Opposition to Low-Grade Interests — Critique of Reactionary Bourgeois Battlefield Simulation Games
Historical Materialism Group of the Proletarian Liberation Struggle Association
I. The Reactionary Nature of Battlefield Simulation Games
(1) What are battlefield simulation games?
Games, here specifically referring to video games, originated in the 1960s and refer to all interactive games that run on electronic device platforms. They are an internal form of bourgeois art and part of the bourgeois reactionary superstructure. The “Dictionary of Philosophy” defines art as: “Art is the social consciousness reflected through typical images of real life. Art originates from human social labor practice.” “In class society, art has a distinct class character, reflecting a certain political line.” “Modern bourgeois art fervently promotes reactionary idealist historical views, praises counterrevolutionary forces, and slanders revolutionary people; it vigorously spreads decadent and shameless exploitative lifestyles, poisoning youth and stupefying the people.”**[1] They are nothing but vulgar interests. Proletarian art, on the other hand, is part of the entire revolutionary cause of the proletariat, the “gears and screws” of the revolutionary machinery. It serves workers, peasants, and soldiers, and serves the proletarian political line, being “a powerful weapon for uniting the people, educating the people, striking the enemies, and destroying the enemies”[2]. However, with the failure of the Chinese revolution and the downturn of the international communist movement, proletarian art also suffered a catastrophic blow. Modern bourgeoisie bans existing cultural relics from the Cultural Revolution period, propagates reactionary bourgeois art to poison people’s minds, and excludes and suppresses proletarian art. These measures have caused proletarian art to lose its broad dissemination ability. Many proletarian music, films, and model operas have been destroyed or left in obscurity. Although proletarian art has temporarily disappeared, as long as the revolutionary path is maintained and socialism is established, art truly belonging to the workers will eventually revive.
The battlefield simulation games criticized in this article refer to games that use historical facts and reality as backgrounds, with gameplay involving realistic battlefield and weapon equipment simulation, such as “War Thunder” (weapon equipment simulation battlefield), “Tactical Squad,” “Armed Assault 3” (realistic battlefield). In these games, players control a tank, a warship, a fighter jet, or play as a soldier, fighting and shooting on a so-called “World War II” and “realistic” electronic “battlefield” to eliminate other units controlled by players, in order to achieve the so-called “victory.” The conditions for these “victories” are nothing more than “eliminate all units,” “occupy all war zones,” etc. These games often generate profits through direct purchase of the game itself and sale of in-game items, requiring players to spend significant time leveling up and cultivating their accounts, and they promote a large amount of individualism and fascist reactionary ideas. As a result, most players are in parasitic lifestyles or belong to the relatively affluent petty bourgeoisie.[3]
(2) How does the service industry (business) of battlefield simulation games profit? How does the behind-the-scenes military-industrial monopoly bourgeoisie harm the broad masses of workers?
The service industry of battlefield simulation games has both the general characteristics of service industries and its particularity as an industry of battlefield simulation games.
First, the generality. Marx said: “The entire ‘commodity’ world can be divided into two main parts: first, labor power; second, commodities different from labor power itself.”[4] Game service industry capitalists purchase hardware such as computers from digital industry capitalists as fixed assets, and employ large numbers of IT software workers, intensifying exploitation and oppression, making them perform abstract labor far exceeding their labor value to produce these disgusting game services. They also invest heavily in circulation costs to cooperate with game distribution platforms, advertise on major app stores to poison those lacking rational understanding or attract morally corrupt and electronic-opium-addicted individuals. Ultimately, they provide consumers with service commodities that do not produce value or surplus value. How is their price formed? When the game is sold on platforms like Steam, the total price includes: the cost of computers, graphics cards, electricity, wages of service workers, circulation costs, and the average profit margin applied to the sum of commercial capital and circulation costs.
In the era of imperialism, monopoly prices also exist in the game service industry. For example, the same game sold in different regions on the same platform has different monopoly prices, because monopoly prices vary by region. “Monopoly prices are determined solely by the purchasing needs and paying capacity of buyers”[5], and since consumers’ ability to pay varies across regions, monopoly capitalists set different prices to maximize monopoly profits in each region.
