Which of the very popular digital war games is made by the US military?

[Connie Weber]

Somewhere in my recent reading I found out that a very popular game was made by the US military with the idea of recruiting the age group and mindset that would be suitable for the military. It was news to me. I mentioned this to my son (who plays a lot of games, even has gaming-parties with a circuit of friends) and he wanted to know which game and what my sources were. Can't remember where or how I found that out. Can you help?

[Nathan Lowell]

Are you thinking of this one? http://www.americasarmy.com/

[Connie Weber]

Hi Nathan,

No, that's not the one I heard about. It's driving me nuts, can't remember where I read it. Someone I was talking to said it was covered in radio show (NPR?), with the overall topic being games. Did I hear it on a radio show or did I read it? Aurgh. I remember thinking the voice who said it was authoritative, someone to listen to (Chris Dede? Henri Jenkins?). My reaction was one of mild surprise and then a realization of how much sense it would make--the whole idea is to gather in a huge audience who would see the advert banners that would flash up as the games were being played. So that's why the military hired in (or themselves created, can't remember that part either) such fantastic game designers.
I'm still on a hunt to retrace this knowledge-bit that came my way that I didn't adequately store for future reference.

And that points to a trouble with this information age, this time of waterfalls, deluges of knowledge-input. How to keep track? How to sort? How to manage inflow, outflow... Curious puzzles, curious adaptations required. (BTW, maybe I'll ask you to be my e-mentor on this. It would be fun enough just because I know I'd drive you crazy by not being set up with organized RSS feeds--I've heard you rant about that, and yes, I'm one of those... and I'm sure I'd learn a lot--would love to see how an online master in information management sets up the flows... ;-)

[Nathan Lowell]

Here's the transcript from December 28, 2005.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5072275

The mentor lesson here is "use what you know to fill in what you don't."

You knew it was NPR. You knew it was a video game. You knew it was the army. That's really all you need.

Search google for "npr video game army" and it pops right up.

This is less "flow" than "search."

The question is whether or not you consider 2005 "recent" ...

There was this item from last week which seems less about popular games as the use of games in recruiting: http://topics.npr.org/article/0h0YfR55KK9MR?q=Dillard%27s

And from July this article on Six Days in Fallujah: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111145909

That's an interesting story because of a cross check against it noting that the NPR story is very similar to a Fox News story (that bastion of clear and concise reporting) and that the game maker is owned by a consortium of investors which includes a venture capital firm funded by the CIA: http://nprcheck.blogspot.com/2009/07/radio-games.html