Lt. Colonel Wardynski, game developer
What was the biggest hit at E3? Was it the new Matrox AIB, the unbelievable
new games from EA, Nintendo’s price cut, the Sony party, ATI’s R300
in the Activision booth running Doom III? Nope, none of the above. It
was the Army, the US of A Army to be specific. We kept running into
all these guys in full battle gear and we thought they were actors,
but there were so many of them. What’s up? Turns out these guys were
regulation GI Joes, the real thing and they even had a booth. We found
the Army camped out in the back of the North Hall, just off the Sony
booth, and it was the best attended, (packed might be a better word)
booth, showing a new game – “The Army.”
This is the brain child of Lt. Colonel Wardynski, a professor of Economics
at West Point. In 1999, while working on HR models he did some thinking
about who the Army is trying to attract — young men who are looking
for adventure and maybe a career. And what, the Colonel asked; do such
young men do in their spare time as civilians? Duh, they play first
person shooters, RPG, and strategy games. And what does the US Army
do for a living? Ah, well, sort of the same thing.
So Lt. Wardynski put together a business plan that demonstrated a $10
million, 3 year development program would pay off in ROI if it attracted
300 new recruits a year. Sounded doable and the good Lt. Colonel got
the go ahead. He built a team with 5 game developers, 5 artists, 1 audio
designer and about 5 other odd jobs people. Most of them are in the
army (the audio designer is Navy, and they got some civilian help) and
they did the work at the Naval Graduate School in Monterey, California.
Unlike most game projects, the U.S. Army game came in on time and on
budget. It will be introduced in July with two modules, Soldier
and Operations, and they’re planning more including Airborne and Special
Ops. The game will be distributed as a free download, in a free CD from
PC Gamer or Computer Game World Magazine.
Gives an entirely new meaning to the term war games, doesn’t
it?