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First Person Shooters (Games) PC Games (Games) Entertainment Games

America's Army Recruiting Success Discussed 57

Posted by simoniker from the press-ganged-by-armycon dept.
Thanks to Nola.com for their article discussing the success of the America's Army game/recruiting tool, as the free PC first-person shooter "...now has more than 2 million registered users, making it one of the five most popular action games played online." Most interestingly, since "...the ultimate aim of the game is to arouse tech-savvy teenagers' interest in serving in the Army", can the success of the game be measured? The article gives an example of the Kansas City Recruiting Battalion, who are hosting monthly LAN sessions at a technical college, and "...can claim seven new recruits among the players, and expect to sign at least as many more in the coming month."
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America's Army Recruiting Success Discussed More

America's Army Recruiting Success Discussed

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  • At least, not for me. Maybe because I'm not from the US?

    • Re:It's not free (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You can download it for free from the internet no matter what country you are in.

      http://www.americasarmy.com/operations/downloads2. php [americasarmy.com]
      • Actually, if you're from another country, it truly is free (minus bandwidth, and I mean as in beer), as the development was paid for by American taxpayer money. Enjoy!

        (oh yeah, and I don't really think it's a big deal that my taxes paid for this... because I'm sure there have been far bigger, much less useful wastes of taxpayer money than this)

  • anybody who joins because of a pc game.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gl4ss ( 559668 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:48AM (#6898293) Homepage Journal
    is a freaking idiot.

    is there a way to 'sample' the army experience in usa, in real life? i mean, the game has just about zero to do with what real military work would end up being, especially zero to do what it would end up to be for support personnel they need those geeks in(not to mention that geeks wouldn't in their right mind to join to do something like aa is in real life on the level it's needed in a real army. lemme tell you, real combat training sucks from a geek perspective ;) ).

    in countries with mandatory army service the people who will turn it into career pretty well know what shit they're putting themselfs into, be them geeks and non-geeks. i would expect a quite high dropout rate for people joining at a flashy recruit station because they enjoyed a cool pc game(how easy is it to drop out of army in usa? any real penalties?).

    • freaking idiot

      Agreed. The on-line experience lacks....oh, what are those things soldiers see...boot camp, discipline, bullets, politics...

      If the US military needs to make warfighting into a game to attract recruits, then it seems our country is actually less unified and nationalistic than our 9/11 buffs and journalists would lead us to believe.

      I thought joining the military had something to do with pride, defending the Constitution, etc., but I guess I was wrong...it all just a game. Silly me.
      • If the US military needs to make warfighting into a game to attract recruits, then it seems our country is actually less unified and nationalistic than our 9/11 buffs and journalists would lead us to believe.

        Sorry to reply to myself, but I also realized that, perhaps, the government is driving away potential recruits. For example, the People are pretty divided on support for the "war on terrorism", where many people would have trouble motivating themselves for future military actions. That's already a l
      • I'm don't think that very many people join the military just because of a gaming experience. I believe the game to be directed toward young men who are already inclined toward service in the military, and is used by the Army to be a "deal maker," or "to close the deal."

        FWIW
    • how easy is it to drop out of army in usa? any real penalties?

      I know of at least one person that got out of the US Marines in boot camp (after a few weeks), but I believe they gave him some sort of honorable discharge with the addition that he was mentally unfit for duty (Section 8, maybe?). AFAIK, once you get past boot camp you must serve until your "contract" is up. The only way out is a discharge, and there are few ways to get an honorable discharge. I mean, Corporal Klinger tried dressing as a woman
      • I know of two people that got an early discharge from the army...one got a dishonorable discharge (insanity, drank bleach, idiot) and the other I know got a full honorable discharge because the 1-ton truck he was driving in a drill lost it's brakes and he went off the edge of a cliff (totally fucked him up, lost most use of his left arm (can't close his hand at all) and partial on the right)

        So that's how you get out of the Army in America...neither are something you want to do as the both mess you up for
      • I had an old buddy that got out of boot camp 3/4's of the way through. He refused some training so they sent him home. I don't know what it was called, but it's not like it would affect him in any way in the non-military world. He also seemed to think he could try again later with no problems.

  • Not taking recruits ;-) (Score:4, Funny)

    by mseeger ( 40923 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:56AM (#6898317)
    Hi,

    i don't know if they handle usual recruits the way they do with virtual recruits. Currently i need about 100 tries for one successfull logon. It took me about a week to complete the basic training (4 missions) just because the authentication fails in 90+% of all cases. It seems that

    209.58.64.85 authcentral.login.americasarmy.com

    is not up to the task of taking so many virtual recruits and the game is killed by its success.

