Why are there so many war games? They exploded in popularity post 9/11. Maybe you’ve played some of them. Or all of them. SOCOM: US Navy Seals. Call of Duty. Battlefield. Splinter Cell—and the entire deep library of Tom Clancy games. There’s plenty more, too. This ain’t just a story about the free market and our own proclivities—it’s the state. Games have a long history of being developed by, with, and for the military. From the earliest DARPA-funded projects at public universities, to today’s DOD-subsidized military/corporate partnerships. This week on Darts and Letters, Tanner Mirrlees, associate professor in the Communication and Digital Media Studies Program at Ontario Tech University and author of Hearts and Mines: The US Empire’s Culture Industry, joins us as we plunge headlong into the history of the militainment industrial complex, to understand the militarization of gaming and the gamification of war.

——————-FURTHER READING AND LISTENING——————

——————-SUPPORT THE SHOW————————-

We need your support. If you like what you hear, chip in. You can find us on patreon.com/dartsandletters. Patreon subscribers usually get the episode a day early, and sometimes will also receive bonus content.

Don’t have the money to chip in this week? Not to fear, you can help in other ways. For one: subscribe, rate, and review our podcast. It helps other people find our work.

—————————-CONTACT US————————-

To stay up to date, follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Also, we have a new YouTube channel, where some videos of these interviews will be available next week.

If you’d like to write to us, email [email protected] or tweet Gordon directly.

—————————-CREDITS—————————-

Darts and Letters is hosted and edited by Gordon Katic. Our lead producer is Jay Cockburn. Our managing producer is Marc Apollonio. David Moscrop is our research assistant and wrote the show notes.

Our theme song and music was created by Mike Barber, our graphic design was created by Dakota Koop, and our marketing was done by Ian Sowden.

This is a production of Cited Media. And we are backed by academic grants that support mobilizing research and democratizing the concept of public intellectualism. The founding academic advisor of the program is Professor Allen Sens at the University of British Columbia. This episode was also part of a wider series looking at the politics of video games, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and housed at the University of British Columbia and Waterloo University.

Darts and Letters is produced in Toronto, which is on the traditional land of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat Peoples.