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

Slightly OT...

[theridersofrohan]

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.

Re:Slightly OT...

[Rayonic]

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

Assorted Thoughts

[GeorgeH]

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.

Re:anybody who joins because of a pc game..

[pmz]

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 large group of people lost for recruiting.

Also, many social programs make it such that people don't have to work for their country to keep it going strong. Why be a part of the military (damn, it's hard work, you know) when they can just sit back and soak up things like nationalized health care and magical tax returns.
Keeping people sharp requires not treating them like spoiled children (it really is a matter of human nature).

It seems that many people just lack the "edge" of previous generations. Maybe this has to do with there being no frontiers, anymore. Even the suburbs are overpopulated and overdeveloped. National parks see so many visitors that there is no natural wonder to bask in, anymore. Granted, we don't have rampant disease or lack of heat in winter, anymore, but those problems get replaced with having to live like naked mole rats piled on top of each other in an hole.

I hope so

[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... although, in all fairness, I can't figure out how such a feature would work.

In other ways, the game is very successful as a teaching tool. For example, before you can serve in-game as a combat life saver, you have to sit through a couple of hours of combat life-saver training and take some exams. And these are real CLS lectures, not watered down for teenagers. The people who play this game are, whether they know it or not, learning.

It's basically impossible to succeed in the game if you don't embrace teamwork. Sure, you can run around, hopping and blasting like you're an idiot, but your game will end quickly, and you'll be forced either to go find another game, or to sit there while the round plays out. The players that use teamwork and communication succeed, while the players that don't fail. That's an important lesson.

As a recruiting tool... meh. Who cares. As a teaching tool, to teach the core values that the Army is built on, and that incidentally serve people throughout their lives, the game is a phenomenal success.