Games British military plays
ARMY’S PARTICIPATION IN ESPORTS TOURNAMENTS CAN HELP IN SOLDIERS’ WELLBEING, SAY OFFICERS
“WE MANAGED to get a tank into the NEC in Birmingham,” Lieutenant Colonel Tim Elliott of the British Army tells Eastern Eye.
What was it for? Military training? No, it was for Insomnia 68, an Esports convention held in April.
“We had specialists there with the tank and soldiers who operated them. It was brilliant because not only were they able to show the public how a tank is operated, but also play them at games like World of Tanks. Some civilians actually destroyed the tank crews,” said Elliott.
The Army’s hub turned out to be the most popular at the gaming festival.
Esports and the Army may seem like an unlikely pairing, but when you learn that more than 500 million people around the world knew the British Army took on their US counterparts in the Code Bowl – the Super Bowl for military gamers – you realise what a big deal it is.
The Code Bowl is a charity event for American and British military veterans, where teams from both countries compete against each other in a tournament, playing the game Call of Duty.
“When the Army was playing, we had 1.7 million people watching us live. That’s the equivalent of around 19 full Wembley stadiums,” Elliott revealed.
“When the tournament was uploaded online on Instagram, YouTube, Twitch and covered on standard media, over 500 million people knew about the event within a week.”
The entire might of the British military – the Army, Navy, and Royal Air Force (RAF) took up their consoles and went up against the US Army, Marines, Navy, Air Force and even the Space Force.
The Space Force won the tournament, with the RAF second and the British Army coming third.
“They (Space Force) had an element of luck on their side,” joked Elliott.
He is putting a team together to go to the US this year, after the British military was again invited to take part in the Code Bowl 2022.
While last year’s tournament was virtual due to the pandemic, this year it will be held in person in the US, and Elliott is confident the British Army can bring the trophy home.
“It’s great to be invited back. The good thing about going face to face is you can play with no speed difference depending on where you are. So I think we are going to do all right,” a determined Elliott said.
Esports is different from standard video gaming in that it is competitive (human versus human) and usually has an engaging spectator element to it, like traditional sports.
Tournaments usually consist of amateur or professional gamers competing against one another. Professional teams usually have coaches, analysts and managers who help to get the most out of the players and organise strategies.
Esports is a booming business all over the world. There are an estimated 234 million Esports enthusiasts, with some of the biggest tournaments offering millions of pounds in prizes.
The events with the biggest prize pools are the Dota 2 International with $34 million (£27m) and the Fortnite World Cup with $30m (£23.8m), as of 2019.
So how did this Army and Esports partnership blossom? It started as a way to “reconnect with society”, revealed Elliott.
“Times have changed – about 40-50 years ago, virtually every family in the UK had some link to the military, be it the army, navy, or air force. Somebody had done National Service, had been in the war – a parent, grandparent, an aunt or uncle – there was always somebody in the family that you could talk to, or a neighbour, who had a general understanding about what the military did and what the Army did.
“In our case, over the years, the Army has shrunk, our jobs have changed. We’re now doing a vast quantity of different things. So the arc of what we do is much more than the old Second World War films.
“We’re helping with flood defences, doing stuff for climate control, doing antipoaching stuff, doing drug seizures. The general public don’t realise the scope of the Army’s work.
“We’re paid for by the UK taxpayers. If you don’t understand what the organisation does, there’s an element of uncertainty on whether money is being spent correctly because there is that lack of knowledge.”
At its first Insomnia Gaming Festival in 2019, the Army saw it as an event to engage with the public, but as it was something it had never done before, the expectations were low.
Elliott described it as “a trial and error experiment”, but as it turned out, he was blown away by how things unfolded.
“It was a relatively small thing. It wasn’t as grand as having a tank,” he laughed. “But in terms of engagement, it was fantastic. It was a very successful event.
“I was swamped with the number of the general public who were actually serving (in the Army).
