America's Army Recruiting Success Discussed

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."

Comments

Not taking recruits ;-)

[mseeger]

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 :-(.

America 's Army made me go on a killing spree...

[Gnulix]

...and I'm suing the army for a gazillion dollars!

mission packs

[CheeseEatingBulldog]

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!

I dunno...

[Unknown Kadath]

I certainly enjoyed blowing up Rebel scum in TIE Fighter, but I didn't enlist in the Imperial Navy.

-Carolyn

I wonder...

[sbma44]

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

[theghost]

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.

Or they might recruit you

[Jad LaFields]

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