America’s Army: Super-Effective
Of all the US Army’s various recruitment methods – and they have many – it appears none are anywhere near as successful as a humble, free video game.
We are of course talking about America’s Army, the free-to-play shooter that’s been drumming up interest in the US armed forces for nigh on seven years now.
According to a statement issued by MIT as part of a 2008 report – which is now being presented to the US Congress by the Army – “30 percent of all Americans age 16 to 24 had a more positive impression of the Army because of the game and, even more amazingly, the game had more impact on recruits than all other forms of Army advertising combined”.
Not a bad investment, then! That is, if you mean “bad” in terms of effectiveness vs money spent. If you mean “bad” in terms of “you shouldn’t recruit soldiers through a video game”, that’s another topic for another day.
disgusting.
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November 18th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Yet another reason not to buy the new PoP Assasin’s Creed II.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:30 am
Oh an there are some interesting video games in this post as well: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2009/11/gaming-war.html
November 18th, 2009 at 9:49 am
i think they are being a little hyperbolic about modern warfare 2 and that particular scene. it has been very controversial… and it became the biggest selling game because of it’s quality as a fps not it’s content.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:01 am
Why doesn’t the government face competition from libertarian video games?
November 18th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Because we don’t have the same resources.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
and most fun videogame stuff is anti-libertarian in some way.
November 18th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
this seems to show, that is with Americas army, the view most of us are given of war. its fun, it glamorous and most of all, no one on your side ever really gets hurt. fitting the military puts out a game to firmly entrench these ideas into 16 year olds.
November 18th, 2009 at 7:17 pm
They should really spice up the next game with the Army enforcing martial law in the US.