From Sun Tzu to Xbox is a definitive history of the longstanding relationship between games and military culture, from wargaming’s roots in ancient civilizations, to the Cold War development of computing for battle, to a recent crop of Pentagon-funded shoot-’em-ups, big-budget commercial titles and homemade hacks.
Interview with Ed Halter, author of
From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Videogames.
We discuss why he wrote From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Videogames and what the book is about; Grand Theft Auto; 9/11; Top Gun; Conflict: Desert Storm, America’s Army and Full Spectrum Warrior; writing the initial article for the Village Voice; the history of war games; chess and kriegspiel; H.G. Wells; anti-wargames; Josh On‘s They Rule; the impact of war game snot steeped in nationalism or based on historical events like Quake, Halo and World of Warcraft; the Vietcong video game; comedian David Cross on violence in video games and rap music; war video games in other countrie; Under Ash; video games as a weapon for cultural wars; what people from the military have said about From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Videogames; the US military’s current plans for video games; Counter-Strike; his favourite war based video game; why he chose Xbox over PlayStation in the title of his book.