Second, battlefield simulation games have their particularity. They contain realistic digital simulations of war and weapons, serving the needs of imperialist countries to expand military preparations and militarize their economies, becoming a special “training ground” for monopoly bourgeoisie.
Currently, the national economies of various countries have reached an appalling level of militarization. According to statistics[6], in 2022, U.S. imperialism accounted for $877 billion of global military expenditure, 39% of the total, a 0.7% increase from 2021; China’s socialist imperialism spent $292 billion, up 4.2% from 2021, and 63% more than in 2013—when Xi Jinping came to power. “Xi Jinping’s reactionary group’s rise, like Brezhnev’s rise before him, proclaims that their country has become an imperialist power.”[7] China’s military spending has grown continuously for 28 years[8]. Although U.S. military expenditure is three times larger, China’s military spending is increasing at an astonishing rate. Under the uneven development law of imperialist political economy, as a rising imperialist country, China must vigorously mobilize its war machine to compete with the old imperialist powers, aiming to secure a sphere of influence matching its economic strength. Meanwhile, the U.S., as a representative of the old imperialist powers, maintains large military expenditures to uphold the old imperialist world order. The militarization of imperialist national economies not only reflects the sharpening contradictions among imperialist countries but also the growing resistance of colonized peoples. “To suppress the resistance of oppressed nations, the United Nations, which has become a tool for imperialist powers to divide the world, has established a notorious ‘United Nations Peacekeeping Force’ (peacekeeping troops) solely to maintain colonial order. Imperialism, under the guise of ‘preventing armed conflicts and maintaining world peace,’ actually deploys troops to third-world countries to suppress national liberation movements and protect its economic colonial interests. The huge expenses spent by imperialist groups on maintaining colonial order, such as the UN’s peacekeeping budget of $6.5 billion from July 2019 to June 2020—more than double the UN’s regular budget of $3.07 billion—are a testament to the heroic struggles of the oppressed nations.”[9][10]
The enormous military expenditures of imperialist countries are used not only to expand existing weapons production but also to accelerate weapon iteration and upgrades. For example, in 2022, China launched its third aircraft carrier, “Fujian”; at the end of 2022, the U.S. announced and showcased the new stealth strategic bomber “B-21.” Without considering their so-called “strategic deterrence” role, an analysis of these weapons’ actual utility reveals they are all aimed at the working people. The so-called “high-tech,” “stealth” strategic bombers are just replicas of the B-17 and B-29 used by British and American imperialists in WWII. In Japan, U.S. imperialism used them to drop incendiary and nuclear bombs that killed tens of thousands of Japanese workers and farmers, while sparing places like imperialist palaces and military factories—“showing goodwill.” In the film “Ernst Talmann—Leader of the Class,” female communist fighter Annie also fell victim to U.S. and British strategic bombers. Aircraft carrier fleets are merely tools for imperialist countries to invade colonies or rescue comprador capitalists under attack by local national liberation movements. During official “evacuation” operations, students and workers wishing to return home are charged exorbitant fees by the “great motherland” fleet[11]. In these imperialist countries, “riot control” weapons are also frequently updated. For example, in April 2023, CCTV’s “Military Technology” program showcased the “CS/LW21 Handheld Electromagnetic Riot Control Launcher,” a new “high-precision” riot suppression weapon from China. Compared with traditional smoke-free firearms, its advantages in suppressing crowds include low noise and no dust, making it more covert and suitable for covert assassinations by China’s black gangs.
It is clear that weapons in the hands of imperialists are only war machines and murder machines. They serve only imperialist competition, domestic suppression, and colonial repression. “The weapons in the hands of the ruling class are all aimed at firing at us workers!”[12]
So what role do battlefield simulation games play here? As mentioned earlier, they serve as “training grounds.” Taking “Armed Assault 3” as an example. Besides the civilian version “Armed Assault 3,” the company also produces a military version—“VBS3.” As the company’s profits continue to rise, the digital physics engine and 3D engine of this military game are constantly updated. In this game, U.S. military police can use its realistic modeling and weapon simulation to rehearse actual invasions and suppressions. For instance, U.S. new pilots can use “VBS3”’s aerodynamic engine to simulate the difficult-to-master “Shenandoah” helicopter, even coordinating with other invading forces to simulate combat missions involving transport and air drops, gaining more indirect experience before actual deployment. These “advantages” are beyond the reach of traditional flight simulators.
