Blackwater founder Erik Prince enters video game business

 More and more, today's video game business is driven by huge military shooters like Activision's "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3" and Electronic Arts' "Battlefield 3."

Now, Erik Prince, the founder of a controversial, real-world military group, is stepping into the virtual war zone with a new first-person shooter, "Blackwater."

Designed exclusively for Microsoft's Kinect for Xbox 360, "Blackwater" was developed by Zombie Studios and overseen by Prince, a former Navy SEAL.

The shooter is set in a fictional North African town overrun by warlords and opposing militia forces. Players enter the fray as team members of Blackwater, the mercenaries-for-hire company that Prince founded in 1997.

Featuring licensed real-world weapons, the game can be played with a traditional controller. But it has been crafted to take advantage of Kinect's motion controls. Gamers will be able to aim, crouch, and interact with the on-screen action using only body gestures and moves to take out enemies through a series of action-packed missions.

The game has already courted controversy, since Blackwater employees were linked to the deaths of numerous noncombatants and civilians in the Middle East while employed by the U.S. government.

Critics have complained about the game because Blackwater employees take on missions for money, while U.S. soldiers, the focal point of games like "Modern Warfare 3" and "Battlefield 3," fight for their country.

Following inquiries by Congress into Blackwater actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, including a shootout that led to the deaths of 17 Iraqis, Prince changed the company's name to Xe and, in 2009, resigned as CEO. He sold the company last year.

Although the game was created with the aid of former Blackwater employees, the gameplay does not put players in situations where civilians or noncombatants are targets.

The same cannot be said about "Modern Warfare 2," which earned more than $1 billion for Activision a couple of years ago. That fictional game featured an intense airport sequence in which players were forced to target innocent civilians as an undercover terrorist or risk having their cover blown and being executed.

Prince talked to CNN in an exclusive interview about the first shooter designed for Kinect, why he decided to enter the games business and what gadget he can't live without.