    Bye, Martin

    P.S. I'm not in danger of joining tthe US Army. Served my time with a different one and i didn't enjoy it. Most seargants had an intellectual lag which made the experience very frustrating :-(.

    • Try this as a possible fix (works for me with 1.9, and I'm on 56k in another country).

      1. Download this small file: HERE [on.net]

      2. Backup the original IpDrv.u file located at "C:\Program Files\Army Operations\System"

      3. Replace it with the new IpDrv.u file.

      4. Now run AA1.9 and try to login.

  • Slightly OT... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by theridersofrohan ( 241712 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @05:57AM (#6898319) Homepage
    But interesting indeed!


    Here's the other side of the story. Special Force, an fps " allegedly produced by the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah. The game's designers seek to "correct" the influence of western gaming concepts on the Middle East. In particular, they want to combat the view that the "oppressor" always defeats the "Arab."".


    I found an article about it in arstechnica [arstechnica.com].

    • Re:Slightly OT... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rayonic ( 462789 )
      Wait, that doesn't make sense. While it's true that in America's Army you always see the other team as the terrorists, the win-lose ratio is always the same. In each and every round, one team defeats the "terrorists", while the other team is defeated by the "terrorists".

      Yes, I know it always displays the Army as the good side, but it certainly doesn't show the Army always winning. Unrealistic, yes, but necessary for game balance. For another example of sacrificing realism for balance, see Desert Combat [desertcombat.com]
  • Just of curiosity, how many of the 2 million player are actually americans ?

    Oh.. it's available for Linux as well. see e.g. here [icculus.org]

  • America 's Army made me go on a killing spree... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Gnulix ( 534608 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @06:40AM (#6898451) Homepage
    ...and I'm suing the army for a gazillion dollars!
    • And I went up there, I said, "Shrink, I want to kill. I mean, I wanna, I wanna kill. Kill. I wanna, I wanna see blood and gore and
      guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean kill, Kill, KILL, KILL." And I started jumpin up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL," and he started jumpin up and down with me and we was both jumping up and down yelling, "KILL, KILL." And the sargent came over, pinned a medal on me, sent me down the hall, said, "You're our boy."

      -- Arlo Guthrie, Alice's Restaurant
  • Obviously they know how many recruits they get each month-- is this classified or something, that they can't show a graph of the changes since the game was introduced? The only reason I can imagine them withholding that graph is that the increases are so small they fail to justify the expense...
    • is this classified or something, that they can't show a graph of the changes since the game was introduced? The only reason I can imagine them withholding that graph is that the increases are so small they fail to justify the expense...

      Changes since the game was introduced could also be influenced by other forces, such as the current war.

      The only statistics they could really come up with would be some sort of entrance or recruiting poll that included the game as an option under 'reason you decided to jo

  • mission packs (Score:5, Funny)

    by CheeseEatingBulldog ( 703915 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @07:16AM (#6898618) Homepage
    Heh! The Us army can bring out extra mission packs every other month to coincide with their invasions.... Coming soon, from the makers of Iraq: All you black gold are belong to us!...and other such thrilling titles as Vietnam:If at first you don't succeed, sacrifice a whole generation to still not succeed ...and the all time classic Russia: Our police state is more free than yours! ..the Us Army brings you: Democracy: Operation kill them all , the fantastic conclusion...now also available in box set!

  • Assorted Thoughts (Score:4, Interesting)

    by GeorgeH ( 5469 ) * on Monday September 08, 2003 @08:23AM (#6899035) Homepage Journal
    The game reportedly cost 1% of the Army's advertising budget, and they were able to outspend the industry to create what's generally considered a kick ass game. Finally my tax dollars are doing something I can stand behind, now how about a PS2 port?
    "The Army is training kids at taxpayer expense to become sociopaths and killers," said Thompson, who says he has written more than a dozen unanswered letters asking the Defense Department to pull the plug on the game. "I love the military, and I'd describe myself as a right-wing conservative. But the Army is doing something very bad."
    This is a very pertinent viewpoint, especially in light of the recent GTA shooting lawsuit. What the army is saying by publishing this game is "games affect behavior." The behavior change they're trying to create is an army joining one, but the premise is the same as the people who say that video games create psychopaths. If video games affect people, they can do so both positively and negatively.
    • they arent trying to create a behavior change, theyre trying to usher a response in the form of a decision to enlist in the army.

      i really doubt as a recruiting tool its that effective. I know that there are alot of freaking idiots in this country, and an enourmous amount of them migrate towards online gaming as a passtime (grrr n00bs!) but how many can really be so stupid as to join the army because of this game? If team killing is even half as bad as it is in other team games i wouldnt dare play this an

  • I hope so (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    If I had a complaint about the game, it would be that while it does a lot, it doesn't do enough to teach the Army's core values: respect, duty, loyalty, selfless services, integrity, and personal courage.