Thanks to the convenience provided by these realistic battlefield simulation games, as national economies become more militarized, the bourgeoisie not only supplies more orders to the military-industrial monopoly capitalists but also facilitates the sale of more realistic battlefield simulation games and promotes reactionary political ideology. For example, in 2012, the Russian Ministry of Culture provided up to 5 million rubles to the game company Gaijin for “War Thunder”[13]. The Russian Ministry of Defense also announced cooperation with Gaijin to ensure historical accuracy of weapon data[14]. Russia has also held international game expos to promote battlefield simulation games mainly produced in Russia[15]. As a result, the more realistic the games, the easier it is for the military and military industry to test weapons and conduct training, further promoting national militarization. This vicious cycle ultimately leads to ideological decay, imbalance between the two main productive sectors of society, massive waste of human and material resources for destructive production, and severe military parasitic consumption displacing productive and personal consumption. Consequently, the fundamental contradictions of capitalist society become more acute[16]. Tax increases, inflation, and rising prices for daily necessities flood the society like a flood, plunging the working people deeper into poverty.
(3) How do battlefield simulation games seduce and corrupt players’ thoughts?
In the previous section, I briefly explained the reactionary nature of battlefield simulation games, how they profit, and how they are favored by imperialism. But for this industry to make profits, it’s not enough for the military-industrial bourgeoisie or imperialist states to invest or facilitate sales; they need consumers to buy their services. So how do battlefield simulation games attract players to buy?
Flame says: “All films and literary works reflecting bourgeois ideas are vulgar interests.” “Reactionary works’ reactionary roots come from their detachment from reality”[17], and the real meaning of all vulgar interests is “deception.” Since battlefield simulation games are reactionary and vulgar forms of entertainment, they are a kind of spiritual opium. So, how do they “deceive”?
As previously mentioned, players often control military equipment or play as soldiers. But are they truly participating in war simulations? Not really. In real war, soldiers march long distances, go hungry, and risk death from bullets or artillery—losing limbs, bleeding profusely, or even dying instantly from internal injuries, open pneumothorax, heart rupture, or brain explosion. In the game, players face no such risks, even if they die, they can “reincarnate,” and if shot, they can use “medical supplies” to restore “health points” instantly.
Besides the absence of injury or death risks, players even derive pleasure from killing enemies and fighting. This pleasure is not from eliminating reactionaries as revolutionaries, nor from fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, but from individualism, chauvinism, and fascism—enjoying slaughter in imperialist wars. First, war is “a struggle between hostile classes or nations in a class society, undertaken to achieve certain political goals”[18], and war is one of two means of struggle (the other being peace). “Politics is war without bloodshed; war is politics with bloodshed”[19]. All wars in history can be divided into two categories based on political nature: just revolutionary wars and unjust counterrevolutionary wars. Imperialist wars of aggression are typical unjust wars. Lenin in “The Bankruptcy of the Second International” pointed out: the “objective content of imperialist war is the ‘political continuation’ of imperialism, i.e., the ‘political continuation’ of the dying bourgeoisie of ‘strong nations’ (and their governments) plundering other nations. The ‘subjective’ ideological system that dominates is the ‘national’ phrases spread to deceive the masses.”[20] As long as imperialism exists, war is unavoidable. If the people do not rise to overthrow imperialist states, this impending world war will continue to pursue “plundering other nations.” Therefore, Marxists must actively support or participate in revolutionary wars against world imperialism. Only through the unity and struggle of the people of all countries can we defeat the invasions launched by imperialist and social-imperialist powers, overthrow the rule of international capitalism, and crush their superstructure, achieving world peace. The reactionary ideas propagated by battlefield simulation games completely ignore the distinction between just and unjust wars. They depict imperialist war as a battlefield, treating “kill counts” and “victory points” as goals, just as imperialist invasions define victory through casualties and front lines; they attempt to blur the line between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary wars, trying to reconcile the contradiction between revolution and counterrevolution in war, thus defending imperialist world wars and preparing for suppression of revolutionary armed struggles and colonial liberation wars. For example, games set in the Pacific theater shout “Defend the Motherland,” spreading chauvinist views; in the Finnish-Soviet theater, reactionary slogans like “War Never Changes” are posted, raising the banner of bourgeois pacifism, opposing socialist Soviet Union’s just war against reactionary Finnish bourgeoisie. During gameplay, players naturally accept these reactionary, counterrevolutionary, and anti-human political views, directly and indirectly supporting imperialist slaughter of the working people.
