South Korea Joins The Club That Uses Video Game Footage To Proclaim Themselves Awesome At War

from the fake-it-til-you-make-it dept

Mon, Jan 23rd 2017 1:08pm — Timothy Geigner

This seems to be something of a regular occurrence now. In the recent past, several foreign countries have celebrated how stunningly real video game graphics have become by using them to pretend they are really great at war. The Egyptians did it to pretend that Russia was fighting ISIS, the Iranians did it to pretend that their forces could shoot people from a really long way away, and the North Koreans did it to pretend that they could deliver a nuclear ICBM to our soil.

Well, perhaps there is some synergy to be found over Korea's DMZ, because the South Koreans recently released footage detailing how super-awesome their new fighter jet program is, and that footage included several clips from both Battlefield 3 and Ace Combat.

The South Korean military has a new program to co-develop fighter planes. To show off the project, a web video was created with tax payers’ money. Oh, and unauthorized video game footage.

The Korea Times (via tipster Sang) report that the country’s Ministry of National Defense released the ten minute clip, which features a few seconds of Battlefield 3 and Ace Combat: Assault Horizon to show off the aircraft’s performance.

Here is a sample of a frame from the video and from the game footage it had been taken from, clearly showing that the efforts to disguise the unauthorized usage pretty much amounted to mirror-flipping the image and overlaying a few graphical filters.

It's one thing when a country with a shamble pile of an economy and an overinflated sense of its own power like North Korea does this sort of thing. We've come to expect it, on some level. But there is something really silly when a country with a real economy that is the ally of the United States sinks to the depth of playing make-believe to thump its chest. It's the kind of thing that calls into question the might and capability of the rest of the fighting force of South Korea, which is a terrible signal to send to its northern neighbor.

To induce even more head-shaking, it seems that everyone is blaming each other for all of this.

The military acknowledged that the footage wasn’t authorized and said it will cease using the clip. It also blamed the company that produced the video, and that company is, in turn, blaming the Agency for Defense Development and Korea Aerospace Industries, alleging that they had a say over everything.

One would hope that the game publishers in question won't stoop to the level of trying for a copyright claim over all of this. Instead, they ought to beam proudly that their game footage was deemed realistic enough to attempt to pass off as real-life warring. South Korea, meanwhile, will need to wipe that egg off of its face.

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Filed Under: military, propaganda, south korea, video games

18 Comments

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Molly, 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:21pm

The United States has been playing make-believe to thump its own chest for decades. No surprise if South Korea does the same!! We're supposed to listen to the UK and the US telling porkies and swallow it all up??? No thanks.

It's only going to get worse with that liar Trump in charge. We Europeans are doing a lot of smiling, believe me.
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bob, 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:38pm

if only there had been some sort of document strengthening copyright protections.
If only the TTP had been signed, it could have stopped all possible forms of infringement in the Pacific.

Now we will never know :(

/s
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Baron von Robber, 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:39pm

Re:
I expect Drumpfkins to use Donkey Kong as an example of infrastructure improvement.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:42pm

Re: if only there had been some sort of document strengthening copyright protections.
Maybe the stealing of this footage was why south Korea wasn't included in the TPP?
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:44pm

Re: Re:
Honestly south Korea should have used the Terran's buildings and units from starcraft.
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Roger Strong (profile), 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:54pm

Re: Re:
Don't forget Pong, used to show immigrants being turned back at the border.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2017 @ 1:58pm

Angle of descent
Just from the look of it, I don't think the missile is going to hit anyway. So either way no on should really be that worried.
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Mr Big Content, 23 Jan 2017 @ 3:13pm

Time To Nuke Kim-Jong Il
These Koreans are totally out of touch with reality. Time for Trump to prove the superiority of our Democracy over there narsicistic personality cult and deal with them once and for all.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2017 @ 4:49pm

One up them
it's time to pick better video games.

How about Eve Valkyrie or maybe just go straight to Star Wars and threaten to destroy the whole solar system.
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ECA (profile), 23 Jan 2017 @ 5:06pm

Reading into the story..
It seems that multiple people and agencies are blaming each other..
The military REQUESTED it be made and supplied the script..
The Agency MADE the script..
The Military OK'd the advert..

Funny? as in the MILITARY didnt SUPPLY VIDEO?? just a SCRIPT??

Next time, HIRE DISNEY..
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2017 @ 5:32pm

Actually a good thing
It's probably actually a good thing that they're ripping off war footage from video games. It probably means there are no real wars to get footage from.
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Anonymous Coward, 23 Jan 2017 @ 5:40pm

Honestly, as someone who's been through conscription and worked under superiors who will charge you with insubordination for any perceived slight, I'm really more inclined to give the design company the benefit of the doubt here.

Army and military personnel in general do seem to have a thing for power trips and making other hapless people shoulder the responsibility for their fuck-ups.
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bob, 23 Jan 2017 @ 6:34pm

Re: Re: Re:
And Mario to show that you can just go into a large pipe and bypass the Pong wall entirely.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jan 2017 @ 5:15am

While South Korea joins the photoshop club, USA joins the lie out yer ass club. I can see Trump siting on his golden throne with Kim of North Korea on one side and Baghdad Bob on the other.

I'm waiting with eager anticipation .... will Kim share with Donny the Unicorn Lair? Will Kim loan out a unicorn for one of our zoos? Living in these times is so awesome, it's almost unbelievable.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 24 Jan 2017 @ 5:50am

Re: Re:
Donkey Kong? No, use Wreck-it Ralph, Donny boy! Your mobile applause team can cheer and punch the air when Fix-it Felix arrives on the scene to put everything right.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 24 Jan 2017 @ 5:51am

Re: Re: if only there had been some sort of document strengthening copyright protections.
Copying is not theft.
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Wendy Cockcroft, 24 Jan 2017 @ 5:54am

Re:
Baghdad Bob is funnier than Steve Bannon; great idea!
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nasch (profile), 24 Jan 2017 @ 1:02pm

Can't have thought they would fool everyone
Here's the news story with the video.

https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/kr/205_220911.html

The game footage starts I think around 6:50. It's so obviously from a video game (maybe only if you've played video games though), and the aircraft carrier one is especially blatant. There's supposed to be a camera in the nose of a missile live streaming HD video of the target and the missile ahead? Then when the carrier explodes (how powerful were those little missiles anyway?) the view shifts to some other vantage point (but otherwise looks exactly the same, as though it's the same type of camera). The explosion doesn't look real at all, and are they really trying to claim the South Korean military blew up an aircraft carrier?

Given just how very dumb all that is, I don't think they were really trying to pass this off as actual combat footage. It's supposed to be a simulation, and they just didn't mention they lifted it from a video game.
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