Britain recruiting spies with ads embedded in video games

Prefer the artful headshot of the sniper rifle to the scorched-earth carnage of the gatlin gun? Good, Britain's GCHQ needs your help. The intelligence service focused on securing communications and information systems is set to embed adverts in games like "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent" starting this month. A GCHQ spokesperson told The Times that the move was a bid to attract "computer-savvy, technologically-able, quick-thinking" recruits. The advertisements will not be written into the games themselves but will be fed via the Internet to PCs or Xbox 360 consoles. As the expression goes, "Never trust a gamer under 30."

[webon @ Oct 19th 2007 4:30AM]

Double 0 license to kill here i come!!! yeah baby yeah!

[E71 @ Oct 19th 2007 8:13AM]

Hmm. The limeys are looking towards pasty nerdy folk for recruits? Shows how much they must suck! Haha.

[Mark @ Oct 19th 2007 4:54AM]

GCHQ actually has nothing to do with spys, it stands for Government Communications Headquarters, they deal with hacking attempts etc.

[Tired_ @ Oct 19th 2007 5:36AM]

I'm sure that's what They want you to believe...

[r04 @ Oct 19th 2007 5:41AM]

They also break encrypted comms and devise new cyphers.

[shaun @ Oct 19th 2007 5:59AM]

Yer they intercept and listen into communications etc, they recruited a lot of people from a place where my dad studied (Bletchly Park)

[tigoda @ Oct 19th 2007 5:04AM]

way to piss on our bonfires

[Maff @ Oct 19th 2007 6:04AM]

We don't use letters/words in our phone numbers like they do in the US so it isn't real

[mattclarkie @ Oct 19th 2007 6:33AM]

0800-REVERSE. So not strictly true, and it states in the post that they haven't implemented the ads yet, so yes it is a mock-up.

[mfed3 @ Oct 19th 2007 6:05AM]

a lot of people were up in arms when this was starting to be dicussed, but i dont mind the ads in game. if anyone noticed, there are internet generated ads in the 360 version of splinter cell:da in multiplayer maps. theyre placed logically on billboards and in little subliminal places like posters inside rooms and such. i didnt realize until i saw an intel core 2 duo ad one time in the map and the other it was replaced by something else. cool stuff as long as theyre giving back to the gamers by either A) lowering retail prices, or B) having servers for matchmaking or dedicated hosted games.

[Balam Herrera @ Oct 19th 2007 11:37AM]

Why is there a mexican police man in the picture?

[Nick @ Oct 19th 2007 11:10AM]

Jack Thompson would not be pleased.

[noza @ Oct 19th 2007 1:12PM]

GCHQ is the UK equivalent of NSA in the US. So yes, they are spies. Not the James Bond MI5 shoot-em-up secret agents, but an intelligence service nonetheless.

[David Alfaro @ Oct 21st 2007 11:55PM]

What an ass goverment... they are killing a Mexican. I live in mexico and im sure we wouldnt spy on them, we got our own issues to spy on.

[G Money @ Oct 22nd 2007 2:50PM]

Like The Last Starfighter?