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America's Army 3 dev team discharged

US Army confirms squad behind free-to-play armed-conflict simulator has been let go, future updates shifted to Redstone Arsenal, Alabama outfit.

Earlier this week, the US Army released its latest iteration of its free-to-play recruitment tool, America's Army 3 for the PC. The launch, however, has been fraught with issues, with public representatives for the project saying that "due to this massive number of simultaneous connections, we're having some trouble keeping up with the demand."

Duck and cover!

Duck and cover!

One place the Army isn't likely to get help in resolving those issues is from the Emeryville, California-based team that developed the project. A representative for America's Army 3 confirmed for GameSpot today that the development team was discharged from the project, with all future endeavors shifted to an outfit working out of Redstone Arsenal, Alabama.

"The contractor team at Emeryville was responsible for completing work on our first release of the America’s Army 3 game," the US Army said in a statement. "That work was completed on 16 June and our game launched on 17 June. With that milestone complete, we are consolidating our development efforts at Redstone Arsenal, Alabama."

"In 2005, we established the America's Army program office at Redstone Arsenal to oversee development of both the public game and government applications of America’s Army 3," the statement continued. "Since that time, we have grown the team at Redstone to manage our contractor team in Emeryville and expand use of the game within the government. By consolidating operations at Redstone, we expect to gain additional efficiencies between our public and government applications."

The America's Army 3 representative did not indicate how many employees were affected by the transition, saying only that future game content will continue to be released in the coming months.

109 Comments

  • 68CJ

    Posted Nov 8, 2009 12:06 pm GMT

    AA used to be good. but i havent played AA for about a year or so. and i just downloaded i guess the newest version AA3 and it reminded me of the xbox version... it sucks. what happened to the gameplay/graphics/ all the other maps etc. and if this dev team is the reason for it then im glad theyre gone... hopefully they will bring back how the game used to be... and now that AA3 is out can you still play AA2.8 or i guess the last of the good version?

  • TotenKopf42

    Posted Jun 28, 2009 10:46 am GMT

    I like this game...
    I don't really understand why you think about it as "FPS garbage"...
    Yes - it has LOOOOT of bugs, can't really understand why it was released on time. Guys from d-team should have done something similar like guys from Valve with HL2 - delayed release date. Idk - maybe US Army thought that is was better to keep up with release date lauching bugged (IMO "BETA") product and blame d-team, than delay it, but...

    1st. Game IS FREE...
    2nd. Powered by UnrealEngine3 (no need for comments here - every gammer knows what it is)
    3rd. TEAM-based game. It was build in such way that if you want to get higher ranks and other stuff faster - you have to stick with your team. I am tired of CSS-like games - folks don't even know what is "team-based play" anymore. They just buying stuff and fragging. This game is about realism and teamplay - covering your team8s, healing them, supporting and etc. Teamplay is top priority. Actually - most people who are actively played or still playing damn CSS - always whines about AA3 being terrible and etc. - such players don't even know what IS teamplay - they - mostly rushing for SDM (sniper/marksman) position and fragging from a distance - NO TEAMPLAY. This is where (in most cases) such players failing and screaming how bad this game is...
    As for COD4 - yes - it is awesome game, but it was never aimed for realism - I mean - it is FPS for fragging other people mostly. You can't really hope to get same teamplay or realism level like in AA3.

  • facistinabag

    Posted Jun 23, 2009 5:39 pm GMT

    I haven't played AA since the launch, and judging by the recent patch notes they've apparently "Fixed" a lot of the things that I mentioned in my last post. However, I've long since uninstalled it.

    The reason?

    Pressing the space bar dosen't move "up" your stance.

    DAMN that's annoying.

  • Excedra

    Posted Jun 23, 2009 2:49 am GMT

    AA SUCKS!!!!!!

  • Innos007666

    Posted Jun 23, 2009 2:01 am GMT

    AA is really nice team-FPS for one free game.Can't wait for AA3

  • baal46

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 2:57 pm GMT

    Anti American bigotry is teh kewlness now, amiright?

