America's Army

[Quall999]

So, has anyone played this game that costed US tax payers $6.3+ million?

Seriously, it is nice to see how the government is taking something so popular, such as online gaming, and turning it into propaganda for kids to join the army.

This game is almost 3 years old, but the whole "6.3 million" thing is kind of disturbing to me.

Any opinions about that?

[Niphty]

Originally Posted by Quall999

So, has anyone played this game that costed US tax payers $6.3+ million?

Seriously, it is nice to see how the government is taking something so popular, such as online gaming, and turning it into propaganda for kids to join the army.

This game is almost 3 years old, but the whole "6.3 million" thing is kind of disturbing to me.

Any opinions about that?

The game prolly costed a total of around 2000 man hours. The military keeps budget in a funny way.. a friend of mine explained this to me when I asked him the very same "X millions on a game?" question. The example he gave back was simple.. the "150 dollar hammer".
In rough (as I don't remember it piece by piece) - The base needs a hammer. One must be bought at a local store, as it's needed now. So someone gets permission to actually get said hammer (red tape here). Then they drive off base, get said 1.50 item, and return. They then get to work with the new hammer.
Now, the base tabulates this as actual cost + time lost. Due to the worker having to put in the request, go off base, and get the item, then come back.. his time spent is added in. Add to that the time of anyone else he had to bother from their other work.. and you find out you've paid for 4 hours of work in a 15 minute drive. Thus, the hammer costed the base 150 dollars worth or cost and time.
The AA game runs on the UT engine, which everyone knows how easy it is to mod. The game itself has seen several overhauls and moved to the newest UT engine recently. So the actual purchase of rights for the UT engine, manhours of coding and recoding, time spent in meetings, on and off base, meetings with the UT staff, etc. Playtesting and internal QC, testing at army bases.. well, lots of man hours But, that's how the price was determined for the game. 6.3 Million did not actually get spent making the game.