Battlefield Knoxville, simulation, and simulacra

My friend told me about this a while ago...have any of you heard of it? From their Facebook page:

Knoxville's Indoor Combat and Video Gaming Lounge! Over 30,000 sq. feet of urban themed Combat Area with missions including: Capture The Flag, Base Assault, VIP, Territories, Team Deathmatch, FireFight, and Rescue the Hostage!

What exactly do they mean by "Indoor Combat"? Someone asked this on their wall, so they cleared it up: 

We are Realistic Simulated Combat. Imagine Laser Tag... evolved to the next level. It's not laser tag at all, but.. that would be the closest comparison. 2 Arenas dressed out as realistic environments. No black lights, no neon lights... and guns that look (and act) like their real life or video game counterparts. Sniper rifle is deadly accurate.. the Mac 10 SMG is a spray and pray.. M16 is accurate but has a 3 shot burst and long reload times.. 7 different weapons to choose from.. etc. Plus East Tennessee's largest console gaming lounge where we'll hold Madden, Halo, Call Of Duty, Gears, etc tournaments.

they then go on to say:

It also keeps up with your mission statistics in real-time on your weapon. You know when you hit someone, you know when you've been hit, accuracy, ammo count, etc. Also, it's cheat-proof.

The place is still under construction, so they've been having open play events at outdoor paintball and airsoft fields. They expect to open in late March, when they'll begin "beta testing"...hmm. Sound familiar?

From one of their "open play" events

Apparently, it's based off the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (or MILES) used by the US Military during training to simulate actual battle, but they're obviously also playing up the angle that it's like a video game brought into reality. It makes me wonder what they mean when they say that it's "realistic simulated combat." Does it realistically simulate actual combat, or does it realistically simulate simulated combat? 

 

A first-person viewpoint of a match uploaded onto Youtube

I had originally intended for this to be a general "check this out what do you think about it" type of post, but then I started thinking about Evan's presentation on Jean Baudrillard and GTA IV from the last class and (after some less than light reading) wanted to examine this in terms of Baudrillard's ideas about simulacra and simulation.  

Read on, ye readers!


If you're not familiar with his concept, basically* Baudrillard contends that in current society, simulations/representations are no longer copies of reality but have superseded the original to become the reality themselves. Because a simulation purports to replicate reality and what is true, an effective simulation of reality destroys the original reality, so that there is only simulacrum - a system of representations that are empty and self-referential since they are no longer tied to a reality or meaning. As a result, simulations of what we perceive as real can only really be simulations of other simulations. In our postmodern age, one that is increasingly characterized by mass media and culture, we eventually take simulacra to be actual reality and truth and incorporate them into our understanding of the world and our functioning within it. We are at the point where what is real and what is representation are indistinguishable, and representations have come to both precede and determine what is real.
*Note: I should clarify, this is his concept from my possibly incorrect understanding. Please consult your friendly neighborhood academic for a more accurate summary.

Sure, you could argue, they might be using "military grade equipment," but ultimately it's just a game and not trying to pass itself off as real; it only incorporates "realistic" elements. I'm sure most will agree that the games we play, virtual or otherwise, are partially predicated on the fact that they are an escape and separate from reality. So then what does it mean when the military uses video games to recruit and train soldiers, or when it creates an "Infantry Immersion Trainer", complete with real sets, smells, sounds, CGI Iraqis projected onto holographic screens, and animatronic Afghans? This is exactly the convolution Baudrillard describes. Let's face it, war in the modern era has become something of a simulacrum. As Evan was saying, think about how most of society knows war - edited footage and abstracted images distributed to televisions, simulations in video games and movies, etc. And now, enemies are reduced to pixels on a monitor to be eliminated by unmanned drones remotely controlled thousands of miles away from conflict. The act of killing enemy combatants becomes a game. Reality has become a simulation of a simulation.

The Infantry Immersion Trainer (IIT) in Camp Pendleton

  Battlefield Knoxville's PR keep saying how much more "realistic" it is than comparable sports. But, if we are going to define it by Baudrillard's standards, there is no "realism" here, nor is it possible to achieve. Battlefield Knoxville is a simulation of a simulation of a simulation...and so on. "Hyperreal" may be more applicable; meaning "more real than real," it's what arises when reality is replaced by simulacra.

I should probably say that I'm not criticizing them - at least, not in the negative way. Though you've got to admit, having a tagline somewhere along the lines of "Baudrillard's greatest fears realized!" would be pretty attention-grabbing.