Games
I have been at the New York Law School/Yale Law School conference on online games and the law. A very experienced British game development guru is quizzing a US Army guy about America's Army — a free recruiting tool/game. This is a somewhat out-of-body experience for me. “Granted, we're using taxpayer dollars to fund this effort. But because this game is so successful it's saved us money. We've managed to package this game with computer gaming magazines. Cost to the government: nothing. We save a lot through downloads. Our savings is around $14 million dollars.” Question: who owns IP rights in this game? We do, sir.
Has the army been looking into games that would teach skills? No, sir. We're not using this as a teaching tool, America's Army. Your first mission is to complete four maps, for example. We're not teaching you how to fire a rifle. You'd have to go to boot camp for that, sir. We're informing, not training.
Later in the morning, I talked privately for ten minutes on camera with the very gifted David R. Johnson (not David C. Johnson, who was also at the conference). NYLS is preparing a time capsule of views about the future of online gaming. David's questions were cogent, but I was completely exhausted and wasn't able to speak very clearly. (This conference is endless, but fascinating much of the time.) If I'd been able to talk, I would have said: more worlds will be walled; people will tend to play themselves. I did manage to say that we manage to ruin every paradise and are incapable of sustaining utopias. So it's very unlikely that we'll do better in online worlds. I also said that it's strange how few of the theory people here actually play games. Fourteen year olds are playing these games. Theory people say “interactive gaming is the most important development since the printing press,” but then go on to say that they don't play games online. Someone here whose business is selling virtual game artifacts says “this industry is small enough that everyone is here.” So that's nice. A great conference, and bravo to Beth Noveck.
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The Army claimed to be saving money by developing games as marketing/recruiting tools. America's Army sounded like a very expensive creation though. I thought the quizzing of the US Army guy who spoke about the game was a bit off track because the questioners seemed to be assuming that America's Army was created as a training tool, which it certainly was not (as the presenter noted). Personally, throughout the US Army's presentation, I was thinking “what sort of person would want to join the Army after their virtual player gets fragged repeatedly in this game?” The presenter said the game was supposed to represent situations you may find yourself in were you to join the Army…well, count me out, I got nailed every 2 minutes when I played America's Army.
It is well known that the army has been using specially created simulations, much like games, to train soldiers for years. Not to mention their importance in the creation of the internet in general, via DARPA. Perhaps the conference atendees disapproved of their motive in creating America's Army because it is meant for the general public, but I see it as a predictable extension of something they know how to do very well–make games and recruit for a volunteer army.
There seemed to be a general antipathy for the US Army at the conference, which wasn't altogether surprising, especially after the comment about training us to speak spanish before they send us to Camp X-Ray (was it because of the tough questions?). We should applaud them for dumping money into these technologies. There are worse things they are
spendingwasting tax dollars on.As a marketing tool, I wonder how the price of America's Army compares to sending out bass booming customized Hummers to college campus' in their recent attempt to recruit hip young kids?
This was a great conference, my thanks go out to the organizers!