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Subscribe to RSSCCTV, China's state TV, reports on the new PLA-developed video game.
BEIJING – In 2005, I was deeply engaged in an extended military campaign on battlefields across China. Thousands of Chinese and Americans fell each day, but the only real casualty suffered was my bruised ego as I was easily picked off time and again in a blaze of glory playing the videogame, Battlefield 2.
Battlefield 2, a popular first-person multiplayer shooter released that year, pitted U.S. Marines, Chinese forces and a fictional Middle Eastern Coalition against each other in imaginary locations around the world.
The game’s Chinese maps and scenarios were incredibly popular among Chinese players who took great pleasure in blasting me and countless others with a variety of different weapons regardless of whether my character was wearing a Chinese or American uniform.
Which is why it is surprising to see the recent release of Glorious Mission (also known as, Mission of Honor), a military simulation jointly developed by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese software developer, Giant Interactive Group. It has generated waves in the U.S. not for its graphics or game play – but for the fact that American soldiers are the main adversary.
Objections don't appear to be focused on the game's existence. After all, the U.S. military is heavily invested in its own acclaimed military training and recruitment game, America’s Army, but it features a generic enemy, so as not to offend anyone.
Rather, the concern is that the game, which was ostensibly developed as a training tool for the PLA, makes American solders and equipment the enemy combatant and could lead young, impressionable trainees to believe that the United States is the enemy.
There are indeed legitimate concerns that some nationalist elements in the PLA do view conflict with the United States as inevitable. However, in the case of Glorious Mission, it seems unlikely that one simulation could dramatically alter the thinking of PLA enlisted men. After all, the generation of soldiers that Glorious Mission is geared towards has already been exposed to a wide variety of online games that pit players against a whole host of enemies ranging from the real to the ridiculous.
CCTV
Designed by the People's Liberation Army and a Chinese gaming company, Glorious Mission is a military simulation game intended for training purposes.
Take a trip to any Internet café or arcade around China and the one thing that can quickly be concluded is that when it comes to video games, teenagers playing first-person shooters don’t particularly care who or what they are shooting at, as long as they are shooting at something.
Online dominance
Perhaps what should be of greater concern to American tech insiders is the apparent smoothness of the graphics and game play of Glorious Mission.
The successful development of Glorious Mission represents not just a small step forward by the PLA towards creating an American style “virtual army experience,” but also the Chinese gaming industry’s noticeable move up the technological food chain.
In the last few years there has been an explosion in online gaming in China, fueled by the rise of countless Chinese gaming companies. In 2010 alone, China's online gaming market raked in 32.37 billion Yuan (approximately $4.9 billion) – a 26.3 percent increase over 2009.
With over 76 million online game players in China and a business model that sensibly caters to young gamers’ wallets through low-cost games and cheap add-ons, it is no small wonder that the country has quickly risen to become the largest online gaming market, expected to be valued in excess of $8 billion by 2014.
Meanwhile, as U.S. gaming companies have largely struggled to sell their products in China, Chinese companies are beginning to make in-roads in the U.S. market. Earlier this year, China’s largest Internet company, Tencent Holdings, bought a majority share of American gaming company Riot Games Inc. for more than $350 million.
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The "apparent" smoothness of the graphics? Are you kidding me? The game looks like crap.
I wish my COD clan could play against a room of those Chinese soldiers....how do you say teabag in Chinese?
I wouldn't be surprised to see a US-made game feature Chinese enemies.
So, yeah. They can do what they want. I believe in freedom of speech, even if China doesn't.
I don't see any USA on vehicles or american flags in demo..how they know they are americans? Could be almost any country..guess the game has options to choose what country but all the same views.
They might as well add chinese civilians as a option too..its going to happen someday fighting against their own people.
There are already US-made games with Chinese enemies. Didn't you read the article?
It's not just China-made, it is Chinese military made, there is a huge difference. That is why the U.S. military game features fictonal opponents.
As usual china is taking a much more practical approach. Why train your military against a fictional opponent when you can clearly identify them and grow the hostility against them and the confidence of your own men to beat them leading up to the real invasion? It will happen within 25 yrs, probably 15yrs at the current pace of advance for China and decline for the U.S.
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The weapons in Battlefield 2 aren't fictional. I haven't played it in a couple of years, but I recall using weapons that were based on actual models. Fast forward to today and you have Battlefield: Bad Company 2 using the same game model with a fictional confrontation with Russians using models of weapons that are mostly real. I don't see what the big deal is. America doesn't control the content of games manufactured outside our country. Big whoop.
Yeah I'm not worried. Let the Chinese officers train on computer stations and we will continue to train on the battlefield. good luck. well not really. If you face us, you will die.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. US Marines VS China PLA on Soviet island.
bradybastian-- you do know that the US military trains on computer games more than any other country, right? Flight simulators, digital gun ranges, tank battle scenarios, etc. There's a lot of game-training in our military, yo.
