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America's Army - FPS Psych Experiment

Posted by Zonk on Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:44 PM
from the it-always-feels-like-somebody's-watching-me dept.
First Person Shooters (Games)
dory writes "Newsreview has up a story from October on America's Army and the way the military is using it. The piece discusses a clan, the Army's research mentality and implementations, as well as some MRI studies on gamers." From the article: "The Army has been collecting player information in a vast relational database system called "Andromeda," Wardynski said, which recruiters will be able to use to look up a player's statistics if one of them shows up in a recruiting office. A version of America's Army now in development will take that a step further, allowing players to create a "persistent" online alter-ego, one that steadily progresses through the virtual ranks by taking additional training or specialized missions, generating valuable data along the way."

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[+] Science: Information Requested for NASA-Based MMORPG
Teancum writes "By now, most people are aware of the U.S. Army's video game, America's Army. It turns out that NASA has submitted a Request for Information for what would be a NASA-themed MMORPG of its own. The deadline for the proposals is February 15th. NASA's plans focus on education. 'A NASA-based MMO built on a game engine that includes powerful physics capabilities could support accurate in-game experimentation and research. It should simulate real NASA engineering and science missions in a medium that is comfortable and familiar to the majority of students in the United States today.' This certainly doesn't deserve to get thrown onto the traditional dust heap of educational proposals for a half-baked game that nobody will actually play."
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  • Advice to 17 and 18 year olds (Score:5, Funny)

    by g-san (93038) on Monday December 13 2004, @12:49PM (#11073597)
    Quick, go download this game, play with your real name, and get your ass fragged at least 20 times a day.

    • so... do teamkillers get labled as suspected terrorists?

      i've passed on this for other fps's.. can you do anything approaching rocket-jumping? spawn-camping? telefragging?

      has anyone ever considered that this might be an OUTLET for violent behavior.. that
    • I don't know, I made a pretty picture out of the bubbled on the voluntary military apptitude test our highschool forced us to take (yes, they forced all seniors through threat of detention, on the second half of a half day to attend this test).

      Well I stil
    • Sargeant (looking around): OK, our last armored truck got creamed by an IED. I need somebody to drive these supplies up to the front in this 72 Buick Regal with "US Army Official Use Only" on it. Any volunteers?

      *** silence ***

      Sargeant (consluting top
      • I get fragged probably 5 times for every kill I get in most FPS games (Haven't played AA in over a year, though). Why should it get red flagged for bucking the system? Maybe they just plain suck at the game?

  • My friend Ender... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Pacifix (465793) <jghoman@noSPAm.gmail.com> on Monday December 13 2004, @12:50PM (#11073607)
    ... said this game totally rocks. It's great to be on all of these practice runs... what, they aren't practice??? - J. Bean

    • More like the other game in the book (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Chemisor (97276) on Monday December 13 2004, @02:23PM (#11074609) Journal
      Battle School made use of a "mind game", an adventure game designed to analyze the mind of its players. You remember it for the "Giant's Drink", which put the player in an unresolvable situation to force adoption of unconventional strategies. It is a much more appropriate analogy in this case, which uses a an FPS game for a similar purpose, except that the skills developed are pertinent to the front-line grunts rather than their commanders. "Less brains, more action" is the future slogan of the American Army.
      [ Parent ]
  • One more step to making all war completely virtual!

  • Wartime Culture (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Jason Ford (635431) on Monday December 13 2004, @01:02PM (#11073734)
    From the article:

    'In the wake of 9/11, the public and media reaction was, in the Army's words, "overwhelmingly positive." Salon's Wagner James Au, for example, gushed that the game would help "create the wartime culture that is so desperately needed now" and excitedly anticipated the day when youngsters raised on America's Army would pick up real weapons to cleanse the globe of real terrorists' (emphasis mine.)

    I was just pondering the other day what it is our country needs. Education, I thought. Health care, I mused.

    Man, was I off! Now I realize that the thing our country needs most is a wartime culture.
    • I'd take a wartime culture over an ignorant culture anyday. If we're gonna get killed or go around killing people, we might as well know why rather than sit around on our asses wondering why some guy in a hole has been hating us for the past few :

      years (s

      • There's a huge difference between disagreement/displeasure and enough anger to go to war.
        Africa - Displeasure about the US not doing enough to fight disease/hunger/internal wars
        Middle East - Righteous anger about the US alignment with Israel and US for

      • Re:Wartime Culture (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Jason Ford (635431)
        Wartime Culture is another way of saying "Clueless sheep who believe that a video game is like real war"

        I've never played the game, so I don't know how realistic the game seems. I would think, though, that the game must involve the possibility for your
          • Actually, chances are good that if you get into the army, you'll get a hot chick

            Hello there, Mr. Rumsfeld. Welcome to the Internets.

            When they add the 'Dear John letter' to the game, you'll have the ability to lose your wife to your best friend who sta

          • Re:Wartime Culture (Score:5, Insightful)

            by Jason Ford (635431) on Monday December 13 2004, @02:20PM (#11074579)
            So you believe that the appropriate method of securing these things is by government intervention?

            No, I don't believe that, although I do see how easy it would be to draw that generalization from my post. My point was that a single-payer system tends to reduce costs.

            Work hard. Help yourself. I have done it, people I know have done it. I am no better than anyone else, therefore if I could do it, anyone can. There are no excuses.

            I work hard and help myself as well. My parents were not rich, but they had enough money to buy me a used car when I was still in high school. The car more than paid for itself in the money I was able to make working after school hours. I got scholarships, and a subsidized loan from the government. I quintupled my earnings, and paid back the loan with interest.

            Now, what if I couldn't get a loan from the government? I had very little money. My parents, through no fault of mine, had declared bankruptcy three times, because they are irresponsible. No one in his right mind would loan them any money, or would allow them to co-sign a loan for me.

            Now, what if my parents couldn't afford to buy me a car, or clothing, or food? What if I had to drop out of school so that I could work in order to help my family buy food or rent an apartment?

            Or, what about the man I met the other day? He stopped me and asked if he might shine my shoes. I explained that my shoes did not need shining and tried to walk away. He asked again, and before I could say no again, he explained his situation: he was a recent parolee who regretted the mistakes he made in his life and was trying to raise his sister since his mother's recent death. He can't get a job because no one will hire him because he committed a crime. Shining strangers' shoes will only get him so far. How should he help himself?

            You may not be better than anyone else, but you were likely better off than a great many people. Did you have at least one parent or relative to care for you? Did you have anyone that cared about you at all? Were you born physically or mentally challenged? Maybe you are a little bit luckier than you thought.
            [ Parent ]

  • This was the plot of... (Score:5, Funny)

    by -dsr- (6188) on Monday December 13 2004, @01:12PM (#11073841) Homepage Journal
    The Last Starfighter, right? Video games scattered across the nation as secret military training, and the high-scorers being recruited.

    Does the DoD now get *all* of their ideas from Hollywood?
  • "5t0p 5n1p1ng j00 f4g T4lib4N c4mP3r 4nd f1ght l1k3 4 m4n!"

  • How does this translate to the real battlefield? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Caesar_X (575997) on Monday December 13 2004, @01:28PM (#11073996)
    I know several people who worked on America's Army, and I found the article very thought-provoking. But when I see the overweight, Frito-eating guys at the local online-game center playing AA or HL2, I don't see how the Army is going to make these...men...into soldiers. There is a big difference between pressing a mouse button to kill a virtual terrorist and humping an 80-pound pack for two weeks only to get a fleeting shot at the enemy now and then. Let's be honest here, most of the soldiers of tomorrow are playing on the football fields when they are 14 and 15.
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