Discover how the US Army is leveraging the popular video game Call of Duty to recruit more soldiers and engage with a younger demographic. Can the US Army sneak into the gaming industry to gain popularity? It has already set its sights on Call of Duty.
The video game industry has proven to be one of the fastest growing in the market over the last few decades. Likewise, we can find themes that have had a special interest from the gamer community , allowing a series of creative studios to have great visibility. Perhaps the best example of this is Call of Duty , one of the most prominent sagas in the action video game industry. Has its relevance transcended beyond what we can see on the screen?
Apparently, the US Army carried out a recruitment policy using one of the video game releases with the aim of detecting possible differential soldiers. This is a very interesting proposal from the point of view of innovation, since it would allow for a closer relationship between games and the development of certain special skills . Certainly, this is not the first time that we have seen a certain connection between both markets and, without a doubt, everything indicates that this type of process will have a greater relationship.
So let’s look at how the increasingly detailed world of video games can be used to develop special skills, why the old idea of zero skill input is a thing of the past , and of course, what the keys are behind this particular story. Could a die-hard fan of this video game series have a better chance of survival on the battlefield than anyone who has never handled a weapon, not even through a screen?
The largest division of Activision Blizzard, a company currently undergoing a tortuous acquisition process by Microsoft , was used by the United States to encourage the arrival of young people to the US Army . This new strategy would aim to increase the number of new recruits in the ranks of the Armed Forces of the most advanced country in the world in this sector.
According to information provided by Vice , the US Army set aside a few million dollars to sponsor a wide range of e-sports tournaments. In this way, it intended to boost the use of platforms such as Call of Duty . Similarly, other proposals were carried out, such as Twitch events with the aim of influencing within this growing vertical market.
The investigation has emphasized that this campaign of rapprochement with the Army had as its main objective certain social groups. Apparently, there was a special focus on women, black people or Hispanics. The budget figures amounted to several million dollars. Among the expenditure items were events held to invite some streamers of recognized prestige , as well as investment in advertising at certain events to have greater visibility among the young community.
Among the budgeted expenses, it is worth highlighting the possibility of investing up to $750,000 in a combination of the official Call of Duty League Esports tournament, the Paramount+ streaming service and the HALO television show, which was broadcast on Paramount+. This type of bet would allow to assess the influence that the United States Army can have in a society that has hardly been close to the world of war due to the absence of international conflicts in recent decades.