In summary, players are not experiencing war but are playing a false soldier, indulging in the reckless slaughter of the imperialist battlefield with individualism, chauvinism, and fascist ideas, becoming war machines capable of “rebirth.” The more frequently players indulge in battlefield simulation games, the deeper their mistaken biases toward imperialist wars and revolutionary wars, the more their morality deteriorates, ultimately becoming fervent supporters of imperialist wars and accomplices in slaughtering the working people. They may even, under bourgeois command, turn their guns against the people, treating the people as unconscious NPCs in the game. They act as soldiers of the 27th Army[21], accepting a “game mission” called “Eliminate Anti-Party, Anti-Military, Counterrevolutionary Riots, and Students,” firing at students as NPCs without hesitation or reflection.
(4) Do not produce bullets aimed at the people from the economy and ideology—become accomplices in imperialist aggression and repression!
Above, I analyzed the reactionary nature of battlefield simulation games in political, economic, and ideological aspects. But what are the concrete consequences of playing these games?
Economically, each penny spent on battlefield simulation games turns into bullets, shells, and missiles that hit the bodies of workers and people in various countries.
Someone might argue: “It’s just a little money, what’s the big deal? Imperialist countries spend too much on military, this tiny amount can’t make a difference.” But let’s look at some data. In the Russia-Ukraine war, Russia has a common tactical ballistic missile called “Iskander.” Its pre-war stockpile was 900 units, and from February 23, 2022, to January 3, 2023, 56 were produced, with 812 launched on the battlefield[22]. Each missile costs about 3 million USD[23]. The game company Gaijin made a profit of $26 million in 2021 (most of the profit from “War Thunder,” “From the Army,” and similar games)[24]. This is a terrifying picture: a game company’s annual profit can produce about 9 missiles, equivalent to one-sixth of the total annual production! This shows how much support battlefield simulation players give to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. After clicking the payment button, countless Ukrainian workers, farmers, women, and children have fallen under Russian missile attacks.
Some may say: “What about consumption of daily necessities? The military spending of bourgeois states is redistributed from national income, and all kinds of consumption include surplus value, increasing the total national income. Why not just stop consuming?” This argument is even more absurd. First, bourgeois redistribution of national income is also used for capitalist expansion and reproduction. Second, in capitalist society’s bourgeois dictatorship, workers must consume necessary goods to survive; it’s impossible to eliminate consumption to prevent capitalist profits. Third, human consumption of necessities is limited—people don’t stockpile more food than they need, or it will rot and be wasted. But game services are a parasitic and luxurious consumption, like opium. Therefore, expanding consumption of game services not only provides military expenses for the bourgeoisie but also helps capitalism expand reproduction and profits in the service sector.
What class would these words come from? We all know that before the Opium War, British imperialism sold opium to the Qing Dynasty, making huge excess profits. Opium doesn’t cause starvation, but when the legalist middle and small landlord class, represented by Lin Zexu, proposed banning opium, some anti-ban factions argued for “relaxing the ban.” Because they are extremely parasitic, decayed, and spiritually empty, indulging in opium to comfort themselves. Now, those who advocate that “food is indispensable,” “second dimension is unavoidable,” “games must be played,” or defend such vulgar interests are mostly petty bourgeoisie—parasitic and decadent people.
Ideologically, as mentioned earlier, players playing these games deepen their misunderstanding of war’s nature, increasing their mistaken biases toward imperialist wars and misconceptions about revolutionary wars. Flame once said: “Every individual is not an isolated island outside society.”[25]
“All kinds of bourgeois spiritual opium are the most handy ‘soft knives’ for the contemporary bourgeoisie to corrupt the proletariat and petty bourgeoisie.”[26] Many believe that shooting soldiers and tanks with rifles and cannons, bombing war zones with heavy bombs for “victory points,” is harmless; some even realize that such bombardments are wrong and reactionary but think they are just “playing,” not killing “real people,” and thus have no social impact. This is wrong. Why are fascists and chauvinists so rampant today? Because there are too many reactionary fascist and chauvinist ideas spreading in society.
