Mod of the Year awards and the US Airforce

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 6th 2009

Suddenly the US Airforce is sponsor of the MOTY 2008. It even looks like it is the main sponsor now being presented and praised on all the official award pages with big shiny logos and long promotional introductions.
The MOTY 2008 is not just sponsored by the US Airforce now... no it is "presented by the US Airforce". The headlines of the news and all other articles have new colors now (based on the colors used on the US Airforce logo) and somehow the other sponsors became less important.

Ok sticking with the sponsors:
All other sponsors do really sponsor prices... servers, money, software,...
But what does the AIR force sponsor? I cant see anything. Maybe sidearms? Maybe tactical missiles.

Well eventhough others already mentioned that they have a problem with that matter I, yes of course I, had to write my own views.

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With the involvement of military the MOTY degenerates more and more to a showcase for military games. While other innovative games and mods don't even get a real chance anymore. Take a look at the top100 and you will see that about 95% of the mods are based ego shooters while the other remaining mods are based on real time strategy or other combat similations. Other genres don't really have a chance to get nominated anymore. That the military steps into the gaming branch is just the next logical step to make an "easy catch" and do something for the own reputation.

I clearly have to say that in my oppinion the games are for the players and the military should stay out of our business.

Not to mention that its a big mistake to let a national organisation present an INTERNATIONAL event. The mod of the year awards originally is presented by the modders which did all the work.

the response to my post was this:

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I am glad to see the US military support modding events. If it weren't for the military, you guys would be using 64k machines that push 4 coloured blobs around the screen. It is the military that pushes the technology we have all grown so accustomed to and now, some, complain that they are supporting the very industry that spawned from the billions, nay, trillions of dollars invested in the armed forces. Without this injection of both funds and very talented, dedicated people, computers would still be the size of your egos, and, we would all be speaking German or Japanese.

Words are easy, but bloody deeds are done by brave.

Freedom is only free to those who close their eyes and ears and dream of a day perfect world. YOUR freedom, cost others their lives. So swallow that sarcastic comeback you call a sense of humour and speak a few words like, "Thank You" to all the armed forces for allowing me the freedom to be able to speak.

That said, congrats to ModDB for gaining the support of the US Air Force and last year, the Navy.

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And of course i cant just accept it:

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Not the military is developing our technology and not the military is responsible for freedom of any kind. The actions of the US military of the past years including the thousands of civilian victims and the reactions from the people all around the globe has showed what the world does think about the US policy and it's military.

Playing world police without even having the right to do that, violating international laws and breaking human rights - that are the real achievements of the US military.
The players out there don't care about national borders, religions or military forces representing those factions. So I ask "what is the military doing here?", "what do they defend here?".

And why in gods name is their logo on every single page here? Why are the other sponsors suddenly less important than the US Airforce? Why has moddb even changed their colors to make them fit to the US Airforce logo? Why is the US Airforce "presenting" the Mod awards while in fact the other sponsons have donated the price while I can not see anything from the US Airforce.

So I ask again: "What are they doing here other than holding high their banner in a self promotional way?"

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Drakon · Feb 6th 2009

Maybe the USAF takes an interest because it sees recruitment possibilities. That is, modders are perhaps some of the same kinds of people they want working on military software. There is no conscription or involuntary service in the US, so the branches compensate by being very aggressive in their PR and recruiting campaigns. With the economy how it is, goals for enlistment are surpassed now... but maybe those people do not have all of the desired skills. Not sure why they're not easing back at least a little. Many, many others have contributed towards this though so I do not understand why only one entity is receiving such enthused recognision. Since the circumstances leading up to this are not things I know, I'll try not to pass judgement either way though. :\

Jack Bauer · Feb 6th 2009

Well the way Dragon said it, it sounds like USA is getting ready for a war *again*. Recruitment recruitment recruitment. The military of every country is put on this highass piedestal while they actually kill cause people tell them to; I think that's one of the definitions of cutthroats... or whatever. They should get out of the gaming industry, they're not wanted/needed here!

Spiky- · Feb 6th 2009

lol I must be dreaming, interesting where Armies try to recruit people nowadays

Drakon · Feb 6th 2009

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Originally posted by Jack Bauer
Well the way Dragon said it, it sounds like USA is getting ready for a war *again*. Recruitment recruitment recruitment.

Many people in the United States feel insecure, and often see any cuts in defense spending as traitorous and unpatriotic. Public perception is that we are always acting in self defense, while the reality is that my country is usually on the offensive like other empires have acted historically. Meanwhile, the country has a lot of serious problems internally. Many citizens want more of everything but also lower taxes. It's not that the people are bad or war-loving, see, it's just that they are often ignorant.

