China already has a cyber-warfare team, so what’s their next logical step in technology assisted warfare? It’s an online war game.
According to AFP, the goal of China’s online war game is to help their troops improve their combat skills and battle awareness. In the digital age military training and Call of Duty seem to be interchangeable.
The China Daily says that they call the game “Glorious Mission”. It’s a first-person shooter that sends players on team and solo missions armed with advanced weaponry.
The weapons that the screen jockeys use in the game are actually part of the of China’s People’s Liberation Army arsenal, China Daily added. Players can act out kill scenarios with accurate tools, now that’s virtual training.
It took almost three years to program and test the final version of the game, it was released on June 20.
“I think it is possible the game will be made open online for Chinese military fans to download and play,” an unnamed PLA press officer was quoted as saying.
The world’s biggest online population belongs to China with more than 477 million users, according to official data.
The release of the game come after the military said earlier this year that it had established an elite Internet security task force to defend against cyber-attacks.
There have been many accusations from all over the world that say China is in the business of conducting cyber-attacks. Their state press cites military officials who say that the elite task force was not set up as a “hacker army”.
Is a digital cold war brewing? Not yet.
But, the industrialized superpowers are slowly building up their digital forces in the same manner the US and Russia built up their traditional armies. So it would seem that all of the hostilities involving cyber-threats will eventually lead to some type of event. Will it lead to all out digital warfare, dystopia or economic collapse?