If we talk about the petty bourgeoisie, what about us Marxist learners? If we indulge in reactionary art and literature, when we see scenes like “friends joking about the Bucha incident[27],” “mocking the wounded and dead,” “laughing at the photos of African liberation struggles,” or “netizens congratulating the launch of Fujian,” “supporting reunification of Taiwan,” we might follow suit, mock “battle achievements,” and spread chauvinist rhetoric. At that moment, Marxist principles and methods are lost, and principles are trampled underfoot, especially fostering fascist and chauvinist atmospheres in society. Marxism is lost, opportunism takes over, and capitalists are delighted, saying: “This is great, let them shed blood!”[28]
Conversely, “if we form a social group that truly becomes Marxist, we will stop doing this and oppose it. We will expand Marxist ideas and reduce bourgeois ideas. If we fight against capitalists spreading reactionary ideas, society will improve, women’s oppression will decrease, and the treatment of the working people will improve!”[29] Therefore, ideological struggle is never a personal matter. We must think more from social and historical perspectives. Remember!
**II. The Class and Line Struggle Arising from Different Understandings of Weapons****In war game simulations, besides distorting the key element of “war battlefield,” another element—“weapons”—has also been distorted. Since the distortion of the concept of “weapons” is not the main reactionary aspect of war simulation games, but these games do indeed reflect and amplify the bourgeois’s mistaken understanding of “weapons.” Therefore, I will list this part separately, using the distortion of weapons in war simulation games as material to criticize this bourgeois mistaken understanding and reactionary approach to using weapons.
Regarding the concept of “weapons,” different classes, due to their differing worldviews, have various understandings of weapons, forming a struggle between two classes and two routes. Thus, a person’s attitude towards weapons also reflects whether they possess the qualities of a Marxist, specifically materialist qualities.
The bourgeois believe that the superiority of weapons determines the victory or defeat of war, that the outcome of war is linked to the natural form of the weapons rather than the operators. Generally, bourgeois and petty bourgeois designers of war simulation games hold such views. For example, in “World of Tanks,” game designers set “damage” based on the caliber of the tank’s gun, with an 183mm caliber cannon dealing three times the damage of a 75mm caliber cannon. Moreover, many fascists often say: “The Zero fighter is too reactionary; the Japanese use it to fight us Chinese.” Many petty bourgeois enthusiasts think: “Soviet tanks are really strong; playing Soviet tanks is like participating in revolutionary war.” They all believe that weapons are not just simple objects but are like a combination of certain consciousness and matter. Additionally, some believe that instead of fully negating war simulation games, we should use “weapon equipment simulation” games within them to learn military science. All these views are wrong, reactionary, and extremely harmful.
Marxists believe that consciousness is the reflection of the objective material world in the human brain, and “matter is the philosophical category that signifies objective reality; this objective reality is perceived by humans through sensation, exists independently of our sensations, and is reproduced, photographed, and reflected by our sensations.” [30] Weapons are a specific form of matter, so although they reflect the consciousness of designers, they themselves have no consciousness. Weapons should not be regarded as a combination of matter and consciousness; such a thing does not exist in the world. For example, during the Vietnam War, the U.S. imperialists designed the M16 rifle with “three-round burst” to save bullets. The military leaders favored this design because it limited the firing power of the weapon, allowing them to save money on bullets to buy yachts. This incident reflects the decadence of American imperialism. From a Marxist perspective, the weapons themselves do not possess any “consciousness” of being advanced or backward; only the worldview of the designers can be considered advanced or backward. The proletariat needs weapons, and “if the oppressed classes do not strive to learn to master weapons and obtain them, they are only fit to be slaves” [31]. Therefore, the proletariat’s use of weapons is judged based on their utility—whether they can “fire bullets (shells), destroy fortifications, and strike at the enemy’s living forces.” Only weapons with such utility can effectively strike the enemy and eliminate bourgeois reactionary armies. Indeed, weapons designed with reactionary worldviews may have extremely poor utility (such as the malfunctioning Lewis machine gun of WWI or the Sten submachine gun of WWII), but they can also be highly effective in shooting. After all, imperialists also need weapons for invasion and repression. Thus, the proletariat does not use a certain weapon solely because its utility is inferior to others; otherwise, it cannot explain why the People’s Liberation Army equipped large quantities of captured Japanese Type 38 rifles, Type 92 machine guns, and even a tank named “Meritorious” Type 97 light tank during the liberation war.