There's nothing wrong with the Air Force sponsoring something. I see recruitment ads in MMORPGs sometimes, too. They probably didn't take into consideration that it could be seen as innapropriate in an international setting. Corporations can experience similar problems with their advertising. I don't expect people to be happy about it, but this was the choice of a few people... not the United States or its military as a whole. Personally I don't like it, but MOTY is still MOTY. An event and its sponsor are not the same thing.

Hexebelle · Feb 7th 2009

I can see another reason for the USAF sponsorship of gaming and mods.. yes, they will use it as a recruiting tool.. but after the immense success of the Americas Army game (which I also play), I can see how the Air Force would want to tap into the gaming world.

Americas Army is a worldwide gaming community, and its not inconceivable that the Air Force is planning something similar. It only makes sense for them to get their fingers in the pie, so to speak.

I havent been to the MOTY site since voting for Crossfire, and it is MOTYs decision as to what they put on their site and who they accept as sponsors.

I hope this will not affect other gaming genres. It was my understanding that the voters decided who was in the top 100 and who won the competition. If that is still true, then I dont see how sponsorship matters all that much..

The fact that all those FPS games are in the top 100 just reflects what most of the voters are playing right now... and just because the USAF is sponsoring or presenting the MOTY awards, doesnt mean they have voting power in the awards process..

Im willing to give the benefit of the doubt here.. after all, MOTY existed before this sponsorship, and unless their rules have changed, a sponsor doesnt have any say in who wins or loses this competition..

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 7th 2009

This portal has been created based on very clear principles. Not to support military or political questions here does belong to those priciples.
We are gamers... carelessly of our nation, skin or religion. Only that matters here. Supporting an event that gets sponsored by the US military is a matter I can not agree with (based on all the wrongs they have done - and there it does not matter if they did it by order or not).

I dont want to see a CF mod presentation which starts with "presented by the US Airforce".

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 7th 2009

the discusion between me and the moddb administration

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SWAT_OP-R8R 1hour 48mins ago says:

To involve the military as sponsor for a game event was one of the worst choices that could have been done. The awards should have been about the mods and the games and not about military. And lets be honest... even the US military wouldnt give out money for gaming projects during an economical crisis without thinking to gain a benefit from it.Based on the extreme high amounts of ego shooters/tactical shooters the involvement of the military must look like a boost to that genre while other genre mods meanwhile refuse to get registered here (or where are the hundreds of good RPG mods that you can find on the net?). Yes I believe that next year you should call the events "the US military egoshooter modding awards".My mod has reached the top 100 2 times in a row now... a matter which speaks for the work i do with a 6 year old game engine messing with all those ego shooters out there. My team has introduced many other mods and games meanwhile. I have to admit that last year I did not see the involvement of the US military since I didnt take care that much about the sponsors and the news that were posted. To a big part it also was this way coz the NAVY was not advertised in such a "provocational" way like the USAF.And next year you better be a bit more honest about your sponsors and dont introduce such surprise sponsors when the voting already is done and the modding teams have no chance to prevent that their mods are getting presented alltogether with a logo of the US army infront of the mod. This treatment is unfair to the players and to the modding teams which come from countries all around the globe. Modding teams which have different ideologies which often are contrary to the US ones.Your "new" sponsor has turned a modding scene into a playground for politcal controversities. If that is worth it....
URL anchor

INtense! 35mins 49secs ago says:

I can assure you that was most definately not our intention. We are absolutely 100% about the mods and indie games, that is what we do and what care about. If we didn't we would plaster mod profiles with ads, popups etc like many other sites - instead we just show one ad to cover costs (and this will never change!). Running a site like moddb which requires 2 editors, 1 server admin, 1 programmer and about 8 http servers pushing thousands of gigs of bandwidth isn't cheap. We invest over 3 months of effort in makingn the MOTY awards all we can for you guys, to make sure we get you the promotion you do and prizes and other accolades because we love doing it. But without the support of a big sponsor like the USAF we honestly wouldn't be able to do all we do.

The FPS mods made it irrespective of their involvement, and believe me I will ensure the awards do not become a political debate. We love it that mods like yours make it and we are doing all we can to get RPG's, MMO's and other game types on the site. I hope you can apprecaite these reasons. Our intentions are pure and we need mods like you and all sponsors to continue to make events like the MOTY possible.

cheers,
scott
URL anchor

SWAT_OP-R8R 2secs ago says:

I am fully aware of the costs that you have to cover since Im not only a modder but also the head admin of 2 international gaming communities which also need 4 servers meanwhile due to the massive traffic. Like you I also have to cover the massive costs somehow. Still yet the question remains if it is moraly correct to involve national politics into an international modding scene. Many people which visit moddb have serious problems with the US military. Reasons for this might be different, maybe due to morale view, maybe because of what the US military has done to their own countries.

