America's Army video game

Now this is interesting....

"America's Army" (www.americasarmy.com) is a video game developed by the U.S. Army to pique the interest of pre-teens, raising awareness about the world of serving as a soldier in the U.S. Army, according to Col. Casey Wardynski, a social economist and Director of the U.S. Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA) at West Point, who is the developer and coordinator of the game. By playing a video game, young kids could experience the unlimited, exciting opportunities offered by the military – and perhaps begin to think of it as a prospective career choice. More than 20 million downloads have been completed, and there are approximately 4.8 million registered players, with an additional 100,000 new players registering each month.

As a side benefit, active-duty soldiers began playing the video game and offering suggestions for it, so it has evolved into a training tool for them, as well.

I died before I even figured out who was shooting at me. Repeatedly.

That didn't make me wanna join the army, particularly.

and it's free. I stopped playing it pretty quickly the more and more apparent it became that it's a disgusting ploy to raise their recruitment rates. I knew it was coming in but the actual game is kinda creepy... cool... but creepy.

You have to follow army procedure... train to be a medic, infantry, or something else. And of course it tracks you as you have to sign up to play it. If you do really well in the game, I'm sure it lets recruiters in your area know that they have another recruit to go after.

They are psychologically preparing a generation of children to be used as OFU's - Poppy Bush's endearing term for US soldiers : One Fodder Units...

makes kids go out and become carjackers and drug dealers?

Its a heads up for those who play UT and think that warfare is just fighting till its time to re-spawn and fight again. Getting killed in the first 5 minutes of a half hour combat is a real downer, and can be a real grounding moment for the reality challenged gamer out there.

If someone joins up after playing Americas Army at least they have more realistic expectations than someone who signs up after getting more frags than all his buddies in the latest LAN party.

Gary Webb, the reporter who broke the story of the CIA-cocaine connection for the San Jose Mercury-News, wrote a story about this game for the Sacramento News & Review (alt-weekly) shortly before his death. It's interesting how the Army is gathering data on players:

http://www.newsreview.com/issues/sacto/2004-10-14/cover.asp

Jankyn

Great movie in which a teenager is recruited by aliens via a video game - the kid with the highest score gets shanghaied to fight in an intergalactic war.:thumbsup:

Perhaps the army is going to do the same with high-scorers of ITS game?:tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat::tinfoilhat:

never thought of it that way when I played it.

For me I played it because it was free & you could always find people online to play alongside. The game is hugely enjoyable but other than the serving military I fought with and against when I was playing I don't think I came across anyone who was genuinely interested in joining the army based on the game.

You die. Often.

Not a good advert for the army.

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I am somewhat apalled at this tactic to attract pre-teens, by the Army's own admission. I apparently am more apalled by it than other DUers, judging by the responses to this so far. I also was amazed at the number of people they have pigeonholed, judging by registration and use figures.

:shrug:

While it may be fun for some peole who are not suseptible to enlistment, information is gathered on players and recruiters are active during play. You can play this online, or you can go to places where it is set up to play, private homes and video game places. Let the active-duty soldiers play on the armygame at their base, on the base computers and network. They don't need to be playing people at random in the world (ie-my kids friends).

There are some peace groups and teenpeace groups working outside sites where the armygame is set up, handing out counter propaganda, telling the kids that there are options other than the military.

My main complaints are it preys on kids who might not otherwise enlist, and they gather information on players. And I'm not particularily a believer in conspiracies, though am rather skeptical of the military and government.

even though i have not played it (I prefer Counter-Strike and other half-life mods), I've actually heard some pretty good reviews about the gameplay...but don't think the best or most frequent players aren't being marked somehow

You respawn at the end of the round

it does have one feature that I think at least hopefully train our soldiers to be more careful in the real thing. The point/ladder systems rewards you for missions completed (which doesn't necessarily require the killing of all opponents) and while you get 10 points per game per enemy kill if you are careless and harm or kill a teammate you get about 300 points taken away from your character which affects your overall score and certian mission accessibility. There is a running joke about the score system that the player with the highest score out of all players gets drafted and the one with the lowest is put on trial for treason ;)

Those of you who have Americas Army loaded on their computers should read the End Users License Agreement.

You have given up any privacy to the content of your computer by loading and agreeing to the AA EULA.

Read it!

I don't have the game nor do I want to give their website a hit from another ISP.

If ever I come accross DVDs or CDs with war games like this, I will snap them in two.

edit: Welcome to DU

Thanks for the welcome Swamp Rat.

I don't have the game on my computer nor will I load it.

PunkBuster is a common tool used too police MMOL games since cheaters can and have forced some games to become unplayable.

So, I looked it up on the net. Here are two paragraphs that are of concern:

"Licensee understands that PunkBuster software inspects and reports information about the computer on which it is installed to other connected computers and Licensee agrees to allow PunkBuster software to inspect and report such information about the computer on which Licensee installs PunkBuster software."

Sounds OK but when you read further...

"Licensee understands and agrees that the information that may be inspected and reported by PunkBuster software includes, but is not limited to, devices and any files residing on the hard-drive and in the memory of the computer on which PunkBuster software is installed."

So, I may be paranoid but I don't even want my cookie folder scanned too see where I've been surfing.

I wonder how they can scan computers with firewalls (and directories/files not associated with PunkBuster)? I've got multiple firewalls and do not use Windoze (for the very same reason - MS can scan hard drives and do so on a regular basis), but I wonder if there's a way they can get in through the game itself.

Since I won't bother with this (and I guess you neither), I'll have to wait for others to complain about a breach in their privacy.

That's how PunkBuster works. While you may not want it inspecting your computer at all, in order to ensure that no one is using a third party program to give themselves an advantage they scan for the things. PunkBuster is pretty respected in the Gaming world, so I doubt you have to worry about the Army getting ahold of any personal information.

On a side note, it's a pretty good video game. Probably the best video game that money can't buy.

But there is NO WAY that I'm gonna join the Army for real!

I may like the game, but I know better.

Any DU'er who play this game, DO NOT take this game seriously.

because they are too sccrawny from sitting in front of their computers all day. The smart people who are older just play because its free. Nothing to be worried about.