  • Imconfused2007

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 2:18 pm GMT

    @ Toomsuba2

    Ever hear of irony, because you're the ignorant epitome of all the crap you just spewed out. America started out as settlers, plain and simple. Roanoke, and then Jamestown, were settlers for the British, not criminals. Every country that had a stake in America, including Britain, Spain, France, Denmark, Portugal, even Russia, contributed to the deaths of the Native Americans. And finally, how did we cheat against the British? This was before the Geneva Convention. Have you been watching The Patriot too many times? Learn to get your history from somewhere else besides Mel Gibson movies.

  • jer_1

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 11:07 am GMT

    Such a bummer considering how good the other releases were...

    /end sarcasm

  • rpgfreak02

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 10:40 am GMT

    @ toomsuba2
    I could have sworn the pilgrims were uhh, Puritans who disagreed with the Church of England, not criminals....actually, the only place i can think of like that is actually Australia, which started as a prison of sorts. And...cheated against the British? When did that happen? Is that like a cheap shot at American strategy during the revolutionary war? I guess we should have stood infront of them and just traded shots volley after volley even though we didn't have a standing army, just you know, the volunteer militia. Or maybe your referring to how the French supplied America with weapons? I guess that's cheating, cause right there at the top of the Geneva Code it says, "no getting weapons from allied nations during times of war!" I suppose the only thing you said that was true is that America is responsible for the deaths of many Native American tribes, as are the English, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Italians, the French, and probably a few other "great" nations of the modern world as well. I don't know, i guess what I'm saying is your an idiot Toomsuba2, at least more so then the other guy.

  • GhostyMcboo

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 9:45 am GMT

    Not to throw stones in glass houses, but Toomsuba, you get mad props from Canada! "O! Canada! Our Home ON Native Land!..." We're not so great up here, either.

  • kevboard

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 8:52 am GMT

    AA3 sucks! i will play AA2 because ist so mutch better than this new s***

  • Boydy91

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 2:55 am GMT

    well i downloade this game the same day as i got Arma 2, and even though i had to pay £20 for Arma 2 it's far superior, they should have made ppl buy the game for at least £10 so that they could improve it with the money they got. im not complaining cos its free so im playin it.......just that Arma 2 is the superior game

  • forhekset

    Posted Jun 22, 2009 2:06 am GMT

    So they laid off the entire team that made the game and handed it over to somebody else just as it launched? Is it just me, or is that the most retarded move ever. Sounds like there's a lot to fix and surely the team that made it would know how best to go about fixing it faster than anyone.

  • morgonstjarnan posted Jun 21, 2009 11:47 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    morgonstjarnan

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 11:47 pm GMT (hide)

    It'd be interesting to know what would've happened in history without the US army. Imperial Japan spreading plagues and building rape camps in China. Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia ruling Europe, possibly Africa as well. Concentration camps and gulags everywhere. So yeah. It's always hilarious when some angry, radical 15 year old whines about America's "evil".

  • blangenakker

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 11:15 pm GMT

    I really want to play this game! but there are no servers.

    Got into one saw a Join Team screen then i couldn't do anything.

  • eddy_purpus posted Jun 21, 2009 11:09 pm GMT (does not meet display criteria. sign in to show)

    eddy_purpus

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 11:09 pm GMT (hide)

    FVCK YOU POWERDONUT NORTHKOREAN DEER LEEDAR DICK SVCKAR ...
    MUTHAFVCKAR!

  • painguy1

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 10:34 pm GMT

    something needs to be done about this game. protested, sewed, publicly humiliated. It has to be brought to public attention

  • Montaya

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 8:39 pm GMT

    They were, "discharged"? What are the video game developers military personnel too?

  • AfroDeLiGht

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 8:06 pm GMT

    OK thats the best news ive heard since this game released. AA3 is unplayable due to the massive lag and glitches that the team failed to anticipate. Now it sounds like they are headed in the right direction but the new team has a LOT of work to do.

  • TheChaffa

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 6:32 pm GMT

    i came, i read, and i yawned

  • verstadt

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 5:08 pm GMT

    Wow powderdonut you couldn't be more wrong. Anyways, why the hell does the Army need a videogame for recruiting? All the other branches seem to be doing just fine without it.

