Description
International Relations scholars in recent years have argued that games and gaming are poorly understood and under-researched within the discipline. Hirst (2022) observes that gaming is regarded by many academics as singularly unserious despite now being the leading form of entertainment worldwide in terms of sales.
The notable exception to this depoliticization of gaming is an abundance of studies that look at gaming as a part of a so-called ‘Military-Entertainment Complex’ (MEC), especially in relation to U.S. Military recruitment. In particular, America’s Army, a free game produced directly by the U.S. Army that functioned as an extremely effective recruitment tool, has been studied extensively under the conceptual umbrella of the MEC.
America’s Army has quietly gone from millions of players to hundreds, unable to compete in a gaming industry that has moved largely towards a free-to-play business model. While many Academics wrote about the success of the game, few if any have documented its sunset.
This paper draws on interviews and ethnographic fieldwork conducted online to explore the U.S. Military’s sharp pivot towards recruiting via eSports and gaming forums in the wake of America's Army's obsolescence; In doing so, I propose that an Assemblage-based understanding of gaming is better-able to appreciate games as focal points for online interaction and opposition, rather than end-point products of the Military-Entertainment Complex.
