Iran Joins The Using Video Game Footage To Pump Up Your Own Military's Reputation Arms Race
from the fake-it-til-you-make-it dept
I suppose this was inevitable. As video games become more refined as an artform and as those games evince more realistic graphics, animations, and all the rest, I suppose it had to be that some folks out there would try to pass game footage off as real footage depicting their own power. I just never really thought it would be established nations that otherwise purport to be players on the world stage doing this. Yet, as we have seen done by Egypt, North Korea, and even Russia in the past, so too do we now find that Iran is trying to brag about its own military capability using game footage.This all started with Iran's state-run media releasing a video it claimed to be of an Iranian sniper taking out members of ISIS.
That guy's a really good shot, right? Well, if the above footage looks somewhat familiar to you, even through the grainy capture and the fact that it's clearly video shot of a television showing the actual video, that's probably because you're played the video game Medal Of Honor.
But something about this video doesn’t seem right. That’s because the footage is actually from the video game Medal of Honor. Several details show this. First of all, when this imaginary commando kills a supposed IS group terrorist, a little symbol pops up in the bottom of the screen. It’s exactly the same symbol that appears in Medal of Honor when a gamer shoots his enemy in the head (“a headshot”). Secondly, while the soldier is shooting, you can see the words "Mfou” and "Wfou” written at the bottom of the screen. These stand for the different visors that players can use in Medal of Honor.Oops. This isn't to say that Iran doesn't indeed have military assets taking on ISIS/Daesh. They certainly do. But when an easily debunked effort to pass off video game footage as victory marks for the war effort is put out, it will only serve to make the world wonder just how well the real effort is going. Probably horribly, because, you know, war. War never changes (See? I can do it too!).
But we'll set that aside for the moment and instead welcome Iran into the group of fake-it-til-you-make-it folks. There are snacks in the back, but they're just pictures of Mario Bros. mushrooms, so, you know....
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Filed Under: iran, medal of honor, propaganda, video games
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Aimbot
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Re: Aimbot
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Re: Re: Aimbot
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The true reason
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Re: The true reason
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Re:
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Operation double-cross
Ummmm!! Curious!!
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Re: Operation double-cross
Not quite...
You also saw it in the source cited in this very article, it's just bad reporting. What doesn't change is that it's Iran's state news network that produced this. Iran has done this before and you can check the primary source to verify, you're just a conspiracy theorist.
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Re: Re: Operation double-cross
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Re: Who knows who fed the original footage to the INN -- possibly THAT was a US tactic
Truly, the infernal reach of the Great Satan knows no bounds...
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Re: Re: Who knows who fed the original footage to the INN -- possibly THAT was a US tactic
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Re: Re: Operation double-cross
Primary source as in a rinsing news agency! You call me a conspiracy theorist as if it's a dreadful insult. Surely you realise every item here is in essence a theory unless it a direct observation? What none sense is all that about?
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Re: Operation double-cross
The US creates and plants false video in an attempt to make Iran look bad by making it seem like they're falsely pumping up their operations against the idiotic butchers by using video-game footage and trying to pass it off as legitimate.
Assuming the efforts in disguising the source of the video works, who comes out looking bad in this, versus who can easily spin it in their favor?
The US? No, propaganda that gets found out tends to backfire pretty badly against the ones who created it, and making someone that's fighting against a group that opposes pretty much anyone that isn't them look worse doesn't do the US much good.
Iran? Yeah, they come out looking all kinds of stupid, and any real reports of their successes in the future are likely to receive a hefty amount of skepticism.
The losers with guns and bombs? Oh yeah, now they can run with this and turn it to their favor. All it would take is one person realizing that they can use this to claim that Iran isn't being nearly as successful fighting against them, because clearly they're just so powerful that an entire army can't stand against them.
So running with your idea, the US gets nothing while risking blowback, Iran gets nothing but egg on their face, and the losers get an excellent opportunity to crow about how awesome and powerful they are as their enemies are reduced to faking successes against them. If this was a US op then it failed at anything beyond giving the enemy a chance to make themselves out to be more powerful.
Or we could just assume that Iran screwed up all on their own with a pathetic attempt at propaganda that backfired when people spotted the obvious discrepancies. A US propaganda op which helped no-one but the enemy, or a government botching propaganda like other governments have before, which do you think makes more sense?
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Re: Re: Operation double-cross
Why would you think it was directed at a US audience?!
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Re: Re: Operation double-cross
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Hezbollah != Iran
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Reality Bites
There is no headshot any more. Anything is a killshot.
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Iran's military isn't as advanced as the United States, so of course their tactics and weaponry are not as good as the US, so they are limited.
If you took true video of US troops, you would think it came from a Halo video, but would in fact, be real.
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Re:
There is only spray then a body dropping. These guns cut people in half; take an arm or leg off; heads become mist. I was trying to keep it clean so it would get posted. Who's clueless now?
Hence, "There is no headshot anymore. Everything is a killshot."
Jackass...
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I've often argued...
Children on the field that get wiped out, or worse, not-quite-wiped-out-to-die.
Soldiers on the ground screaming for their mothers.
Random deaths due to the unlucky artillery impact.
Games are conspicuously softened for sake of entertainment and offense, but I suspect that facilitates the narrative that going to war isn't so terrible.
Much like Jack Bauer torturing the victim of the week to save the world (and torture works every time) was instrumental in torture becoming an acceptable measure for the United States to take.
Not all games have to be so brutal, but right now, no games are. Efforts like Six Days In Fallujah are nixed for being too offensive and against the US-military-action-is-good-and-righteous narrative.
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Re: I've often argued...
It's softened simply for sales. Make it fun... Fun sells.
But, really, "No levity for the dead."
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Re: Re: I've often argued...
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To be completely honest...
Maybe we can have a mutual contest of who can created the best footage of simulated victories.
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Re: To be completely honest...
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Re: Re: To be completely honest...
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Living where I do, I should probably know this,
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Stupid stuff
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Lazy (drunk?) recruiting video?
Philistines. :-P
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