I played this game a bunch in the mid 2000s.

A sizeable number of people that I played with went on to serve in the military, evidently due to their experience playing the game. So, anecdotally, it was effective.

At least that was an overt recruiting tool.

Strangely, the one thing that sticks out to this day is they shunned the convention of using red and blue team indicators and instead chose red and green which made the game strangely difficult to get used to. I think I am remembering those little tick icons hovering above a player or maybe the reticle.

I guess the reason I'm pointing this out was because at the time I kept thinking if they can't get this one simple thing correct, what plethora of other things are they getting wrong.

edit: I have no idea how this adds to the conversation. Just thought vomit I guess.

I played this game as a kid for a lot of hours and knew it was a recruitment tool. I played in lots of small TWL tournaments and was in a clan, so I was pretty involved. While my KDA was pretty good, the D part always sacred the shit out of me, so I don’t think it was a particularly effective tool for recruitment for myself. Pretty well made game though. The map design was great imo; I still remember the map of Mount McKenna. I think I only met one person through the game involved in the military and he was enlisted before its release.

Streaming video channels featuring children’s idols strikes me as meaningfully different than a computer game.