Remember some years back when the US Army formed an esports team to be more hip with the youths, and then tried its hand at streaming and was promptly bullied off of Twitch—not just once, but twice? You might have expected that to be the end of it, and in some ways it was: The US Army esports team hasn't streamed on Twitch since 2022. But the Battlefield-to-battlefield pipeline is alive and well, and a new initiative in the UK aims to go harder on it than ever.
The International Defense Esports Games, announced today by the UK Ministry of Defense, is an esports tournament that "builds a bridge between defense readiness and the fast-paced world of competitive gaming," the IDEG website says. Not too far removed from, say, putting up recruitment booths at esports majors, except that the goal here, stated far more explicitly than I've seen in the past, is to leverage the games to sign up the kids.
This is emphasized in particular by the IDEG26 launch event, a one-day affair in partnership with arms manufacturer BAE Systems, defense firm Babcock International, the British Forces Broadcasting Service, and British Esports. The event promises "high-level conversations" with military and game industry figures on topics like "esports as a catalyst for recruitment, training, and skills development," including a panel on "how esports is shaping the future of recruitment, skills, and training."
"The IDEG acts as a collaborative arena for allied nations to sharpen the cyber skills that are critical for modern warfare," the MoD said in a press release. "With over 90,000 cyber-attacks targeting the UK annually, the initiative builds digital skills essential for keeping Britain secure at home and abroad."
Those skills, the statement says, include "tracking multiple threats at once, directing soldiers on the ground, performing under intense pressure, and changing tactics based on live intelligence." The announcement also notes the applicability of gaming skills to drone warfare, which has taken on vastly increased importance in recent years due largely to their widespread use in the war sparked by Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
"Lessons from Ukraine have shown how gaming technology can train drone operators and develop the rapid decision-making skills essential for modern warfare," Minister for Veterans and People Louise Sandher-Jones said. "The International Defence Esports Games (IDEG) positions Britain at the forefront of this transformation, ensuring our armed forces are prepared for the conflicts of tomorrow."
All of which is fair as far as it goes, but it also reminds me of the absolute bullshit I told my parents back in the day about how videogames improve hand/eye coordination, presented authoritatively as an unquestioned good for youngsters such as myself—not necessarily dishonest or deceptive (well, maybe a little, at least in my case), but not really relevant to the point, either.
The relevance to me is how open all of this is. When America's Army first launched in 2002 it was an outlier, and superficially at least it presented first and foremost as a jingoistic shooter, not all that different from Call of Duty or Medal of Honor. The US military esports teams are more obviously a how do you do, fellow kids effort, but much like that famous meme they felt too ham-fisted to be effective—as seen by the absolute roasting they took every time they came up for air on Twitch.
The IDEG, on the other hand, isn't just throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks: It's a professional, high-level effort to figure out how to get kids from League of Legends to the army life, backed by reps from Activision, Fnatic, Blast.tv, and others. I'm not naive—it is the destiny of younger generations to be fed into the meat grinder—but even as a cynical old guy who's seen it all, this feels to me like a notable step forward, from passively doing game stuff and hoping people would notice to openly strategizing on how best to actively pursue the young gamer demographic. It's ironic, really: Governments that have historically worried about videogames turning kids into killers are looking to use videogames to—well, you can draw your own conclusions.
If you're interested in checking out the actual IDEG esports tournament, the format and participants haven't been announced yet but the finals are expected to happen in October 2026 at the National Gaming and Esports Arena in Sunderland, which doesn't actually exist yet, and yes, it will be livestreamed.
