Army investing $50M in gaming
The US Army has long been a proponent of the gaming industry, recognizing early on the potential uses of creating life-like battle situations for recruitment and training purposes with titles like America's Army and Full Spectrum Warrior. Looking to the future, the Army is stepping up its efforts...
The US Army has long been a proponent of the gaming industry, recognizing early on the potential uses of creating life-like battle situations for recruitment and training purposes with titles like America's Army and Full Spectrum Warrior. Looking to the future, the Army is stepping up its efforts in the gaming space. As reported by military newspaper Stars & Stripes, the armed services branch has committed to a five-year, $50 million investment on new games and systems designed at combat training, beginning in 2010.
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Project Executive Office-Simulation Training and Instrumentation--or PEO-STRI in Armyspeak--will act as a publishing house of sorts, contracting development duties out to selected studios. The Army has no plans to invade the space of civilian publishers, however.
"We don't have the intent to become a competitor with the commercial gaming industry," said Lt. Col. Gary Stephens, product manager for air and ground tactical trainers at PEO-STRI. "We don't have the intent or capability to be a commercial game house."
The first game to fall under the Army's new unit--Game After Ambush--is a sequel of sorts to its current first-person shooter simulator, DARWARS Ambush, which has been in operation since 2006. According to Col. Mark McManigal, the design requirements for Game After Ambush stipulated that it feature playback functionality for postconflict review, as well as the ability to change difficulty settings and level layouts on the fly.
According to PEO-STRI project director Leslie Duvow, the Army expects to deploy 70 setups of the game, which come complete with steering wheel, headsets, and other PC-related peripherals, to 53 locations in the United States, Germany, Italy, and South Korea by September 2009.
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