volunteers. Is it wrong to potentially mislead some people this way? I don't think so, at least any moreso than any other kind of advertising, because this is way more important than some new toothbrush or an upcoming movie.

Damn this turned into a rant real fast... I could keep writing about this & other realities of an enlisted career ad nauseum but at some point the discussion is of limited use to Americans because my country's forces are extremely underfunded and understaffed which leads to other, unique consequences we won't get into

I see the ads playing around video game stuff on Twitch and youtube more as them targeting military-aged men (or soon to be) rather than "Like CoD? Try actual combat!"

Before YouTube and Twitch, they were showing these same types of ads around Power Rangers and shit.

It's funny to see recruitment ads for different countries. One of the Swedish recruitment ads straight up mocks how America does it.

Yeah as someone outside of the US I can't say I really have ever noticed this. I see more adverts for that sort of thing the few times I watch television than I do on Twitch/YouTube.

Am I misreading the OP or does this actually have nothing to do with videogames? Do the uploaders of youtube videos pick what ads play on their videos? Wouldn't that be Youtube that determines that, probably with a bot of some sort. This seems like a very long walk to anything videogame related.

That swedish ad is fantastic :D

Same as others, being outside the US i've never seen a recruitment ad for my country's military. But i'm also part of the first generation who did not have to do one year of service of mandatory conscription (even tho if you were a conscientious objector you could have opted, with some penalties, for civil service instead) from wich were recruited many who decided for a life in the military, so i guess they not already in need of fresh bodies. Glad i've missed it (for 3 years, last year of mandatory was for those born in 1985), hearing from older people it was a mess where if you had a family member or friend who could "intercede" for you you'd end up in an easy corp and job position, otherwise you might have been screwed, especially if sent in a more fascist (as in proper ideology, not as random insult) corp where hazing and brutalization of conscripts (literally "nonnismo", "nonno" being the word for grandpa in italian so to indicate the older recruits abusing the newer ones) were extreme even ending up in the death of people (see like the "Folgore", Lightning, paratroopers brigade)

@nonused:If you don't watch TV and have adblock you would certainly not see ads like these. I wouldn't read into this more than as the demographic of people who are watching CoD highlights (and by the way I'm rolling my eyes at the idea of CoD highlights right now), are probably the age that the army is looking for.

@bananasfoster: Sucks to year that about your friend. At the end of the day, recruiters are salesmen and women and just like people advertising for anything else are often real over-enthusiastic at their job. I work in retail and the #1 implied rule is you put your product in as best a light as you can. The military is definitely not for everyone, certainly isn't for me.

That said, I have a number of friends and family who served in the military, ranging from 3 years to 20; some were deployed and some were not. After several years all of them have been very positive about their experience, though for some of them it was real rough the first couple of years, because it's such a vastly different lifestyle and if you're deployed that's a whole other rough thing. Also, for several of the people I know, they went into the military as fairly idiotic teenagers and came out responsible, mature adults. I've seen military service change lives for the better, that's for sure.

It's pretty funny actually. I'm in the Air Force myself and get almost nothing but Navy ads every time I hit up youtube. I mean, beards are cool, but there's no way I'm spending a large part of my life on a ship.

That said, I think it's fine that the military advertises in as many places as it can to hit the demographics they're trying to hit (generally young guys and gals).

Why? Mainly because, sure, it may get quite a few people to apply, but at least in here in Australia it's actually a pretty competitive process to get into the service. We don't take deadbeats into our armed forces, and generally our recruitment is pretty heavily skewed towards people with degrees and good work histories (or if you're younger, good academic and behavioural backgrounds).

Sure, sometimes recruitment gets it wrong, but the more people we get applying - irrespective of why - the better.

Keep those kids burning, boys!

Here in the States it's the opposite. I've known the military to promise to erase drug histories and overlook minor criminal records just to get kids to sign on the dotted line. I had a kid I mentored when he was growing up who even failed the psych evaluation only to be called back a week later and told to do it again and they would accept him.

That scared me because, seriously, this kid was just like the guy in Full Metal Jacket. I wonder where he is now...

For some people being in the Army actually is awesome and them telling these stories doesn't come from a bad place. Steady paycheck, free healthcare/dental, housing allowance, educational benefits, 401k, etc. When I went through training I met plenty of people who enlisted at 25-28 years old because they had nothing going on and a lot of them wished that they had done it sooner. I definitely feel much more at home living the military lifestyle than I ever did as a civilian and for recruiters who have been in for 8-12 years it might be all they've known during their adult life. It's not for everyone that's true but making recruiters sound like snakeoil salesmen is a bit disingenuous especially nowadays when there is so much information out there on the internet.