I cant speak for the game play but I did pull up images from the game and it doesnt appear to be anywhere near the quality of the COD and Battlefield games. But I am looking at images and not the game itself but still, I am not that impressed from what I have seen.
Crap game. And this is no different than American made games. Of course your country is made to be the "good guys". How is this different than playing a shooter as a US soldier against "another" country.
ummmm this is not news...
"Rather, the concern is that the game, which was ostensibly developed as a training tool for the PLA, makes American solders and equipment the enemy combatant and could lead young, impressionable trainees to believe that the United States is the enemy."
US is the enemy, just like US considers China enemy.
Yup..all have different enemies..my enemy is republicans. :)
I like chinese food..nothing against china...YET!
Are they running this game on a Pentium III? What a POS!
I don't blame them for making a game where we are the bad guys. Our Military has some of the best equipment and training. If a game can put you at odds with a superior force and let you win as an underdog, I think it will turn out to be a good game.
Up next, the Russians will be making a game where we are the enemies...and you know what, that's okay.
On its face, this doesnt seem like a big deal that the chinese made a game with americans as the enemy. However they are the 2nd largest economy in the world, we are in debt to them for billions of dollars and they have been upgrading their military for years and trying to secure natural resources to fuel their economy. I believe some type of military conflict will happen in the coming years. America better wake up and realize what is going on.
Won't happen. They would attack India first IF they decide to attack anybody.
Tony
don't kid yourself----this is merely practice for them
like it or not these games regardless of who the "good guys" are are merely a way of brainwashing and dehumanizing the "enemy" in preparation for the real thing.
I totally agree DP!!!!
Paranoia
Uh, DP? Our economies are so intertwined that it's next to impossible that there will be a full-scale war between the US and PRC. I mean, you said it yourself, they hold a @!$%#load of our debt. Why would they attack a country that they hold so much debt from?
Yes, America really needs to wake up, BUT China has a looong way to go before it matches the US. They may have the 2nd largest economy in the world, but we are number 1. And we have more GDP than the next 3 countries combined, which includes China.
Yes, we owe China a lot of money, but the majority of our debt is held by American corporations, and American citizens in the form of US Bonds, Treasury notes etc.
Yes they are building up their military, but the US spends more money on military than just about the entire world combined. We are the only nation that has supercariers at all, and we've got 7 of them.
The one thing the Chinese has going for them is numbers, which we may or may not be able to overcome. They have nukes, but we have MANY more than they do. Not saying we should go nuclear on them, just comparing us vs. them.
I'm not saying we shouldn't worry, and I'm not saying that China poses no threat. If we don't wake up now and change the way things are working now, we'll go the way of the Romans. But we do have time, there's no reason to worry that things will fall apart tomorrow.
Oh and I have no problem with their video games pitting them vs. us. Off the top of my head I can think of the game Fallout 3 where it's after the nuclear haulocost where the US was fighting China. There's at least one scenario where we have to fight Chinese soldiers. We have it here, we can't get holier than thou.
It is also somewhat of a compliment. It makes the game better if they are pitting their soldiers against the best in the world, and that of course is the U.S. military.
Toasted - "Why would they attack a country that they hold so much debt from?"
You are naive beyond all measure.
So if you are criminal and intent on robbing someone you won't rob someone who owes you $20 even though you now they have far, far, far more money lying around their house?
If they control the country debt holdings become irrelevant, until then it as an extremely effective way to go unopposed as you buy all of the world's rare-earth mines and build your military.... shhh don't make China made we need them to fund us...
Ken - "Off the top of my head I can think of the game Fallout 3 where it's after the nuclear haulocost where the US was fighting China. There's at least one scenario where we have to fight Chinese soldiers. We have it here, we can't get holier than thou."
Fallout 3 was not made by or for the U.S. military, the game in the article is funded and designed for their military. Did you read the article?
PJ, there's a certain irony in you of all people trying to call me naive ( I mean, your very first word in your post was trying to be cute and make a play on my screen name...). What happens to all the jobs American companies provide for such a massive segment of the Chinese population if they went to war? What happens to the primary market for Chinese-produced goods. Our economies are too interconnected for it to happen. How does your cutesy "robber" metaphor account for those variables? What happens then, Professor?
Ask anyone "in the know" about China and they'll tell you that the PRC would be shooting itself in the foot by going to war with the US, and vice versa. Try taking a class on international relations at your local community college or something. You've got a lot of growing up to do before you can play with the big kids, PJ.
Pjam, you're pettifogging. (I learned that last night from Bill O'Reilly! (Who I don't like) lol)
First, "Off the top of my head" means I didn't do any research and didn't put much thought into it. If you're going to get nit-picky and combative with your "Did you read the article" comments, maybe you should read my quote a little closer, and relax a lot more.
