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America's Army on Linux
jojor writes "It seems that icculus.org has gotten America's Army to run under Linux, as this screenshot will attest. America's Army is UT based and free (as in beer). More games for Linux, yippeh!" Awesome. I consider America's Army to be one of the best things my government has funded within recent history.
Yes, but the overall recruiting budget for the United States military is huge, and the total development costs for the game were a rather small part of it. Think about how many man hours it saves if even 0.1% of the people who play it come to the recruiter instead of making the recruiter come to them.
The military has a recruitment mission and for this mission it gets millions and millions of dollars. Have you any clue on how much advertising costs? So now the Army decided to spend of those millions on a game as a recruiting tool instead of lame Army of One and Be All You Can Be commercials. Pretty smart move, I think. It's not like that money was in a pot that was otherwise going to fund school lunches or something like that.
I know this because Tyler knows this.
Why not spend more money on preventing war instead of fighting war?
This may come as a suprise to you, but there are people in the world who want to kill you and me just out of spite. We who sit around on Saturday mornings sipping tasty caffienated beverages sometimes have a hard time relating to those in the 3rd world raised in highly religious environments where they are taught that all their problems are because of us, and the only way to fix it is with an AK or a suicide bomb.
When you try to act on this problem, you end up making the productive members of society give away huge amounts of their earnings because the only way to *prevent war* on a planet with limited resources and swelling population is to redistribute wealth. "From each according to his ability; to each according to his need." This leads to socialism or communism. People are not naturally inclined to work for the service of others. It is not natural for people to sacrifice the fruits of their labor for some larger social goal. Surely you learned something from the collapse of the Soviet Union, yes?
So sorry, but the old saying rings true: The best way to keep the peace is to prepare for war.
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It is a recruiting tool but not a bad idea overall. Consider how difficult selling enlistment in the armed forces is.Every little bit of positive PR helps achieve that goal. Having served 8 years in the Army, and being old enough to remember the draft, I really appreciate the importance of having a dedicated volunteer force rather than a conscripted army.
I agree, but maybe if they stopped chopping up benefits like the end of the various clubs, the price increases on the bowling alleys, and the re-introduction of the PX as something that actually saves you money (it's tax free, but you can find stuff for way cheaper off-base at Wal-Marts and Target), maybe they could get people interested by giving people benefits to join. Glorifying the Infantry (which, unless you are Special Forces, you probably will never be in a real combat situation) doesn't help much. Besides, most of the people I know who play this game don't want to join the Army. In fact, it sorta turns them off to the idea, because they get 0wned all the time.
I'm joining the Air Force. As a weatherman. In a nice and quiet domestic AFB (I don't fit the physical requirements for a combat-deployed weatherman).
Only in slashdot are posts of solidarity modded at -1 Redundant, while posts of antagonism are modded as -1 Flamebait.
I've played America's Army quite a bit, and I'd have to say that this particular game is realistic enough that it made me think MORE about the real consequences of armed combat. That is no small thing because I spent six years in the Marine Corps.
About 1/2 the maps are ones where the teams fight with MILES simulation gear, and all the maps are 'one life to live' so when you peek around the corner and get killed, you have a few minutes to think about what would have happened in real life. This game is almost a simulation, and it is very well done.
What if they took that huge recruiting budget and instead raised pay for soldiers. I think I'd rather have more money than a guy telling me how much I'll get for college should I choose to go, over and over. If they were to pay like the private sector I think a lot more people would consider joining up.
Ah, censorship. It will make you look like an Dummkopf every time...