  • abeard424

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 5:02 pm GMT

    I don't think anyone really cares

  • Donstantine

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 4:32 pm GMT

    good

  • Matgam

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 2:55 pm GMT

    Didnt they cancel that game??

  • -HCMF-

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 2:34 pm GMT

    All I know is that AA2 on the 360 was horrid, bad, evil, sucky, crappy, and a host of other colorful metaphores, so I guess it's time to move on...

  • SF_KiLLaMaN

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 12:53 pm GMT

    It is sad that they fired the devs. They did the best they could. Nothing that was wrong with the game was their fault, It was the server hosting, Pragmatic is the ones to blame here. The devs made an awesome game and should not be fired for someone else's mistake.

  • BigTime102

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 12:39 pm GMT

    finally!! This game was good for its time but they didnt do anything to make it better and quickly fell behind. The long wait between patches with little content and more bugs wasnt something that just happend with 3.0 their incompitence was going on for years. The devs got lucky they were able to ride this gravy train for so long doing bare minimum work and leeching tax payers money. The Army did the right thing because these devs werent making them look good. And as an army do you really want to look this incompitent ,even if its for a video game? No you dont. The best army in the world should have the best game, simple. Great move, looking forward to more AA.

  • powderdonut218

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 11:46 am GMT

    "USA fixing the world's problems since 1776"

    Correction..
    New World creating worlds problems since 1492

  • afrosud12

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 11:02 am GMT

    @zaku101

    where do you get your information from? and where do you live, because if gas only costs a few cents, I'm moving over there. And don't worry about north korea, china WILL square them away. they are proving themselves to be too costly and china is all about cost.

    And about the troops, they knew what they were getting into, and many of them want to be there and are proud of it, as they should be. There is a reason to still be there, and beleive it or not, our government actually wants to create peace in the region, and with an alqueda state in iraq, say goodbye that idea. USA fixing the world's problems since 1776

  • GodOfSyn

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 10:59 am GMT

    i remember playing the original this is pretty cool

  • jrorl63

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 10:55 am GMT

    the game was good but the only problem was the lag because they didnt have good enough servers for the amount of people that wanted to play, yes there were minor bugs in the game but it was still great to play in the hours that there werent many people online

  • MuRRaY-

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 10:06 am GMT

    Well if the Army considers this game "completed" then they obviously have not even looked at it yet.

  • zaku101

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 8:54 am GMT

    How is Iraq out of oil when they have the most in the world? A full tank of gas there only cost a few cents. This wars like the Vietnam war, no one really cares about it, and the reasons for it are stupid and lacked any real proof. Hell Korea has nukes and there's REAL proof but you don't see us attacking them. I am totally into supporting troops, but not when they're fighting for a cause no one cares about. We're basically fighting the Vietnam war, it can't be won, and our actions won't change a thing.

    @afrosud12
    ~old message
    ummmmm no we didn't do it for oil becausssseee iraq is pretty much out of oil and gas still costs a ton. we invaded because we had flawed intelligence about WMDs and al queda and we are still there because if we leave it as is it will be taken over by alqueda, and then we are really in trouble.

    anyway on topic. Why are we complaining about something that is free, they will fix it eventually, AA: SF was generally bug free (at least for me)

  • makeuser

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 8:10 am GMT

    the game isn't exactly free if you pay taxes, er, you paid for it. get a job & pay for ArmA or operation flashpoint you welfare queens. contribute to the free market economy!

  • x2wiSteDx

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 7:21 am GMT

    Wow. It sucks to be them. I've never seen a dev team fired due to a really bad release. Look at Kaos. Lmao.

  • noodles297

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 6:32 am GMT

    because people were excited for it and we wanna play it! Theres really no reason why this game should be as trashy as it is, its like they just put the game together and never actually tried to play it online.

    People shouldn't complain THAT much since we really didn't pay anything for it except an hour or two of our time downloading it. But its still worth mentioning our disgust for what we got cause if we don't things wont get fixed as quickly and as good as it should.

