U.S. Government Reportedly Investing Millions Of Dollars In Ukraine Video Game Industry As Part Of Effort To “Counter Russian Disinformation And Propaganda”
According to a new report, the U.S. government has been investing millions of dollars into the Ukranian video game industry in an effort to help teach the local population how to both identify and combat “Russian disinformation and propaganda”.
This insight into the Biden Administration’s spending habits was first brought to light on May 30th courtesy of video game news outlet Aftermath co-owner Nathan Grayson.
Per an investigation conducted by Grayson based on a tip from a reader and published to his site, on April 9th, the US State department began accepting applications for two never-before-offered ‘video game disinformation’ related grants.
Worth a total of $1 Million USD in funding, the “Designing for Democratic Resilience and Renewal” grant required that its recipient not only “develop an evergreen game in a sandbox platform, with an existing fan base, in which participants play a game that builds cognitive resilience to authoritarianism and promotes democratic norms and values,” but also ensure that said game “will increase player skepticism of foreign propaganda and disinformation by increasing player media literacy and digital safety.”
At the same time, a lesser, $250,000 grant was set aside in service of “establishing Ukranian eSports Counter Disinformation Teams and Tounament”.
“Leveraging the popularity and penetration of video games in Eastern Europe, the implementer will develop an eSports program at American Spaces in Ukraine,” explained the State Department of the grant’s purpose. “eSports athletes will need professional training to form a talent pipeline to professional teams in Ukraine. In tandem with traditional eSports training, these athletes will receive counter disinformation/conflict resolution training to confront foreign propaganda and disinformation in competitive online gaming spaces. The project will culminate with an eSports tournament and coalition-building event on the sidelines of the tournament.”
A little over two weeks after these grants began accepting applications, the State Department would launch a third such funding initiative, this one offering $800,000 to assist in the creation of a “United with Ukraine Game Jam”.
“Drawing on the science of prebunking and the popularity and penetration of video games, the implementer will organize a game jam,” said the government. “Games developed during the United with Ukraine Game Jam will increase player skepticism of foreign propaganda and disinformation.”
Pressed for comment on their investments by Grayson, a State Department official asserted, “Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, so much of the country has been mined and menaced that it is not always safe for children to play outside. “For the time being, the future of play in Ukraine will largely be indoors. One popular avenue for safe, indoor play is video games. The ability to communicate in games and game-adjacent spaces is an important vector for engaging with hard-to-reach audiences targeted by disinformation narratives, especially Russian youth, to advance our efforts to counter Russian disinformation and propaganda.”
“Russia clearly already understands the power of gaming, as they have deployed their propaganda and disinformation apparatus to spread pro-Kremlin and anti-Ukraine narratives on games,” they added. “These funding opportunities offer a way to empower Ukrainian storytellers, developers, and gamers to recognize propaganda and disinformation that is commonly spread through games and harness their design skills and playing abilities to effectively push back against it.”
To this end, the official then confirmed that while these trio of grants were not the first video game-related funding opportunities to be offered by the U.S. government, they did represent the state’s “largest investment to-date in gaming and digital media literacy”
Notably, while the application period for the first two grants closed on May 22nd, the Ukranian Game Jam grant is still accepting proposal submissions up until June 12th.
To this end, as of writing, the recipients of the first set of April 9th grants have yet to be publicly announced.
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