China develops gaming weaponry

Abandoning its censorship policy on video games, the Chinese government has instead poured millions of dollars into developing its own piece of gaming weaponry.

For years console gaming has been banned in China, and that doesn’t look to be changing anytime soon with Playstation and Xbox consoles still very much on the no-list.

But with more than 120 million online gamers in China, the statistics are very hard to ignore and this has prompted the development of Glorious Mission, a game scripted by seven propaganda officials and overseen by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), along with the Wuxi Giant Interactive Group.

For the unenlightened, the PLA is the military might backing up the Community Party of China, and also happens to be the biggest military force in the world.

No big deal, though, it just has three million members.

The game is designed to reinforce the “core values” of the military in those who play it while they complete various combat missions, some of which will focus on taking out United States forces – at least that’s the impression one gets from a gameplay video where an Apache helicopter is seen bursting into flames.

According to the PLA Daily, the intention was to avoid aspects of play that might “mislead Chinese army officers and soldiers”.

But GlobalPost’s Hong Kong correspondent Benjamin Carlson reports this will do anything but help China.

“Computer game addiction is a recognised, real social blight in China. You’ll see dozens of teens playing games in darkened rooms in internet cafes everywhere.

"For years, the Chinese government has tried to tamp down on violent games.

"This new, propaganda-filled game shows that they’re not actually concerned, as long as the message is in line with what the government wants.”