I've served as both a conscript in my home country and as enlisted in the US so I've definitely met my fair share of different kinds of people during my time.

I rarely see Military Ads in games, there was an era in the late 90s early 2Ks where you did see it a lot with certain games...not even talking Americas Army which is its own beast .( BTW: I approve of Americas Army of all the ways to advertises to older teens that seems smartest. If you are going to advertise do it well - a game is doing it well)

What I don't like and what I think is actually more evil, is the jingoistic propaganda that often happens in military shooters that get too cozy with ex-Special Forces guys or with named gun manufactures. I think game where the American characters are always the un-besmirch-able heroes and everyone else is the evil terrorists are not so great. When they lay on the Patriotic "Yay, Rah-Rah" stuff it gets gross. In fact, I think Patriotism is a trigger word that really just means 'Scary Nationalism" we will hide with a more pleasant name.

I don't know if uncomfortable is the right word, but it seems strange that the military needs ads in something like video games (or ads in general). I don't really like ads in games period, but making games isn't getting any cheaper so I'm not gonna pull out my torch and pitchfork or anything. Though I guess I don't really care that much since I am looking at my computer whenever any ads (if there are any) are playing in a game so it doesn't affect me much.

As a former soldier I can comfortably say I dislike pretty much every military advert I have ever seen.

It does make me feel uncomfortable seeing them. Can't quite explain why. It is a super unique thing though. It's not like a product they're marketing necessarily. I guess seeing university ads is the closest thing I could compare it to, and I've always felt a little uncomfortable with those too. Maybe it has something to do with major life decisions shouldn't be made or even reinforced by some commercial. That it makes these things that feel like they should be servicing the country feel more like products.

You mean the thing where in a game in which you're in the army, they don't go out of their way to shit all over the army in their portrayal of it? Because otherwise, I can't say I know what you're talking about

We are talking full on adds, where they are trying to sell us on enlisting the same way that Ubisoft would about buying the Division. I don't see it that much now (thanks to adblocker) but a few years ago they were all over video game websites and it seemed predatory.

There's nothing wrong with painting military life in a positive light. It's withholding the negative things, or even an accurate picture, that can be a problem.

oooooh gotcha. Somehow, it didn't click that this was about game site ads and not content in games themselves. Yeah, that's pretty annoying. But no more so than ads for fashion, business services, or other things that have nothing to do with video games that I see around here

I dislike it just like i dislike all adds for bad things. Has nothing to do with videogames though.

With the amount of modern day military shooters and/or sims I can totally see how you would think that way. I find the whole 'HOO RAH LETS GO KILL SOME BADDIES' military persona in a lot of those games bothersome but mostly because of how jingoistic it comes across and not because it ups the military in of itself. I'd be willing to bet that actual servicemen and women find that interpretation just as unpleasant as I do.

Exactly. There's nothing wrong with a military life. In fact for many people it's probably the best option, and they have an amazing, positive experience. My issue lies with recruiters who only show the positives of being in the military. Some people might be all in for the companionship, the chance to see another place, the chance to meet other people etc. All of those things are positive aspects of a military career. But that doesn't change the fact that the negatives are there, as they are with any profession, it's just that the negatives in the military can potentially involve horrible mental conditions like PTSD, being shot/shot at, and killing other human beings. The "snake oil salesman", while I think that's a bit extreme, still exists. I know plenty of people who have bowed out of enlisting after talking to veterans or reading online. The fact remains however, that a recruiter was there initially to tell them how awesome it was going to be with no caveats.

Right. And I have no problem with military recruiters. It's an important job. But the "snake oil" aspects, if we're going to call it that, come from guys i've seen who will get their hooks in with a 17 year old kid and suddenly want to hang out with them everyday, work out with them, and be their best friend. They'll smooth things over with teachers, the government, the police, parents... anybody and everybody just to get the kid to sign on that dotted line. Then they dissapear and look for the next kid.

I wonder if some of that has changed, though, because I don't see it as much anymore. I don't see them hanging out at my local mall or movie theatre like they used to and pick kids out of crowds. Or maybe I just don't notice it as much because I've aged out of their target demographic.