Marxists believe that the quality and form of weapons are important factors in war, but not the main factors. The most crucial factor is people—people are the primary and most valuable, and only with people can weapons be operated and used. The bourgeois view that “the superiority of weapons determines the victory or defeat of war” is a metaphysical “weaponism,” a subjective and one-sided perspective. It overestimates the role of weapons and underestimates the role of people; this is a bourgeois worldview and methodology. In reality, the “comparison of strength is not only a comparison of military and economic power but also a comparison of human resources and morale. Military and economic power are mastered by people” [32]. Just as imperialist armies are organized with money, the interests of soldiers and monopolist capitalists are fundamentally incompatible. In such armies, abuse by officers of soldiers is common, and fierce contradictions exist among them. If enlisting does not benefit the soldiers, they will desert. If troop numbers are insufficient, bourgeoisie may even conscript laboring people into the army to serve their state machinery. Workers are even less likely to serve imperialism wholeheartedly. Various factors lead imperialist armies to become lethargic and weak, even with advanced weapons; soldiers will not use them well, and they will inevitably be defeated by the united and ideologically driven Red Army of workers and peasants. In the film “Ernst Talmann—Son of the Class,” there is a scene: during the Hamburg uprising, a worker-soldier complains to Dajek: “Two grenades are too few.” Dajek replies: “We are not fighting on the bourgeois street; here, everyone is a worker.” Talmann says: “In the workers’ district, your strength will be ten times greater.” In Hamburg’s workers’ district, workers used tiles and rifles to block the defense troops and armored vehicles, achieving a great victory in the early stage of the Hamburg uprising.
Marxists believe that the contradictions in the Chinese revolution have not yet developed to the stage of organizing armed struggle, and are still in the process of fighting petty bourgeois ideas and establishing disciplined organizations with strict centralization. There is no need for a military simulator to prepare for armed uprisings. Furthermore, more effort should be invested in mastering Marxist scientific theory rather than weapons. Only then can political issues be better analyzed, and the revolutionary forces be accumulated, making the uprising politically purposeful; better understanding that if the people do not rise to overthrow the revisionist state, the ongoing “plundering of other nations” by the revisionist imperialist monopoly bourgeoisie will continue. Such software might be needed and transformed in the near future, but not now. Currently, this kind of software is far more corrosive to the revolutionary ranks than potentially revolutionary, and it is absolutely wrong to invert priorities or commit the mistake of technicism.
Marxists believe that the use of classic Soviet tanks T-34/85 in the “Great Patriotic War” in battlefield simulation games still propagates counterrevolutionary ideas. As previously mentioned, battlefield simulation games always distort the nature of war to defend imperialist wars. Using any weapons in these games to shoot is essentially aiding imperialist slaughter of the working people. In fact, there are also many unfortunate cases where T-34 medium tanks captured by the Nazis were later equipped by the Nazi Wehrmacht. Players are encouraged to imagine: “I am sitting in a captured Soviet T-34 tank, shooting at Soviet soldiers, workers, and peasants defending the homeland.” If morality has not been corrupted to a certain extent, they will definitely turn off the game.
Under the conditions of bourgeois dictatorship, the bourgeois metaphysical weaponism always prevails. Besides the influence of “in every era, the ruling class’s social consciousness plays a dominant role” [33], the petty bourgeoisie who indulge in low-level pleasures (especially battlefield simulation games) also play a significant role. The petty bourgeoisie always make excuses, seemingly considering revolutionary concerns, but actually for personal reasons. They are ashamed to admit they love playing, sometimes claiming it is for others’ sake, seeking a clear conscience, but essentially deceiving themselves.
We must conduct materialist analysis of the actual issues of war, thoroughly understanding the dialectical relationship between people and weapons.