“So it was regulars, reserves or cadets who were there at the festival, because they taken time off, or it was the weekend, and they bought tickets. We must have had 60-70 people who all identified themselves as being in the Army.
“Even the soldiers who went along with me later told me they were major game players. It opened my eyes a little bit.
“So after an element of investigation, I realised that there was a real thirst for gaming in the Army. Everybody told me, ‘Everyone below the rank of sergeant plays video games. All the young officers play video games, it’s just you oldies who don’t’. And I said, ‘I put my hands up and said, I actually do play video games.’”
Elliott said the Army’s chain of command realised that Esports could be a key part of its work to improve the lived experience of a soldier.
“We want to make the life of a soldier in the barracks as comfortable as possible. We want them to have connections with society, give them opportunities to go home to their families, have good meals, good WiFi connectivity – all things that make life a bit better.
“The Army chief gave his backing to the initiative, saying ‘we want to make lived experience for soldiers better and gaming and Esports may be a way to do it’, Elliott explained.
The Army Esports community was created for soldiers to come together online – gamers who were in uniform, but didn’t know about other gamers – to join an established online gaming community.
Soldiers play video games and communicate with each other, and civilian gamers, using the app Discord, a popular communications tools for online gaming and streaming. Often called ‘Skype for gamers’, or as Elliott put it, “Whatsapp on steroids”, Discord allows players to chat live as well as share texts, pictures, videos, and audio clips.
All members are vetted thoroughly before they are allowed to join the Army’s Discord hub, he said.
“The passion that soldiers have for gaming is phenomenal. When I started to look into it, very quickly I had lots of soldiers saying ‘I’ll help you’.
“I started getting soldiers volunteering to do admin to set this up, not being paid for it, doing it in their spare time. I was educated by them and we managed to get a management team together.
“The community is now around 4,000 people... The majority, I would say about 3,400, are regulars, reserves, and veterans. And then we’ve got 600-800 keen civilian players who chat to soldiers and arrange games.
“We get teams coming in who want to play the Army teams in games like Rocket League or FIFA.
“We then get an Army team together – either an ad hoc one or the actual team, if there is one for that game – and we start entering them for tournaments.
“It’s like a big online coffee shop where the army go, but we’ve also got the Royal Navy and the RAF coming in, they’ve got their own Discords. But there’s a real community building up there. That’s where they are most nights, just relaxing and talking to each other.”
The Esports explosion continues to grow within the Army, with gaming stations being built in garrisons throughout the UK.
The pandemic lockdowns showed Army bosses what a crucial role Esports played in soldiers’ well-being.
“It simply boils down having the opportunity to be with your mates,” said Elliott. “It doesn’t matter if you’re military or civilian, if you’re in lockdown, or if you are just feeling down, the key thing that you want to do is be with somebody that makes you feel better – a friend, a loved one – and that is one of the benefits of the sports community – you’re doing it with your mates. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a garrison or on operations, in the UK or abroad, you can connect with the internet to relax, play games and communicate with people.
“I was online once and looking at conversations with soldiers who were helping the NHS with Covid and had a bit of downtime. They were talking to their mates at home and they were chatting to other gamers who were then asking questions about the Army.
“And I just went, ‘this is perfect, this is absolutely perfect’.”
The Army now has its own Esports League, with different units taking on each other in various games. They can also put their own teams together and join in outside leagues to compete in games like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and League of Legends.
Elliott said that he can only see the Army gaming community growing.
“I found out that one of my Army gamers is rated 73rd in the world for Warzone,” he said. “As soon as we build more of these hubs (in garrisons), those numbers will keep going up. So the community is definitely there.
“Listen, if we’ve got to send soldiers off to learn how to ski, to learn how to play football and rugby, we can find the time to send soldiers off to get Esports qualifications. We are in the middle of looking at qualifications that you can get, both short courses and longer term, like A-levels and degrees in Esports management.”