Through the dark haze of the early morning predawn on a bridge crossing a Croatian gorge, a small patch of blue, white, and grey urban camouflage peeks out from behind the cold granite corner-column 20 feet ahead of you and to your left. Bringing out your M16A2 rifle, you swiftly crouch down, alert your teammates of the subject on your radio, line up your sights on the target, and pull the trigger, earning a small puff of red for your efforts. This is neither a flashback from the past nor a scene from a war movie, but rather one of the many experiences that a computer gamer can now indulge themselves in on their home computer. The Army Game Project is the latest in a series of United States Army ventures funded by taxpayer money intended to promote a general public awareness of the training and missions the army engages in and promote the recruiting efforts targeting a younger age group.

The Army Game Project (AGP) is the first public computer video game project funded by United States taxes, out of the advertising/PR budget of the Department of the Army. Not much of the funding related information for the early part of this project is available to the public due to restrictions on the project however the Army Game Project has released to the press that the project spent approximately $7.5 million over the year and a half of its existence previous to its July 4, 2002 release date. When it was proposed by then-Lt. Col. E. Casey Wardynski that they take a “3 screen simulator” project for combat soldiers and use it instead to make a public relations game, funding was guaranteed for the project for a total of seven years (Soldiers, 52). To this point, only two years of that funding has been used in game development, with approximately 5 more years of funding guaranteed to the project. There has been some public out cry that the government is using funds to create a first person shooter video game, albeit “teen” rated, and some analysis of their budgets have shown that the costs of the actual technology licensing of the engine of the game from Epic Megagames are only several hundred thousand dollars. Certain organizations such as George Lucas’s special effects company Skywalker, which produces sound effects for the movie industry, have made donations to the project in the form of game materials or time. The bulk of the budget has been spent in maintaining skilled personnel salaries (both military and civilian), housing facilities, equipment costs, and a large contract for hosting and administration to HomeLAN for the 160 or so 24/7 “Official” game servers. Even so, some still continue to question the projects purpose and justification for the use of funds.

The Army Game Project’s first goal is to serve as a public relations tool to raise public awareness of what the army is all about, specific training types, and work to dispel the ideas of glamorous unacknowledged missions that the recent special operations oriented games have instilled. “The Army’s intent is not only to enhance kids’ – and adults’ – Army game-playing experiences and spark interest in the army as a potential career,” said Paul Boyce, an Army Spokesman at the Pentagon, “but to reintroduce the Army to the population at large.” The Americas Army game is actually a two part enterprise. The first part, “Soldiers”, is a full motion video game allowing a player to step into the shoes of a brand-new private and control/administrate his values, skills, and emphasis on self through the early portion of his Army career until he is either booted out of the army/retires or he is promoted to sergeant. This game includes information on many of the qualities that the Army looks for in a soldier, the internal values that a soldier has to assess and exhibit, and many of the possible situations a soldier will encounter from boot camp through many of the tours of duty and Military Occupational Specialties available to real-life soldiers. While the army is expecting this game to accomplish the bulk of its public relations purpose, they are also aware that Full Motion Video games don’t often proliferate well with today’s gaming audience. For this reason, they have piggybacked it on the “Operations” game, a three dimensional rendered first person multiplayer experience that has drawn millions of players in its two and a half months of existence thus far.

The Army Game Project is also working hard to attract the recruiting audience, which dovetails extremely well with the primary audience of computer gaming. Studies done by the United States Armed Services show that the actual decision about whether or not to join the army is usually made between 13 and 17 years old, finalized by the soldier and his family usually around the senior year of High School, 17 or 18 years old. While males between the ages of 17 and 34 are eligible to enlist for military service, the Army would like to attract primarily those between the ages of 13 and 22, the best possibilities for “career” soldiers. The Americas Army series of games is one of the best recruiting efforts for this age group, as the Gaming Industry targets an audience between 12 and 25 years old, the middle/high school and college students.

The Army Game Project is working alongside US Army efforts in Drag Racing, NASCAR, and extreme sport leagues to leverage their information and publicity into the targeted public. While actual recruiting draw remains to be seen, the Americas Army compact disk that will be released in early October should be the first real indicator of how well this project is working as teenagers will have to travel to their local recruiter to pick up the CD with its exclusive game content. Looking to the future, the recruiting efforts of tomorrow have had to change with time; we no longer have great patriotic wars or a constant draft to bring in new recruits. Today, we use a small, professional army that is composed of a core of “career” soldiers, officers and non-commissioned officers, augmented by a base of “duty tour” enlistments. Recruiting efforts of today and tomorrow are more targeted at showing potential recruits what the army really is, exposing the positive aspects of army service, and ensuring that the potential recruits know as much as