July 4th at midnight Pacific Standard Time (zulu -8), the USA Army is going to release a First Person Shooter (FPS) Game to be downloaded for free. It is a multi-player game played over the Internet.
It claims to be very realistic, and is to be used as a recruiting device
My feelings are that FPS games can be fun, war will never be. Never. You have to know the difference. A FPS game will never, never be able to simulate what war is. War is drudgery and fear.
I believe that the USA is doing what it has to to combat terrorism. Maybe we should do more, we can’t isolate ourselves.
To debate - Is this a bad time to release such a game or a good time?
[devil’s advocate mode]Would you think it was a good idea to release it if it was Sept. 10th? Or are you just using that as an excuse to garner support against the game that you oppose for whatever pacsifist reasons?[/devil’s advocate]
A realistic FPS may help in training (though i’d have to be VERY realistic) but the problem solving and teamwork portions would be what helps the most. The army already has simulated Tank and Helicopter games used for training (i’ve played them). Computer based training for the military is an inevitability, we can’t hold things back because of what is happening in the world.
You are right that the computer tools we use to train are necessary.
An app like this can’t just be shut down, lots of money and time in it. Timing kinda sucks though. The world will see this and may take it the wrong way. The USA is not about video games, it’s not about the car you drive. It’s about freedom. It’s innovation and discovery.
I don’t think that it is appropriate that the US Army should put together a very high tech FPS and distribute it freely. I think it could give the wrong impression of America.
Do you know who the bad guys are in the game? i didn’t see any enemy specifics, but if one of the missions is taking out Islamic Extremists, then i think there is a terrible timing problem. Hopefully the military isn’t that dumb (but, hey, you never know)
The Army has developed a computer game to use for recruitment.
The Army has spent $6,000,000 to develop a computer game to use for recruitment.
The Army is making its new computer game available, free, over the Internet.
The Army’s new computer game will be seen as “warmongering” by the rest of the world.
The Army’s new computer game glorifies war.
The Army’s new computer game isn’t realistic enough and denigrates the whole “war” experience.
The Army is making its new computer game available over the Internet on the Fourth of July, at a time when Americans all over the world should be pausing to reflect on the blessings of peace and freedom, not being forced to consider the advent of six million dollars worth of taxpayer money in the form of an unrealistic yet warmongering officially sponsored Army-recruiting computer game.
Numbers 6 and 7 would seem to be directly contradictory. You’d like it to be more realistic, but not to glorify war? Maybe the Army should have gone with the “Duke Nukem” approach…
I predict that “America’s Army” will be seen by the rest of the world as “inept, sucky gaming”. I predict downloads ranging, oh, in the dozens… :rolleyes:
BTW, add #9 to that list:
#9. The Army’s new computer game, if ya just wanna look at the OP’s link, takes forever to load, and keeps giving you a frickin’ “Do you want to install and Run Macromedia Flash Player 6” message box, and no matter how many times you tell it “No”, it keeps coming back?
I don’t think “America’s Army” will tell the rest of the world anything they don’t already know about the United States of America. Dunno where you live, on what exalted mountain peak, but here in the Heartland, it is about the car you drive.
Eh, Tars, wanna go download the demo, budget 200 MB for it, and see who the Baddies are? If you do, be sure the Army will be sending you recruitment spam forever and ever, amen…
From what I’ve read, the enemies are “terrorists” but there was no further description than that. Since nobody actually plays as terrorists, I suppose that they feel that there’s no need to go into a backstory deeper than “those terrorists are the bad guys, go stop 'em.”
Myself, I’m wondering how they hope to use it as a recruiting tool. All the US ads (I’ve seen, anyway) are a little war mongering - “join the Air Force, fly fighter jets,” “join the Army, be a ranger.” Where are the “join the Navy, peel potatoes for six hours” ads?
Hmm…free army game…or buy Warcraft III??? Warm up my credit card, i’m off to the comp store!
BTW i already get republican spam, so army spam wouldn’t be much worse, beats the student loan porn i receive now.
No, I’m not upset. I did think this topic would be interesting for debate.
Some people demonize computer games. Link them to Columbine and such. I don’t. Some people also believe that the U.S. is nothing more than a big bully. I don’t.
I do think that a computer game such as this could be viewed in a very negative way. Particularly since it’s sanctioned by the U.S. Army. Hell, developed by the U.S. Army
We train our soldiers to break things and kill people and then we send them out to do it in real life. I’m not sure how a video game is going to hurt their reputation. It isn’t like anyone is surprised that the Army does destructive things or encourages people to sign up and learn how to do destructive things.
In high school, I saw a lot of recruitment techniques. These techniques were not designed to help people make a thoughtful intellegent decision about how to spend four years of their lives. These recruitment techniques appealed to childish machismo. This program is just another example of the military making enlisting look like a fun game where you get to play with lots of fun equiptment and run around shooting people like Rambo.
I understand the need to recruit, but I find it despicable that we are using the military equivelent of Joe Camel to sway seventeen year olds when they are making a very adult decision that will affect the rest of their lives.
I don’t trust this. I wouldn’t past the Bush administration, or the Defense Dept. in general to include spyware in this kind of stuff. Maybe I’ve just seen to many movies, but if companies programs like Kazaa do this, what’s to stop them? Also, I heard (and this is probably just a rumor) that those who do the best in the game move up on the draft list. Even if there isn’t a draft, I’d still not like to be high on that list. The problem with online FPS is that nobody uses team work. Every soldier, no matter what game it is, runs off to do their own thing. I don’t think you could make this game realistic while leaving the gamers with free will (over their in-game soldier avatars.)
Oh, yeah, the draft list. The army can never get enough overweight slobs who play comptuers games all day.
Coming soon to a game store near you: Mario and the Tin-foil Hat
The American army’s been using these games to teach section tactics and teamwork for years. Periodically, a sweaty-palmed reporter shrieks about turning recruits into soul-less killing machines, as if the Marines hadn’t been doing that for decades.
Meanwhile, I have about 2 hours left in download time. After I kill a bunch of bad guys, be they Muslim or otherwise, I’ll let you know if the U.S. army comes knocking at my door.
I remember reading an interview with a former colonel who was saying that the whole FPS genre was raising a generation of school-shooters (this was just after Columbine). One interesting point he made is that new recruits where showing up who were already familiar with the combat concepts they were to be taught in basic training: shoot for the center of mass, the use of cover and (to some degree) fire and movement, etc. Now that better AI is available, the teamwork aspects of combat are becoming important (in Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, you sometimes had to work with several computer controlled players; enemy soldiers ducked when you shot at them, etc.).
I disagree with his assessment of school-shootings, but it seems like an eminently practical thing to do: release a game that reinforces the basic skills of a soldier.
If this was a recruting tool, then a Duke Nukem approach would be interesting.
“Come on, boys, join the army! You get to blow things up, shoot people, and have sex, often all at the same time!”
6 Million isn’t that much compared to many corporate marketing budgets. Anybody know how much the Army spends on TV ads? I am sure that it’s more than 6 Mill.
To me, it seems obvious that the game is for marketing, (recruiting) not training of any kind. They have the first person shooter aspect to get people to play. Then they have the “real life of a soldier” aspect to get people interested in joining the army.
One cool thing worth noting: The two teams of players both play as US army soldiers. But, to each of them the enemy looks like terrorists. So, each player, in their own perspective appears to be shooting at terrorists and teamed up with other americans.
I’m dowloading it now also. I doubt I’ll move too far up the recruitment list no matter how good I am at it, being 30+ years old. And if there’s spyware in it, some smart hacker kid out there will find it, and probably even find a way to remove it and keep the game playable.
