Americans are playing the U.S.-Israel-Iran war

The White House’s video game-themed propaganda isn’t a coincidence

The Donald Trump administration is marketing its extremely unpopular war in Iran with video game-themed montages of airstrikes. In one such montage, “declassified” videos of bombs hitting Iranian military infrastructure are rendered in sepia and overlaid with text that reads “Wasted” — the same visual that appears in Rockstar’s “Grand Theft Auto” (GTA) when a player’s character dies. In another, each missile strike is preceded by another popular GTA cutscene featuring a character walking down an alleyway and muttering, “Ah s***, here we go again.”

Veterans and ex-military personnel have condemned these videos; some have called them “obscene.” And it’s true; these videos completely trivialize the vast suffering that the United States is causing in Iran, and the deaths of our own service members. But I think these promotional videos serve another function — they are an invitation for citizens to play this war as if it’s a game.

Video games have always functioned to blur the line between civilian and soldier, as scholars like Roger Stahl have noted. Just one example is the U.S. Navy operating the periscopes of its most advanced nuclear submarines with Xbox controllers. This parallel is deliberate; the military assumes their (typically young and male) recruits have years of video gaming under their belts. Therefore, they will be pretrained to fly drone interceptors and operate truck-mounted lasers.

Michael Macedonia, chief technology officer of the Army's Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation, told the New York Times in 2003 that “‘Ender’s Game’ has had a lot of influence on our thinking,’’ referencing Orson Scott Card’s novel in which teenagers are recruited to play video games, but are unwittingly fighting real battles with aliens. The Marines use a modified version of “Doom,” a popular first-person shooter game, to help train their troops in decision making. The Army even released its own video game, titled “America’s Army,” in 2002. The White House’s video game-themed marketing of the Iran war is the natural conclusion to a 20-year-long convergence of video games and military recruitment.

Since the early 2000s, the U.S. army has viewed video games as a tool to recruit soldiers that are pre-trained and familiar with war conditions — new soldiers likely have an understanding of military gear, command structures and how to fight in different physical environments — all learned from video games. But playing these games has no immediate, material impact on the war we’re currently waging; video games produce simulated participation.

The U.S.-Israel-Iran war represents a shift; the Trump administration’s video game advertising is a visceral representation of this. For the first time in American history, ordinary civilians can “play a war” in real time: not by enlisting, but by betting on kills and tracking troop movements from their laptops.

Through prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, U.S. residents can bet on the Iran war in real time. These are bets on questions like “Trump announces end of military operations against Iran by ...?” and “Kharg Island no longer under Iranian control by...?”

While proponents of prediction markets argue that they provide accurate data on public sentiment, they also enable corruption. For example, an account called “Magamyman” made $553,000 betting on the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, directly before he was killed by an Israeli strike. Similarly, an anonymous trader made $400,000 betting on Venezuela’s Maduro leaving office, hours before the U.S. kidnapped him.

Senator Chris Murphy accused “people around Trump” of profiting from insider information about military operations. The White House denied this, but also has deep ties to both Polymarket and Kalshi. This financial speculation — whether it's done by administration officials or individual citizens — is a form of “playing war” that would have been unacceptable under previous administrations.

Another way for civilians to “play war” is by joining Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) communities. These are anonymous social media accounts (typically run by hobbyists who spend hours poring over satellite photos or public records) dedicated to identifying hidden enemy troops and infrastructure. This information is then shared online to a large audience. The Department of Defense even stated in its OSINT Strategy 2024-2028 document that “OSINT is the premier source of intelligence information for decisionmakers and warfighters.”

When mistakes are made though, it results in tragedy. In April 2025, an anonymous Dutch civilian running an OSINT account on X posted coordinates she believed were the location of an underground Houthi military position in Yemen. Within weeks, U.S. forces bombed those exact coordinates. Local reports confirmed the site was not a military target — civilians were killed. Afterwards, the Pentagon denied using social media posts to select targets. Again, under previous administrations, civilians weren’t part of the kill chain. Now, with just a laptop and a Wi-Fi connection, amateurs can play war.

The Trump administration benefits enormously from this gamification of war. Donald Trump Jr. is an advisor to Kalshi and an investor in Polymarket. Assuming that Murphy is correct that Trump-associated individuals are placing large bets on inside information, your incorrect Polymarket bets are going straight to their wallets. As mentioned previously, the military relies increasingly on OSINT — if they strike the wrong coordinates, these accounts are partially responsible. But aside from all of that, the convergence of war and games trivializes the lives of Iranian civilians and U.S. troops.

Your concerns about innocent lives in the Middle East are detrimental to the Trump administration's agenda. So, be careful in how you use the Internet, soldier. You may be participating in the Iran war, whether you like it or not.

Written by: Miles Barry—mabarry@ucdavis.edu

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