  • afrosud12

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 6:27 am GMT

    @zaku101

    ummmmm no we didn't do it for oil becausssseee iraq is pretty much out of oil and gas still costs a ton. we invaded because we had flawed intelligence about WMDs and al queda and we are still there because if we leave it as is it will be taken over by alqueda, and then we are really in trouble.

    anyway on topic. Why are we complaining about something that is free, they will fix it eventually, AA: SF was generally bug free (at least for me)

  • uberjannie

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 4:21 am GMT

    before they make future content, please fix the game so its possible to play that content first.

  • nyranasaurus

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 2:08 am GMT

    Im going to wait for a few months before attempting to download it. What cracks me up is people are blaming Valve and Steam. Steam is Awesome. Ive had ZERO problems with any games ive bought through steam. Its not Steams problem. Steams just a distribution tool now and everything ive payed for and played from Tomb Raider to Oblivian to Counter Strike recently has been top notch an dplays brilliantly, Plus you get automatic upgrades aswell , brilliant service. However as far Americas Army is Free is concerned its NOT free for me to download 5 GB's of Information for something that doesnt work yet, so im going to wait. 5GB of info download will cost me about $30 in my country. So its NOT free fo rme.

  • ernest-young

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 1:59 am GMT

    I respect and tip my hat-of to the soldiers. With that being said, I want them to drop this game now since they're dropping people from it. This game better be "all that and a bag of chips" after all that stuff.

  • zaku101

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 9:49 pm GMT

    I don't remember the Iraq war being anything about our freedom. I was pretty sure we attacked them for their oil, because any other reason would be stupid.
    @lonewolf1044

    Posted Jun 21, 2009 10:28 am GMT -12

    ZAKU101 "I mean come on, if we can't even make a playable game how can we expect to win the war in Iraq?"

    Making a game and fighting a real war is two different things and it is funny that you are alive and able to type this comment. Guess you never left your chair to fight a real battle. Enjoy your freedom.

  • TheoleDominion

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 8:31 pm GMT

    @ Revan 911

    At $49.99 or $39.99 a year, still doesn't come out to be $10.00 a month( someone was definitely asleep during math class). It's a paid service that does offer MORE than the PSN network. AND if you put a pen and pad to the money you blow during a week or weekend, even to a cheap person $10.00 a month is nothing.

  • GoblinsAreKool

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 8:16 pm GMT

    This game is and always was amazing. Hell the first one that came out was and still is my favorite fps of all time. The graphics were amazing at the time and IT WAS FREE. Dont sit there and talk bad about free cuz your the same people that get pissed off when DLC aint free or you complain that the ps3 costs to much or the fail box live should be free. This game is awsome and even if you dont join the army its still hella fun to play.

  • NickAnguiano

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 7:58 pm GMT

    Why is anyone playing America's Army for fun? It's right there in the description, it's meant to be a recruitment tool. If you've been playing America's Army 1,2, and now 3 and are actually pissed it blows when compared to other FPS games, than you have been wasting a whole lot of time. Also seriously.. how cheap can you possibly be for America's Army to be your source of FPS action if you're a gamer. Either go join the darn army already or play a real a game and stop being so pathetically cheap.

  • Malco_Vincenzo

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 7:42 pm GMT

    OH what will we do without this company that makes war shooter??? how will we survive??? *sarcasm*

  • YoungDab

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 6:25 pm GMT

    Xbox Live=User Host=hella bad.Your not soppose to pay so that other people can boot you out of halo 3 matches when your one game away from a level 50.It should be free end of subject,even tho xbox 360 is my main console.You gotta buy map packs/XBL Gold/Videos on demand/Mini games/User created games.Your practically buying the system over and over again after you add it all up.You could spend your entire pay check on stupidity using xbox 360 store.

  • RockysCatnipCo

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 5:24 pm GMT

    @ snake289

    COD is nothing like quake..
    Team deathmatch may not be tactical, but the other game variants can be if they are played right.

  • snake289

    Posted Jun 20, 2009 5:13 pm GMT

    @ newb16

    Not everybody wants to play a Quake like shooter which uses realistic weapons to hide the fact that it isn't tactical at all.

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