After 20 Years, the US Army Is Shutting Down Its Recruitment Video Game, 'America's Army' (fastcompany.com) 33
In the early 2000s, the U.S. Army released America's Army, a video game meant as a recruitment tool. "The free-to-play tactical shooter was wildly successful, reaching 20 million players," reports Fast Company. "But come May 5, the servers will be shut down -- and America's Army will surrender to the forces of time." From the report: To date, no industry has embraced games as warmly as the military, though. America's Army, for example, started with an initial budget of $7 million of your tax dollars at play -- and quickly grew from there. Recognizing that players know a quality title when they see one (and ignore and ridicule poor-quality efforts), it assembled a team of proven developers and bought a license for the Unreal Engine, which was (and remains) one of the premier game engines on the market. America's Army was only supposed to be a seven-year project, but its success encouraged the Defense Department to stay with the game, with the Pentagon spending more than $3 million a year to evolve and promote it -- a drop in the bucket compared to the overall $8 billion recruiting budget.
How well did it work? A 2008 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that "30% of all Americans ages 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined." The end of America's Army is hardly the end of the military's use of games as recruiting tools. The Army has its own Twitch channel (with more than 23,000 followers) and has an e-sports team that competes at tournaments -- with recruiters in tow.
How well did it work? A 2008 study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that "30% of all Americans ages 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined." The end of America's Army is hardly the end of the military's use of games as recruiting tools. The Army has its own Twitch channel (with more than 23,000 followers) and has an e-sports team that competes at tournaments -- with recruiters in tow.
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Correction: Anybody's Son Will Do.
full vid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Dude, that's almost an hour. Even I don't have time for that, and I'm GenX. Maybe they'll have time for One [youtube.com] which is just 7:44 or better yet, This scene from Starship Troopers [youtube.com] that weighs in under a minute.
Retirement age (Score:2)
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Become a Battle Royale. Obviously. Duh!
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The "Enlisted Edition" will be be rereleased in two editions: "America's Winnebago", or "America on a Harley", your goal will be to travel the USA in style, while finding as many diners, hotels, museums, and tourist attractions as possible that give veterans discounts. Basically you get to have a good time, drinking beer, eating burgers, and seeing national parks and other sights. The number of rockers on your sleeve determines the size of your Winnebago or the kind of Harley.
The "Junior Officer Edition"
Personal Experience (Score:5, Informative)
Say what you will about the propaganda aspect of it, I really enjoyed the game itself at the time (I didn't care since I was neither American, nor had any interest in serving in the military, nor much choice in the matter).
It was refreshing to have a game that took a more slow-paced tactical approach with more focus on teamwork than other games of the period.
It punished you for making a mistake, making you wait until the end of the round, feeling like forever, and rewarded you for successfully identifying an enemy silhouette moving through the fog and your iron sights.
And I guess it could be thanked to some extent for the later creation of games like ARMA and PUBG.
Re:Personal Experience (Score:4, Informative)
Operation Flashpoint is sort of the spiritual predecessor to ArmA, and came out in 2001, before America's Army.
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I remember it becoming popular in my online social circles because it had decent graphics, good competitive gameplay and was entirely free at a point where Counterstrike: Source cost money.
As for influencing later games, I think CS probably did a lot more of that
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Wot? You didn't immediately immigrate to the US and volunteer for the Army? Tch tch tch :-(
When the game came out, I immediately downloaded and played it just to see how badly they screwed the experience up. Actually, it wasn't bad, even after 23 years of active service (SF and airborne mostly) and several years of retirement as a sergeant major.
I even pointed several potential recruits toward the game, donno if they ever bought into it and enlisted or not.
All in all, I'd class it as a very good try, and
Wild guess time (Score:2)
I'm calling it now. It will be replaced by a new recruitment experience based in the "metaverse".
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Correct, except the lag will be worse and the graphics will be the same or slightly degraded so it can play on a iGPU from 15 years ago
Future combat (Score:2)
Is it not going to be all robots? Autonomous tanks, remote controlled humanoid droids, portable gun turrets, drones etc. Dont we need people with gamer skills?
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Nah. Countries don't fight for fun. Even if that becomes the primary method of combat the losing side would always field humans once their stock of drones ran out.
When it comes to be conquered (or worse, exterminated) countries/people aren't just going to throw their hands up and be like "Well, all the robots are gone I guess we ought to just head to the internment camps.".
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Is it not going to be all robots? Autonomous tanks, remote controlled humanoid droids, portable gun turrets, drones etc. Dont we need people with gamer skills?
"The wars of the future will not be fought on the battlefield or at sea. They will be fought in space, or possibly on top of a very tall mountain. In either case, most of the actual fighting will be done by small robots. And as you go forth today remember always your duty is clear: To build and maintain those robots."
As usual, the Simpsons saw it coming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I had no idea (Score:2)
They continued with this for so many years. Remember trying the game a lifetime ago and it sucked. All I remember is the shooting range and landing in the brig for firing my weapon in the wrong direction.
It's their way of avoiding (Score:1)
Finding out that the uber-elite player with good all around scores is some whacknoid with pink hair, head to toe tatoos, has had their dick chopped off and is calling themselves Xi/Xir/SchwanzIstGonner and gets off on having their ass spanked.
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That's oddly specific. Was that an anecdote?
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Because it has nothing to do with that.
You know nothing about force cohesion.
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I'm glad you're working through whatever it is you are working through, but I must confess, I'm not a hundred percent sure what it is. In any case here are some potential directions that may help.
porhnub is that way -->
<-- your psychiatrist is that way
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My psychiatrist *is*on pornhub. She is really hot, especially with her glasses on.
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porhnub is that way -->
<-- your psychiatrist is that way
This would make a good T-shirt!
Unlike other games, AA will still be playable (Score:5, Informative)
What's happening is that official support is ending and they're shutting down the servers. But the game itself looks like it'll still work. The servers are the online matchmaking (you can still make your own private servers)., and player stats.
So you can still play it on private servers, use the mission editor, etc.
There aren't many games these days that are still playable after the servers get shut down these days.
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Fantastic Game (Score:3, Interesting)
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I remember how on the bridge map some players knew how to exactly orient the grenade launcher to hit the enemy spawn area and wipe out half the team as the mission started.
War is serious stuff (Score:2)
We respect our armed forces because they keep us safe in our homes, and that shouldn't depend on us having played a game or having seen some propaganda TV series.
Re: War is serious stuff (Score:2)
I don't think anybody is more acutely aware of the realities of war than the people behind this game. Certainly a lot more aware of it than you even. But warfare and games have always been connected. ALWAYS. Or at least, since time immemorial. Games are actually a critical part of how militaries train, and even how generals strategize. Indeed, this is hardly even the first time a game has been used as a recruitment tool, not even close, actually.
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Even worse if the game is intended as a device to convince people to enlist, as you run the risk of having people who join the army thinking that war is anything like a game, which is a very bad mindset for a soldier t
Re: War is serious stuff (Score:2)
No, I'm taking about ancient practices as well, for example using sports like archery as a means of recruitment. Besides, I think you'll have a very hard time finding an actual war veteran who is opposed to this.
Recruitment tool? (Score:2)
Nothing impressed on me the fact that I had no interest in joining the army more than this game. Crawling through a thicket thinking I'm totally sneaking along undetected to without warning get a round through my skull did not have me going, "man I want to do this in real life!".