| Italic Title: | From Sun Tzu to Xbox |
| From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games | |
| Author: | Ed Halter |
| Language: | English |
| Publisher: | PublicAffairs |
| Pub Date: | 31 May 2006 |
| Isbn: | 978-1560256816 |
From Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games is a book of video game history written by the journalist and film critic Ed Halter, published in 2006.
The book describes the evolution of video games from military-related technologies and contemporary video game related projects by the American military such as America's Army and Full Spectrum Warrior. The book also relates pre-video game relationship between war and games, such as the evolution of chess into kriegspiel.
David Fear of the magazine Time Out found that Ed Halter provided a thorough analysis of the topic, but also attached some personal point of views to the story, which sometimes makes it off-topic.[1]
The technologies that shape our culture have always been pushed forward by war.[2]
Video games were not created directly for military purposes, [they] arose out of an intellectual environment whose existence was entirely predicated on defense research.[2]
A more realistic form of America's Army, for example, would be one in which your soldier might lose a limb or get brain-damaged in combat, then come home to a Sims-style scenario in which you have to manage the rest of your life that way. Or maybe a game where you don't get into combat at all–you just camp out in the desert, running exercises.[3]