If its all about money would you accept organizations that have broken civil rights to sponsor moddb (and seriously the US military broke civil rights)? There even was a guy on the news page who asked if the next years sponsor will be Osama bin Laden (if its all about money then nothing speaks against it). Or you could ask Iran or Lybia, maybe even Pakistan to jump in for sponsoring. I would be interested in how the world would react on it.

Shouldn't be games and mods be presented by gaming companies and not by war driving national organisations? Shouldn't the modders and players all around the world get the same feeling of being accepted here carelessly of their nation and political views?

I run communities where members are just ordinary gamers and not members or supporters of national organisations because they have accepted to leave their real lives out of the community.
Being part of the MOTY which suddenly gets sponsored by a national organisation (or in other words "represented by the US Airforce") I risk to loose that neutrality. I simply don't want that my work, or I better should say that any of the work that is done by my modding team (and there are quiete a few mods and games in development), being "respresnted by the US Airforce".
It is a big "no-go" to have that Airforce logo being placed somewhere infront of our mods.

I don't know if you can imagine from what a perspective other communities like mine have to see the MOTY. But those perspectives do exist and in the end we modders are bound to our principles.

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Daywalker · Feb 7th 2009

any replies from other modders or communities to the topic?

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 7th 2009

yeah - half of the modders agree that its a crap sponsor... the other part disagrees (mainly US militaries from what they have claimed)

Daywalker · Feb 7th 2009

From my point of view it´s on the Moty now - they will lose what they built up that hard where i share your thinking in this. National interests and Goverments in international INet Communities are crap.

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 7th 2009

im discussing this issue with the moddb staff now
and no other solution can be found i will pull CF out of the MOTY

CFPD Slayer · Feb 7th 2009

I can see where your going with this and to a point i agree selecting any military for sponsorship is poor choice... but i would also like to point out that there are many corperate companies across the world that have done far worse to other countries than any military has (Microsoft for instance lol that was a joke... or was it?!!!) ..... so where does this end... do you say no to any sponsership? just incase someone somewhere in the world objects or takes offence!!! Just thought i would chuck my thoughts into the pile sorry if i upset anyone.

Hexebelle · Feb 8th 2009

Slayer you do have a point.. and a good one.. but Microsoft is softcore compared to the history of IBM, in my opinion.

No offense people..

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 8th 2009

its not about what computer companies have done and its also not every single incident that the military has done
its about the try of the military to gain influence in the gaming world

when SWAT was created the founders agreed that no national politics will be in any way connected with the portal... the moty would break our rules and principles

Gast · Feb 8th 2009

hm... has there been something they did evil to the game / mod developers yet? I am quite sure as long as they are the sponsors its quite OK. I doubt that they will interfere in any game politics nor i doubt that they will interfere in this portal. Dunno if their primacy has any importance over here in europe

was there any incident with the US Airforce related to the games presented at moddb yet? As long there was no incident - i think we should relax a bit more

**SWAT_OP-R8R** · Feb 8th 2009

i might repeat it again
I dont want to see a US AIRFORCE logo infront of my mod... and i dont want SWAT being in any way aligned with a national military organisation

at the day this will happen... i will close the portal and sell the domain as i would have broken my principles

Gast · Feb 8th 2009

As far as i know you could deny them any use of your logo with theirs, or? Finally if you really wont have any relation to the US Airforce (thats alone your decision) than why not remove the links and page from moddb - i dont see the need to close the portal and sell the domain. there are previous steps we or you can consider first

magnet · Feb 8th 2009

btw, are you sure that there isn't an op-out option for having USAF logo stamped on your mod?

CFPD Slayer · Feb 8th 2009

I appreciate and respect your feelings on this matter OP im a strong believer in principles myself .... but like Huor says just instruct them that the SWAT logo and USAF logo is not to appear together that is your right ....

These awards are there for recognition of great modders you are one of those and your work should be recognised and appreciated by keeping SWAT in the competition ... in my eyes this doesn't go against your beliefs its not like you are opening your doors for them to step into SWAT in anyway and im pretty sure no one else would think bad of you either.

And by the way the post i made before using microsoft as an example was just my humour ... but there is companies out there that have done far more damaging things and that is what my point was.

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Mod of the Year awards and the US Airforce

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