Representation of the Army and War in Video Games: The Current State and Prospects of the Genre Shift

Abstract

The subject of research in this article is the study of the genre areas of representation of the army as a socio-cultural institution in video games. To solve the research problems, methods such as classification were used to determine the main options for the representation of the army in video games, a structural-functional method to identify the media characteristics of games, forecasting to identify the prospects for a genre and ideological shift in military video games. As a result of the study, it was found that modern personalized war games are shifting from the era of the Second World War deeper into the past - for example, to the First World War or the Middle Ages, and their ideological content and content are also changing - from the linear fulfillment of a tactical task to a detailed narrative that reveals tragedy and heroism of military conflicts. According to the author, an important aspect of the success of military-patriotic education and the pragmatics of video games in the context of modern Russian culture is not just setting the task of creating games that glorify our military past, but also regulating the image of the Russian army today. A tool for this can be simulators of everyday activities, adventure games about the everyday life of border guards, signalmen, submariners on a campaign, managers of a military unit. Their potential is able to demonstrate the army as an institution for maintaining peace and ensuring security. The author assumes that such a genre experiment in military video games will make it possible to popularize Russian military video games on the market. In the conclusions of the study, 4 genres of army representation in video games are presented, in which the ideological paradigm is built around personal heroism or team genius, as well as personal exclusivity in extreme circumstances of military operations. The latter is formed by the very genre nature of video games, genre is message. The author revealed that the dominant genre is the action shooter, due to which the connection between the army and the categories of peace and security is lost and the categorical picture of the world created by the games of the military genre is distorted. The identified genre shift is destructive in nature, as it is aimed at destroying the socio-cultural institutions of the army.