Gamification: Social Trends, Revolutions in Military Affairs and Drone Warfare. - Unknown Knowns: a study of the Gamification of the Military Edutainment Complex and the Reformation of War Post September 11th 2001.

Both Clausewitz (1780-1831) and Jomini (1779-1869) bore witness to the birth of the modern nation state and grappled with the both the ideological affects and the organisational effects that such a revolution entailed for military institutions and warfare. Moreover, both the philosophical approach of Clausewitz and the doctrinal focus of Jomini stressed the utmost importance of the technics and logics of simulation and play in understanding strategic imperatives and the tactics of modern conflict. These concerns are even more pertinent today with the burgeoning utilisation of drone - and Gamified warfare.
Since the first video games were developed, products of the fledgling Military Industrial Complex [MIC] of the 1960s, they have shown a nebulous relationship with both the capacity to defend the nation state and to prosecute the act of warfare itself. In postmodern conflicts game logics and technology have been utilised to plan for, simulate, and prosecute 'Nintendo Warfare,' and justify 'Virtuous War.' (Der Derian 2009). Thus, Gamification has appeared to be a panacea to the conundrums of warfare since September 11th 2001. (Singer 2009) From the strategy of 'Shock and Awe', counter insurgency operations and drone warfare, through commercial of-the-shelf military games, game logics and technologies are employed as simulators and the actuators of kinetic delivery. However, the success of Gamified war belies the fact that since 1992, 99.15% of recorded wartime casualties have been civilians (PeaceAware.com 2013).
This study investigates the impact of Gamification on drone warfare, as witnessed in the societal revolution of on-line gaming; utilising a virtual world ethnographic research methodology to examine Gamification's ideological affects, and the games industries relationship to the MIC in 'post-ideological' western societies. Thus, by offering a re-reading of Clausewitz through the lens of Gamification, recent societal changes can be seen as a paradigmatic shift in the form of warfare. This paper concludes that the Gamification of warfare, and ethical concerns regarding drone operations, offers insight into the logics of modern conflict - allowing for a re-situating of the societal function of the MIC, thus questioning the very beliefs and practices that underpin western society that we pretend do not exist, but form the foundations or our values and actions.