How accurate is accurate and how far people are willing to go for accuracy? This is the main question of the phenomenon that I will discuss. Let me first introduce the video game that I will talk about.
War Thunder
War of Thunder is an online multiplayer vehicle-based combat game. It features all kinds of vehicles from the 20th century to current times. Apart from being free, the most appealing feature of this game is as described on its website:
The appearance and characteristics of the vehicles in War Thunder are historically accurate, and their damage models are physically based.
warthunder.com
The combination of being accessible without a paywall and claiming accuracy is attracting a whole range of players. From people wanting to play free multiplayer games to combat vehicle-obsessed people who are complaining about the physics engines of other games. This wide range of players also includes military personnel. People with real-world knowledge about these vehicles (still used and also featured in the game) are usually really active on game forum websites, Reddit, or Discord channels. When the discussions get heated that is when people go the extra step to prove that they are right. Even if this extra step is leaking classified documents on combat vehicles online and committing federal crimes, to win an argument.
Document Leaks
Currently, Wikipedia lists 11 incidents of document leaks, all of them in the last two years. The first reported case of document leak was from the UK. According to the user that leaked the classified documents, the motivation behind the treason was to prove that the game developers of War Thunder did not accurately model the Challenger 2 tank
Other leaks are no different. The arguments around the capabilities of these vehicles arise whether it is on the turret rotation speed of a tank or engine specifications, firing angles, or sensor locations of a fighter jet. Some of them are just one page of a document, but others are more than 500 pages long manuals.
Moderators of War Thunder forums try to stop the spread of these classified documents. As stated by the founder of Gaijin Entertainment (the developer of War Thunder), it is forbidden to share posts containing classified or restricted information, and such posts are removed immediately. But it does not stop the leaks from happening even though it has legal consequences that can lead to imprisonment due to treason and since most of the documents are on vehicles currently in service, it puts the lives of those who rely on these vehicles in danger.
Even though the data on these vehicles from the leaked documents could be obtained and used, Gaijin Entertainment made it clear through several press releases that they do not make use of any data that is classified or restricted. The game development team only uses data from publicly available documents.
The prosecutions, press releases, and the fact that those documents would not be used in the game fail to stop people from sharing information.
Our players are very passionate about War Thunder and military vehicles, and sometimes they’re too passionate.
Anton Yudintsev, founder of Gaijin Entertainment
It is hard to understand how a person can go from an argument to treason. It should be a clear line stated by the stamps on the documents. It is incredible to see the lengths people will go through to prove someone wrong.
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