Gamers who enjoy taking on the virtual role of spies and secret agents in computer games, beware - one of the government's leading intelligence agencies has you in its sights.
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GCHQ, the Government Communications Headquarters, will embed job adverts within the online multi-player versions of many adrenaline-fuelled espionage games such as Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent and Rainbow Six Vegas, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and the high-octane racing game Need for Speed: Carbon. The recruitment posters for the intelligence organisation will start to appear later this month on billboards and hoardings throughout the virtual environments of these games. The agency hopes to attract web-savvy applicants for high-tech roles at GCHQ, which works closely with the Foreign Secretary, MI5 and MI6 to provide signals intelligence (digital "eavesdropping"), and to protect government information systems from hackers. "This is all part and parcel of our wider recruitment campaign," said a GCHQ spokesperson. "We employ people with a wide range of skills, and one of the most important areas is the IT and technical side. This advertising campaign will appeal to an audience that has those kind of hobbies and interests." "The world of online gaming offers GCHQ a further route to target a captive audience," said Kate Clemens, head of GCHQ's digital strategy at TMP Worldwide, the intelligence service's rectruitment advertising advisers. "These gamers are loyal and frequent users of PC and console games and are particularly receptive to innovative forms of advertising." It's also an important part of plans to make the work of intelligence agencies less secretive and hidden. GCHQ has been holding open recruitment days for some time, and even MI6 has lifted the lid on its work, advertising for recruits on the side of London buses. "Although press advertising still plays an important role, it's now just one element of an integrated approach to recruitment that forward thinking clients like GCHQ are spearheading," says Laura Robertson, account director at TMP Worldwide. Creative advertising scenarios within games have already been used to promote global brands, including Coca Cola and Nokia. Independent research has shown that in-game advertising can increase brand familiarity by up to 64 per cent. But gamers who love the visceral thrill of embarking on covert operations, sniper missions and daring escapades probably shouldn't get too excited: GCHQ warns that most of the jobs will be largely desk-bound, working on developing GCHQ's internet-based operations at its Gloucestershire offices.
"It's certainly not in the James Bond mould of spy work," said a spokesperson for GCHQ.
Games with adverts
Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent
You play Sam Fisher, American spy turned double-agent, now working in a "splinter cell" of the "black-ops" team at the US National Security Agency.
Need for Speed: Carbon
Thrills, spills and the smell of petrol in this urban street racing game where you drive hard and fast to win respect and power.
Enemy Territory: Quake Wars
First-person shooter set in the same sci-fi universe as the acclaimed Quake II and Quake IV, in which players embark on covert operations to defeat their alien enemy, the Strogg.
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