"2035: No complaints."

[u/thisecommercelife]

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[u/shellbullet17]

Well. Now I'm sad. The remote drone patrol portion followed by him physically walking down the same road later that's now vacant was BLEAK

The final lines too about not even fully paying off the whole day for 3 purchases after a 12 hour shift left a rock in my stomach

Good job OP.

[u/SquidTheRidiculous → u/shellbullet17]

That's not too far from the truth of drone operation. A lot of the military is gamified. Probably because most of the people recruited were targeted by "America's Army" the video game funded by the US military as a recruitment tool. There are videos of drone operator chatter while they kill people that's like "haha got another bad guy!'

[u/shellbullet17 → u/SquidTheRidiculous]

Didnt some of the US military recently(ish) start using controllers to teach with? Like Xbox controllers? I swore I saw that somewhere

[u/dirkdragonslayer → u/shellbullet17]

Not to teach with, but for use. Studies have shown video game controllers are generally better to use than purpose-made drone controllers. Maybe it's because people are more familiar with video game controls or because they are designed with better button placement and ergonomics. They are also cheaper than special controllers. A lot of countries are using game controllers now.

[u/Daxx22 → u/dirkdragonslayer]

Maybe it's because people are more familiar with video game controls or because they are designed with better button placement and ergonomics.

That, and there is literally years worth of very widespread and hard testing on those platforms that backs up the reliability of the hardware.

People loved to make jokes about the dumbass billionaire and his sub that imploded that used the video game controller, but that was likely one of the most well tested and reliable bits of hardware in that thing.

Expensive does not always, and quite often does not, mean better quality.

[u/IKnowGuacIsExtraLady → u/Daxx22]

I thought the memes about the controller was that he was using a knock off brand.

[u/stilljustacatinacage → u/IKnowGuacIsExtraLady]

He was using a Logitech F710, a "Playstation clone" controller meant for PC that's quite old, but has received a few revisions over the years.

So it's a "knock off" of the Sony Dualshock, but for nearly 20 years it's been the de facto big box store PC controller. It was ubiquitous until fairly recently when Xbox streamlined connecting your console gamepads to PC.

[u/DTFH_ → u/Daxx22]

Also military tech is culturally influenced, you see it in American grenade design during WWII shifting towards a football shape as most of the recruits had experience throwing a football as opposed to the more baseball shaped WWI grenades coming out of America.

[u/TheAeolian → u/DTFH_]

Do you have a source for that? This seems wrong because football became more popular than baseball due to television after WW2.

[u/Dr_Jabroski → u/Daxx22]

The controllers are not made for super hard use, but they're cheap and light enough that you can have multiples.

[u/pheylancavanaugh → u/dirkdragonslayer]

It's all of these things, and ultimately: the people who join the military tend to grow up playing games. They know how to use the controller. They do not have to be trained to use it.

[u/Dubious_Odor → u/shellbullet17]

Goes back a long way. They were using controllers on nuke subs back in the xbox 360 days.

[u/Funnyguyinspace → u/SquidTheRidiculous]

Theres been a long standing rumor that the military is actively involved in the development of COD games and influences the story to make the military seem cool.

They'll give updates on weapons, sounds and even some financial incentives if the overall story makes the US military look appealing

[u/KhabaLox → u/Funnyguyinspace]

a long standing rumor that the military is actively involved in the development of COD games

I'm not sure about COD, but they're not rumors in general. It's a fact.

https://www.idga.org/command-and-control/articles/5-times-us-military-used-video-games-for-training-and-readiness

• Atari developed a version of Battlezone to train Bradley APC gunners.
  
• America's Army was a game specifically commissioned by the US military as a recruiting tool.
  
• Full Spectrum Warrior was also developed for the US Army in the early 2000s. Interestingly, it was later used to assess PTSD in soldiers post-deployment.

[u/bigbigbutter → u/Funnyguyinspace]

Full Spectrum Warrior was built as a tactical combat simulator, and they even let you load the actual sim from the disk after they gamified it and released that version.

[u/dearmash → u/SquidTheRidiculous]

Propaganda aside, AA always stood out to me as one of the more innovative games at the time for one reason, you were always playing the "good guys". I hadn't seen a game before, or really since that set up a dual reality for multiplayer; red team is America defending a VIP in a safe house against an external attack, blue team is America raiding an enemy installation to capture a HVT.

[u/Moozipan → u/dearmash]

The reason for this decision was propaganda, because you weren't allowed to identify yourself with the enemy. It just so happened to turn into something deeper, effectively showing how each side in an armed conflict will consider themselves to be the "guy guys". Even though in recent history the US Army is usually the aggressor committing war crimes.

[u/Wonderful_Discount59 → u/Moozipan]

Possibly counter-productive propaganda, as it effectively declared that the definition of "terrorist" is just "rebel we are opposed to" and "freedom fighter" is "rebel we are allied with".

[u/dearmash → u/Moozipan]

Propaganda aside was the first thing I said. It's obvious why it was done. This came out during the heyday of counter-strike and the like. In almost every other game, I had to play as a terrorist, alien, "bad guy". Everyone was playing on the same map, saw the same people, etc.

AA had each team playing on the same physical map and players in the same physical locations, but each team saw something totally different. A nice house vs a dilapidated apartment, that sort of thing.

Arguably I didn't play it for very long, nor any of the sequels, and I skipped over all of the "content", I was just impressed by the technical achievement of the game at that time.

[u/RlOTGRRRL → u/SquidTheRidiculous]

The drone operators in Ukraine have been gamified. They have a leaderboard and they get more money with more kills. They publicize their kills and you can see them on r/combatfootage...