US Army targets gaming market for potential recruits

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The U.S. Army has unveiled a sponsorship deal with the Global Gaming League website estimated to be worth around $2 million USD. Beginning in June of this year the organisation will subsidise a "national gaming" area in an attempt to lure some of the site's 9.2 million paying players (who play titles ranging from first-person shooters to baseball) to sign up as its newest recruits. The Army hopes to attract males between the ages of 17 and 24, the demographic that makes up some 80 percent of the gaming site's population.

“The consumer model for traditional media is changing,” said Gary Bishop, who oversees Army marketing and advertising. “We’re grappling with the challenge of how do we better use new media to tell the Army story. Online is probably the best way.”

Players in the national gaming area can compete for prizes and rankings in a total of 15 games. Top players can move onto the upper rung of the competition ladder, facing off against one another in the service's America's Army videogame. From those, some will compete in a monthly Elite Forces tournament, with the chance to win the opportunity to try out the U.S. Army's sophisticated computer simulations of real-life combat. Joy.

The American military must meet monthly recruitment targets, so this massive leap into the realm of videogaming is being seen as a big push to aim for a huge, largely untapped market. But is portraying the life of a real soldier through a videogame simulation really the most sincere way to convey the dangerous life of a would-be grunt as part of the U.S. military?

“We’re taking the idea of military gaming and having the Army leverage an existing environment to find potential candidates for recruits,” said Reuben Hendell, CEO of MRM Worldwide, the agency tasked with creating the specialised games section.

Players can opt in to receive Army information when they register for the games.

“Once their hand is raised, we’ll pursue it,” said Anders Ekman, an executive VP with MRM. “There’s a pretty hefty associated with this.”

http://www.gamersquad.com/category/PC/US-Army-targets-gaming-market-for-potential-recruits/


US Army to sponsor gaming league; Destructoid moves to the moon photo

04.13.2007

The US Army, as seen in Pauly Shore's seminal masterpiece In The Army Now*, has always been on the forefront of the effort to convince trigger-happy, emotionally unbalanced gamers to enlist, and to that end, they have devised many pixel-based strategies; from the creation of the America's Army FPS, to their newest venture, a government-sponsored partnership with the Global Gaming League, they have excelled mightily in the realm of spending tax-payer's money to fill our barracks, at home and abroad, with the same people who spend their days on Xbox LIVE calling each other f*gn****rs, and overdosing on Mountain Dew.


Game Almighty brings us word of the sponsorship deal the Army has set up with the Global Gaming League, and the quotes within the piece are enough to convince me to move to Canada. For instance;


The Global Gaming League is a gaming community site that blends game news and play. Founder Ted Owen describes it as “ESPN meets MySpace for gamers. Video gaming is a culture. The Army has been a very forward thinker. They get it.”

Starting this June, the Army will sponsor a “national gaming” area as a way to tap into the site’s 9.2 million players per month of everything from shooter games to pro baseball. The goal of the sponsorship deal is to find potential candidates for recruitment among the prime 17 to 24 year-old male demographic that makes up roughly 80 percent of the gamers on the site.

“The consumer model for traditional media is changing,” said Gary Bishop, deputy director of strategic outreach for the U.S. Army. “We’re grappling with the challenge of how do we better use new media to tell the Army story. Online is probably the best way.”

According to Bishop, the new sponsorship deal presents an opportunity “to tell the Army story. It’s not all about combat. Being in the Army is about driving trucks, welding, nurses and computers. If we have an opportunity to tell the Army story, we may have better influence.”
http://www.gamealmighty.com/story-individual/story/US_Army_to_Sponsor_Global_Gaming_League/


I do concur with Mr. Owen on one point: the army has a rich history, and a detailed story that should be told, remembered and revered by all the people who have benefited from the sacrifices made by soldiers throughout the history of the US. I get the feeling, though, that any efforts the Army is making to tell that story through video games are going to leave out all the parts about having your head blown off by an Iraqi sniper, or the fact that you very rarely get to respawn after you die.

In the end, this is a very thinly veiled attempt to convince children, who aren't even old enough to drink whiskey, that they ought to risk their lives for their country. I'm not one to say that they should or they shouldn't, but I have a gigantic soapbox, and that soapbox told me last night that these underhanded recruiting tactics are really creepy. After reading this whole thing, I felt like I had to go take a shower.

http://www.destructoid.com/us-army-to-sponsor-gaming-league-destructoid-moves-to-the-moon-30962.phtml



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/bigtree

[mzteris]

1. those ads are disgusting.

Worse than "Joe Camel" or the singing Budweiser frogs.

TARGETING CHILDREN is just wrong.

[Captain Hilts]

2. they've done this kind of thing for DECADES.

Dungeons and Dragons players, gamers, etc.

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3. yeah

I'm sure there was someone as far back as caveman days who used cave drawings for recruiting purposes.

This is the latest abomination.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

4. TV watchers... movie goers...

But usually this winds up being an attack on video games.

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5. This usually ends up being a defense of video games

instead of the obvious problem with the military targeting our youth for their dirty wars.

'US Army Sponsoring Online Gaming' bothers me as well.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

6. A defense of video games?

I've always seen it in attacks on video games. Not that it's ever a good argument, but it's there.

In threads on the "dangers" of video games there's always some loser who shows up complaining about:

"Oh yeah! Well the Army uses video games to train and recruit people! That's how deadly video games are!"

[bigtree]

7. aren't you defending video games (and slamming opponents of them)?

instead of addressing the targeting of our youth for their dirty wars?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

8. Pretty much.

Would you like me to return to the discussion of recruitment, and complain about those Army commercials they air in theaters before movies?

[bigtree]

9. absolutely

other than the military spending our taxpayer money to subsidize these games, *and the targeting of youth with these cartoon appeals, there really isn't any political argument to be made here.