British Army using videogames to recruit

By Robert Purchese Published 7 April, 2009

Combined with TV ads to reach audience.

The British Army is using a combined television-and-videogame advertising attack to entice a fresh batch of young recruits.

The campaign, called "Start Thinking Soldier", leads the curious to an army website that features an interactive video shot from the perspective of a faceless soldier. Eventually the action pauses and the player is asked, "What would you do?" Multiple options can then be picked from.

From there we - after deciding to blow up the wall - were taken to a point-and-click-style game to identify materials that can be used as explosives. After doing very well indeed, we found ourselves in a first-person shooter section with familiar "WASD" and arrow-key controls. But we soon got bored.

Young people between the age of 17 and 21 are the target demographic for the campaign, as research has found that 68 per cent of the age-group have no career path in mind.

Four television adverts - covering teamwork, decision making, leadership, fitness and mental sharpness - aim to spark the initial surge of curiosity. Each advert ends with the question, "What would you do?"

The news arrives as Konami unveils a videogame that will retell the real stories of US marines at the battle of Fallouja, Iraq, back in 2004. Apparently videogames more readily reach the minds of soldiers than either books or films these days.

We're not sure whether any of this is a good thing. You?

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds. @Clert on Twitter.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (21) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • kinky_mong #1 3 years ago

    I would say this is terrible manipulation but I've come across a few 17 to 21 year olds on Xbox Live I'd like to see sent off to war, so fuck it.

  • kipper #2 3 years ago

    If you die in the 'game', they ought to then show a video of your remains being loaded into a coffin, flown back to the UK, to be recieved by you weeping familiy members.
    If you survive the combat, you will then have a minigame to see whether you will suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for many years afterwards.

    Using games to encourage kids to join the army is just disgraceful.

    Show them 'Ross Kemp in Afghanistan' instead.

  • chessboxer #3 3 years ago

    Doesn't the US do this with America's Army?

  • Whizzo #4 3 years ago

    It reminds me of playing the early SWAT games, just a pity internet connection at work *cough* I'm on a break *cough* isn't up to much.

  • MyPointIs #5 3 years ago

    I think the campaign name is funny 'Start thinking soldier'.

    Like they were interested in soldiers actually thinking.

  • Goffee #6 3 years ago

    What's the difference between this and the Red Arrows simulator seen on many a beach-front or a parade down your local high street? Not much, if a kid thinks playing with guns is cool, he might join up, but more than likely will get tossed out of basic. No one is making him do it and some half-assed video "game" won't make much difference.

    Also, only about 30-40% of the army is frontline combat - while everyone is trained to fight, the mechanics, cooks, comms, admin, intel boys and girls that make up the bulk of the army can go into "proper" civvy careers afterwards, making it a pretty valid career choice, especially in a recession when few others are hiring.

  • Valis #7 3 years ago

    I hear they pay undercover recruiters pretty well too.

  • beckyh #8 3 years ago

    "What would you do?" - I would think that came straight out of the police recruitment advertising from a few years back. Try to be original, Soldier!

  • DanWhitehead #9 3 years ago

    What's the difference between this and the Red Arrows simulator seen on many a beach-front or a parade down your local high street?

    The Red Arrows don't kill people?

    Also, only about 30-40% of the army is frontline combat - while everyone is trained to fight, the mechanics, cooks, comms, admin, intel boys and girls that make up the bulk of the army can go into "proper" civvy careers afterwards, making it a pretty valid career choice, especially in a recession when few others are hiring.

    The promotional recruitment game doesn't feature many levels based around cookery or paperwork though.
    Edited by DanWhitehead at 07/04/09 @ 12:31

  • makeamazing #10 3 years ago

    The Red Arrows though are made up from Military pilots, many who have probably seen combat. So thats probably not a good point to make :D

    I dont see this as a problem, when i was younger it was toy soldiers, plastic guns and stick guns. Joining the army is a valid career path like any other, just because they are using modern day entertainment/marketing techniques to get people interested shouldnt be an issue...