    For example, the game allows users to be disrespectful to superiors (where rank is fairly arbitrary and assigned based on one's role in a given game) with no consequences. I'd like to see some kind of feature where disobeying an order or being disrespectful to a superior results in negative consequences...

  • I dunno... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Unknown Kadath ( 685094 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @10:24AM (#6900090)
    I certainly enjoyed blowing up Rebel scum in TIE Fighter, but I didn't enlist in the Imperial Navy.

    -Carolyn
    • I did enlist in the Imperial navy...

      Did I get to fly any TIE fighters, no! All I did was scrub down the hanger bays and hear about all the stories of rebels being blown up.
      AA is nothing like the army (get up at ungodly hours, asshole squad leaders etc.)
      • Well, I got a better offer to be a theater commander for the Brotherhood of Nod, but those jerks in the GDI kept completely destroying everything, so I quit and joined the Great Alliance. But no one in the army or the navy ever paid any attention to me; all they wanted to do was make smartass remarks. And all the Elves thought I was a lesbian.

        So I guess I'm not really cut out for a military career.

        (No, I haven't bought a PC game since high school, why?)

        -Carolyn
  • The article doesn't say that the seven joined because they played the game. Also seven out of a yearly average of 2,000 new recruits? Whoop-de-doo.

    Yes, I actually read the article. You can all mock me now.

  • There are some interesting things about the game. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm active duty military and I pack a gun for a living. I looked at the game and there are some interesting things they have included from a training standpoint. When a weapon malfunctions, the immediate action performed by the 'person' in the game gives the player a view of what you would actually see in real life if performing an immediate action drill correctly as you were taught to do. So a player of that game who was being trained on immediate action for an actual weapon would already have a visual ima
  • Or is the goal to make potential recruits realize that the military is not for them. The military "wastes" millions on people who think they want to join the military but later decide it isn't right for them. If those same people had instead played this game and saw, at least virtually, what the military was like then the game has paid for itself.
    • The military "wastes" millions on people who think they want to join the military but later decide it isn't right for them.

      Actually a certain amount of turnover is desired. You need a small amount of career soldiers, a respectably sized cadre of experienced soldiers, and the rest leaving after their first enlistment. Once discharged this later group provides a reserve, both active and inactive, that the Army still "owns" and can recall if a national emergency occurs. This turnover leads to a larger percen

  • I wonder... (Score:2, Funny)

    by sbma44 ( 694130 )
    what the Senators who rail against violent videogames would say if they were aware that the defense department was involved in making them?

    This is a fluff magazine piece just begging to be written.

  • a UN Peacekeeper (Score:3, Funny)

    by theghost ( 156240 ) on Monday September 08, 2003 @02:44PM (#6903122)
    I started a secondary account for America's Army. It uses the name "a UN Peacekeeper". So now in the game you get the joy of seeing:

    PimpDaddyMac was shot by a UN Peacekeeper.
    SupaKilla was blown up by a UN Peacekeeper's grenade.
    LaughablyMachoName was sniped by a UN Peacekeeper.

    and all too frequently:

    A UN Peacekeeper was shot by ~achildwithoutparentalsupervision~.

    Other amusing names:
    osamas mama
    mujahedin
    DickCheney
    a lil girl (unfortunately the player was an asshole)

    Good game, but i don't think it's a very effective recruitment tool. I do commend them for their attempts to discourage tk griefers and racist and homophobic chat spammers of all sorts.
  • So that recruitment battalion, they are hosting lan games, and during these games, are they leaning on the geeks to join up?

    I hope not, considering that it is a serious choice, and one that should be made without any pressure.

    I can imagine a few situations where the recruiter can muscle a person into signing up without putting much thought into their choice.
  • Not that games like Ghost Recon, Rainbow Six or Counterstrike(!) did anything to bolster recruitment numbers, probably more so than any sorry ass America's Army game ever did.
  • ..the army is just dying to get ahold of fat-ass teenagers who are stuffing their face with cheetos between watching their aimbot take out opponents.

    I mean, geeze, think about your average gamer. Is that really the type of person you want to see defending the country as anything other than a flesh-bullet-barrier?

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