Can playing games also protect the country?

When Ukrainian soldiers showcased on social media the "use of modified game controllers to control drones bombing Russian tanks," they perhaps did not expect that this small Chinese-made plastic device was rewriting the cognitive boundaries of war equipment history — in 2024, China's exports of "game equipment control components" to Russia surged by 437% year-on-year.

In a certain electronic market in Moscow, advertisements proclaiming "Three hours to teach you how to modify game controllers" plaster the windows. The Xbox-like joystick module recovered from recently seized Russian drones by Ukrainian intelligence has caused an uproar. Military expert Li Zhengyang pointed out: "Modern drone control systems and game controllers both use PPM pulse coding technology. Once the protocol is cracked, a $20 joystick made in Yiwu can replace military joysticks worth tens of thousands of dollars."

This covert equipment revolution coincides with Russia facing the most severe technical blockade in history. NATO countries jointly cut off supplies of military-grade components such as FPGA chips and inertial navigation modules, unexpectedly opening up the "capillaries" of consumer electronics. A vendor at a stall in Huaqiangbei, Shenzhen revealed: "Since March, Russian-speaking customers have surged, specifically seeking laser shooting controllers with force feedback. Now, orders take 45 days to fulfill."

Data from Russia's largest e-commerce platform shows that prices of domestic brands like Leida and Beitong game controllers have skyrocketed by 230% in six months, and accompanying bilingual tutorial videos in Chinese and English are being widely shared in Telegram groups. A Ukrainian officer, when interviewed by the BBC, chuckled wryly: "We often say modern warfare is a contest of silicon against steel; now it seems we need to change that to plastic against steel."

On the eastern front in Ukraine, Ivan, a Donetsk militia member who has undergone three weeks of training, is now able to control three reconnaissance drones simultaneously using a modified joystick. This reveals a deeper transformation: the intuitive control brought by the gaming generation is lowering the barriers to entry for warfare. Military commentator Zhang Weiwei warns: "When 'Call of Duty' players can seamlessly switch to armed operators, the democratization of military technology is creating uncontrollable risk exposures."

At this moment, in a high-tech park in Shenzhen, engineers are testing a new generation of motion control sets. Beneath the slogan "Redefining Human-Machine Interaction" on the company’s website, a line of small print lists a surprisingly intriguing clientele — Moscow State Technical University, St. Petersburg Robotics Research Center, Kyiv Institute of Intelligent Equipment Research...