To my knowledge (That means I haven't done a lot of reasearch, don't know and don't care to know) there are no state sponsored games that pit the U.S. against China, unlike China's game that indeed was funded and designed for their military.
There isn't a thing we can do about it, and even though there are no state sponsored games, there are lots of them created by the private sector. Do you think Chinese would be saying "Oh it's not the government making them, it's the citizens"?
Again, as I said China shouldn't be ignored, but reading this article shouldn't cause paranoia. Chill and concentrate on more important stuff. This should cause some raised eyebrows and futher watching, but doesn't warrant taking attention from more important things.
Ken, I do know of a government sponsored game that pits US against various cultures, its called America's Army. All your enemies (no matter which team you play on) use AK-47's (a stereotypically "communist" or "third world" weapon), wear turbans, or uniforms that are clearly modeled after Russian-style.
Yeah, they don't say "USA vs Towelheads/communitsts" but everybody knows.
Sooooo, us americans make a game where the chinese are the enemy, and its ok, but get worried when the chinese make a game where we are the enemy? man, we're hypocrites. people its a freaking game. ive played tons of games over the course of almost 30 years, (starting with the atari 2600, ya) and im still gaming on my PS3, and plan to till i die. and yet playing scarface extensivly did not encourage me to start my own miami empire, Metal Gear didnt make me want to do secret ops, and Assassins Creed doesnt make me want to be a religious assassin. anybody that is "influenced" by games has mental issues to begin with. the game didnt make it happen, they would still be mental without em.
I'm not really sure how you could come to that conclusions b/c the game looks fairly dated in terms of graphics, especially for PC games. For the authors edification, it's most likely done on purpose in order to make it accessible to a much bigger audience.
It's like they created a very rudimentary Chinese version of the original Battlefield series, or perhaps the Americas Army game, with worse graphics and gameplay. I'm pretty sure this doesn't cause concern for any Western game developer seeing as how the industry as a whole does the same thing with regards to taking what works from other games and incorporating it into their own new titles.
Seriously...how does this even make it past an editors desk? There are a lot of ways the subject of this article could've been presented, but fear mongering seem very irrelevant given the subject matter.
Sono, I second your explanation. Talk about reaching for a story.
Create the game having characters based on another country, keep everything the same and change the characters to aliens, keep the game the same and change the characters to soldiers in the year 2122. Take the game play results noting the reaction of the players. Based on this story they will be happy that they were shooting at something, not anything specific.
Report the news and stop creating it.
Just goes to prove that in every Chinese man there's an American waiting to get out.
Eventually they are going to kick our asses. Get used to the idea. They don't let the big corporations and the billionaires run their country.
Hey Charley--I got a suggestion for you. Come to China and live for 5 years, as I have. You'd see how much hype there is about China. It is still a very backwards country, and quite poor. The buildings may look good in Shanghai and Beijing, the people may be able to buy cars and better clothes, but the minds have not grown more sophisticated or educated, by and large. The ignorance is staggering. The cruelty is staggering. And the biggest, most corrupt corporation in the world runs China---that is the Chinese Communist Party. They billionaires in China are almost always corrupt govt officials--and anyone connected to them also live like kings. Kiss the ground you live on, Sir, and realize you, too, don't know what you don't know when it comes to China. For all of America's problems, countries are still worlds apart.
I've written this in several post's in other spots and people just don't seem to realise that these days China is more of a large conglomerate corporation than a communist nation.
Actually from what I've see in the past I was under the impression a lot of the corporations are a bit independent and the government actually has to even ask permission to enter one most of the time, please correct me if I'm wrong there.
Whole economies locally are set up to produce food and house people working in factories in an area as almost a closed system, which really isn't that far off from what happens in the USA in areas where GE or someone along those lines operates.
So if you think large companies aren't an influence in China your sadly mistaken, last I saw KFC was up to 300 restaurants there and rising among other ones, ad I know for a fact a large aerospace company I used to be involved with that received secret and top secret contracts related to nuclear weapons was becoming at the very least heavily involved with civilian Chinese engineers there.
I doubt anyone will be going to war with anyone in the near future at any rate superpower wise, the two economies are way, way more interwoven even at the present time than most seem to acknowledge.
Just as an aside, is there any gold for them to farm in that game ? J/K
Over the decades I've played hundreds of games. I've shot aliens, demons, commies, cowboys, drug dealers, cops, prostitutes, and random bystanders. Yet somehow I've always managed to distinguish between what is portrayed in a game and real life. I'd like to think that maybe most Chinese are also able to make this distinction. I'd also like to think that they can distinguish good graphics from bad and maybe won't even bother with this game for more than a few seconds.
They probably stole the technology in the game from US and European developers. As for the lack of 'smoothness' of the game play in the video, that may have been a hardware problem.
