Summary of William Lugo's Article

In his article "Violent Video Games Recruit American Youth" from the journal Reclaiming Children and Youth, William Lugo raises awareness of the US Army's use of video games as a tool to recruit young gamers while arguing against the lack of ethics used in this technique. William Lugo introduces his article by describing a stunning event in which armed soldiers repell out of Black Hawk helicopters and surround Los Angeles' convention center to promote their game America's Army. He then goes on to describe the game and some of its objectives like how you are recquired to pass basic training, where you go through training exercises actually used in the military, and complete missions like defending oil pump stations from terrorist attacks. After describing the game, he gives a very important fact about the game that seperates it from similar games, it's free.

After talking about the game and the developement of game studios owned by the military, William Fugo discusses the military's involvement in former video games. Fugo gives information on the game Full Spectrum Warrior. He introduces it in the paragraph by saying, "the training simulator used by the Army for urban combat became available for purchase, under the title Full Spectrum Warrior." While talking about the game, Fugo points his audience's attention towards the fact that this game does not have pedestrians in the city even though the game is supposed to be realistic. He then gives two possible reasons the creators of this game did this by saying, "that kind of realism was deemed either irrelevant or too insane for potential recruits." Since the game was not produced or endorsed by the military, the game developers made sure to inform its consumers of its uninvolvement. H...

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... for higher recruitment?" He continues by giving an example, "while the military has admitted that America's Army is a recruitment tool, on the game's very website, they refer to it only as a 'communications strategy'" He explains one of the biggest issues with these games and why they are unethical, which is the gamers are unaware that they are being recruited or targeted. While discussing the ethical issues of this method of recruiting, he also gives it praise by saying, " While using video games to recruit youth is unethical, it is also brilliant." He goes into detail on how this process works on the consumers and how the game puts them through training that will prepare them for the actual military. He ends the article by giving the scenario of fiction meeting reality and unlike the missions in the games, the player/recruit will have real ethical issues to face.