  • collateral89 #11 3 years ago

    al tell u wat put me off joining the army was that bit on saving private ryan wen the german over powers that guy and slowly stabs him while creepily sayin shhhh while that puff dunt help him. THAT MAKES ME ANGRY
    Edited by collateral89 at 07/04/09 @ 15:07

  • Silvervein #12 3 years ago

    I guess they find less and less kids willing to join after tv shows stream of heroes returning home in bodybags, shyly covering missing appendages. Although I didn't see any tv coverage of those that return alive but still miss arm or leg. I guess that would be counterproductive to recruiting efforts, to honestly say right off the bat that joining army means you are little more than cannon fodder to old men drinking tea safely back home.

  • kinky_mong #13 3 years ago

    al tell u wat put me off joining the army was that bit on saving private ryan wen the german over powers that guy and slowly stabs him while creepily sayin shhhh while that puff dunt help him. THAT MAKES ME ANGRY

    Something in your post tells me it was actually when they asked you to write your name that put you off joining the army.

  • holydrone #14 3 years ago

    Goffee is right.
    In these troubling times where else will the confused youths of today get the skills to drink catastrophic amounts of booze and despise those who refuse to drink as much, rape a girl and get their superiors to cover it up, get pissed and crash a car and get their superiors to cover it up, have sex with a transvestite but still get all shirty about the gays, become obsessed with money and status even though they've barely paid a real world bill in their life, consider themselves indispensable to the security of the world - even though their most taxing duties involve private security work for business men in the middle east, bribe their direct family with generous gifts so that younger siblings and nephews will sign up for the army, tell absolutely everybody they ever meet exactly what they do for a living and make that the sole topic of conversation, consider those who are not in forces to be merely sheep who are not made of the "right stuff", obsessively watch the type of porn that would make Fred West blush, be incapable of having a lasting intimate relationship with either sex, make a point of being adulterous and brag about it incessantly, make a play for all your friends partners so as to stamp your authority over your "civvy" underlings and just generally become an overbearing bollock.

  • sneetch #15 3 years ago

    @kinky_mong
    Something in your post tells me it was actually when they asked you to write your name that put you off joining the army.

    no-one dint tol me tere were paperwork!

  • sneetch #16 3 years ago

    Oh, and to answer the question, "what would you do?" Mostly I'd just be thankful that I'm not there.

  • Goffee #17 3 years ago

    @holydrone - and what a weekend that was!!!!

  • collateral89 #18 3 years ago

    @kinky mong something in ure name tells me ure a weirdo

  • Oh-Bollox #19 3 years ago

    There's nothing wrong with being an infantryman, it's a trade just like any other except it doesn't have a civvy equivalent. Closest these days would probably be a gamekeeper.

  • Transcendent #20 3 years ago

    The link doesn't work for me. Is it because I don't live in the UK?

    Anyway I hope the game has alot of bloom and stuff so it attracts the right kind of people to be cannon fo... protectors of the free world.

  • YourMessageHere #21 3 years ago

    What would I do? Check to see if it was actually a bomb factory before blowing holes in it or storming it. Perhaps one of those little fibre-optic cameras, or even a mirror on a stick, might do the trick. The fact that I'm outside its front door with my whole squad, obviously pondering forcibly entering, and no-one's fired at me yet does make me a little suspicious.

    What I'd do after that, I'd write a quick to-do list:

    1. Remind MoD - bolting fancy stuff onto an SA80 doesn't make it good, and everyone knows this
    2. Remind MoD - Code publicity websites to work in Opera, run at better than 2 frames a second in IE, give option "there's plenty of stuff that could be used to make IEDs here". In fact, just don't use flash
    3. Find out why there's a time limit on searching an empty room
    4. Buy milk

    All this being said, it's quite an engaging website (especially, I expect, when looked at on something that's not a 630MHz EeePC) and probably quite a good recruitment tool. Not really any worse than anything any first-world country does to entice people into the armed forces, simply a new medium. Probably more honest than many, really.