Who gives a crap? Honestly, the game Crysis is all about fighting the North Koreans, and you don't see them going beserk over it.
Homefront depicts the invasion of the US by North Korea. CoD Modern Warfare 2 depicts a Russian invasion of the US.
Honestly, how does this make it as news? To much space to fill on the web.
Ed Flanagan clearly ran out of things to write about for him to try and pass this off as news. This is also poorly reasearched. Ed Flanagan, you did not mention the crack downs on internet cafes and mmo gaming that have gone on for years in China.
Charleyb, who are you kidding? Their government is their corperations and billionaires. Same as ours but with the people well underfoot. We will be right there with China if the people are stupid enough to continue letting corperations take control of our lives.
It will happen in our lifetimes too. A gradual trasition until all our liberties are gone. Stolen from us but also freely given in the name of god, safty, and the dollar.
If the frame of reference granted to you by your upbringing won't allow you to understand this, then ive got salvation i can sell you every sunday for the low price of 10% of your income. It even comes with a neat trinket you can wear and show all your other 'saved' friends.
To be real honest I think with globalization and the involvement of major American companies in China, we are seeing the American middle class being pushed down to be more in line with the slowly rising standards for workers in China.
You think perhaps once the governments get to the point that they really do not matter a lot in comparison to a company that largely controls the GDP of many nations combined there will truly be a middle class per say in existence ?
A nuclear war at that point would be moot, I really doubt they honestly will ever be used and probably become archaic in the near future if they really haven't all ready other than as a threat against a rogue nation like North Korea or Pakistan who we keep pumping into to enable them to turn them out.
A war between the US and China will probably never be necessary whatsoever the way things are heading presently, which I think is pretty much what the poster above was inferring and I agree with 100%
It seems the Chinese in a very small way are getting ready for the future war with the U.S that will surely come. And to think we will have bought the war machines that China needs. Look at everything in every store, it is all made in China. our business'es have given China the Might to challenge us. Thank you Big and Greedy U.S. Business'es.
It seems the Chinese in a very small way are getting ready for the future war with the U.S that will surely come. And to think we will have bought the war machines that China needs. Look at everything in every store, it is all made in China. our business'es have given China the Might to challenge us. But Russia might have a little more to worry about than us. China needs room for expansion for their people and China says some of the land that Russia has belongs to China. So Russia, Beware, the Chinese are coming.
I'm just making this up, but I would guess that 80% of shooter games that take place in near-past, modern, or near-future settings pit Americans (or American allies like the Brits) against real-world nations, cultures or religions. So come on with that brainwashing stuff. You should be more worried about traditional methods of propeganda that the Chinese government uses on its' people, if that's really your concern. By and large, gamers (and humans in general) know the difference between virtual fiction, and reality, be they white, yellow, red, brown or purple.
And these are the folks little Timmie Geithner wants to borrow more money from. Pathetic.
Amateur trolls like you should be hanging out on a gaming forum really, go troll Rift or Wow or something.
:P
You know what really scares me? Our youth wasting so much time playing games instead of preparing for a better future. Our youth unfortunatly is so ignorant as to not realize what the Chinese are doing:
they sell all this crap in Walmart and everywhere else; take the profits; build weapons and their military with that money, with the intension of put an end to our military and economic dominance. Wars are always for economic/political dominance and markets control. That they are training their military with this game where we are the enemy, is just a small part of it. They are also building real missiles designed to destroy our supercarriers. This is not a game. So plese, young people, or parents tell your kids to put the controls down and do something productive. Or this game where we loose the war will become a reality.
By comparison they spend many more hours playing games in China than they do in the U.S.
Stop blaming gaming for the woes in this country. 500 channels of garbage like Jersey Shore are screwing up kids more than if they were to actually interact with the TV instead.
Walmart itself is one of the largest bait and switches in modern history as far as I'm concerned, it seems many people forget how they built up a reliance and a large base to operate from on the statement "All products made in the USA" at one time before reverting to their present state of business.
What war are you referring to to begin with :P That's part of the way large corporations are pulling this off, it's globalization and an economic merging without a war being required.
What worries me is our youth wasting so much time playing video games instead of doing something productive. They have no clue what is going on: China sells us all their crap in Walmart and everywhere else; they take the profits home; with that money they build their weapons and military because they want to take economic/political power from us. Wars are mostly due to fight for market control and dominance. Now they are training their military against us with this video game. Their kids are learning more and graduating more while ours are playing video games and graduating less. Kids wake up, parents wake up, otherwise this video game where we are the loosers will become a reality.
Um, who do wo shoot in America's Army? BTW there are lots of Xbox video game titles that shoots the Chinese Army, like Operation Flashpoint: Red Dragon.
lol, lol, lol, finally a game where ur not saving the world as Johnnhy America, where can I get me a copy?