Gaming

America's Army (also known as AA or Army Game Project) is a series of video games and other media developed by the United States Army and released as a global public relations initiative to help with recruitment. America's Army was conceived by Colonel Casey Wardynski and is managed by the U.S. Army's Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis at the United States Military Academy.

Wardynski envisioned "using computer game technology to provide the public a virtual Soldier experience that was engaging, informative and entertaining."The PC version 1.0, subtitled Recon, was first released on July 4, 2002. Since then, there have been over 26 versions released, the most recent being America's Army 3. All versions have been developed on the Unreal Engine and use PunkBuster to try to prevent cheating. The game is financed by the U.S. government and distributed by free download.

America's Army has "grown in ways its originators couldn't have imagined". Dozens of government training and simulation applications using the America's Army platform have been developed to train and educate U.S. Army Soldiers. America's Army has also been used to deliver virtual Soldiering experiences to participants at events, such as air shows, amusement parks, and sporting events around the country. The America's Army series has also been expanded to include versions for Xbox and Xbox 360, arcade, and mobile applications published through licensing arrangements.

The game was developed by Col. Wardynski who recognized that a video game might be helpful to the U.S. Army in the strategic communication efforts by providing more information to prospective Soldiers and to help reduce the number of recruits who wash out during the nine weeks of basic training. The effort proved successful as more than 9 million copies have been downloaded. One teenager was quoted saying the game "provides great information. This would probably spark an interest. I don't know how I would have found out so much some other way."



The critical and hazardous nature
of the work for which soldiers are trained requires a “virtually real” environment where mistakes
are not catastrophic. The highly coordinated and cooperative nature of their work requires
a learning environment that builds teams and prepares personnel for highly specific and highly
coordinated missions. The U.S. Army is so convinced of the power and effect of serious games
that it uses its massively multiplayer online game as a recruitment tool.



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