Army Game Project's Chris Chambers On America’s Army - Jason Dobson

When it comes to serious games, few – if any – have managed to garner as much attention and publicity as America's Army, the US Army's first-person shooter for the PC. Designed to serve the dual role as both a tool for entertainment as well as recruitment, America's Army has gone on to surpass most expectations regarding the title's potential for success, even going so far as to be ported to the ported to the home console market as well. Recently we had the opportunity to speak with Chris Chambers, the game's Deputy Director, to get more insight into the rise of this extremely popular serious game.

Hi Chris. Thanks for taking the time to speak with us today. Could you give us some background as far what your role was and continues to be with regards to America's Army?

I serve as the Deputy Director of the Army Game Project, which includes the America’s Army game. As such, I manage many game project activities such as development, marketing, public relations, finance, integration of the project in other Army brand activities, and uses of the America’s Army technology into Army training applications. I started in this position in June 2001, and began to build the game organization needed for the launch of the game product in 2002.

What game-related projects had you worked on prior to coming on board with America's Army?

Prior to managing America’s Army, I was an active-duty Infantry Officer in the U.S. Army.

As an Infantry Officer, I served in a variety of positions to include Platoon Leader, Company Commander, Operations Officer, Peacekeeping Force Liaison, and Battalion Executive Officer in units in the U.S., Germany, Egypt, and Afghanistan. I also served as an economic analyst as the Deputy Director of the U.S. Army’s Office of Economic and Manpower Analysis (OEMA). At the U.S. Military Academy (West Point) I served as an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Department of Social Sciences.

So, my professional experiences prior to America’s Army were in leadership and analytical positions based in military, mission-oriented organizations. Other than training on Army simulations, I had no professional game related experiences – none of our military staff did.

How have those projects compared with what you have experienced on this project?

I believe that all of my military and academic experiences helped prepare me to manage the game activities of the Army. The Army Game Project is part of a military agency with concrete missions, so the military experience of the leaders of the project is essential.

The Army Game Project essentially acts as a business in most important respects, and carries all of the associated business challenges of any company (operational, financial, human resource, production, strategy, etc.) So, the business training I have in my background (Wharton MBA) is also being put into practice.

Taking a look back at the early days of the project, what were the overall goals of the America's Army brand and associate applications?

The Army started this project as a means of connecting with America, using pop culture as the medium. Originally, the mission focused entirely on the successful development and launch of the PC game product alone. Today, the brand has been extended into a variety of additional products, all of which establish new touchpoints with young people.

Embedded in the original mission was a concept that continues to drive the project still, namely to create an opportunity to provide young adults and their influencers with virtual insights into the range of Soldier experiences. The game uses online technology to place a great deal of information about the Army into a voluntarily consumed popular culture medium and thereby reduces the information search and assimilation costs for information seekers.

To what degree do you feel that it has been successful?

Extremely successful. Since its launch, the game has placed Soldiering front-and-center within popular culture. Players are typically in the Army’s target message demographic and have spent more than 160 million hours virtually exploring the Army. America’s Army consistently ranks among the top PC action games played on the Internet worldwide, and has accumulated more than 7 million registered players. It has been selected or nominated for over fifteen awards ranging from Computer Gaming World Editor’s Choice award to the Billboard Digital Entertainment and Media Excellence award for Advergame of the Year.

Recruiters report that the game is a very valuable communications tool in connecting with young Americans. They are using the popularity and exploratory value of the game to create their own local recruiting events. Leaders in recruiting have noted that the game connects with Gen X and Y like no other tool.

Independent survey results have found that America’s Army is the Army’s most effective sponsorship effort for reaching young Americans. Twenty-nine percent of young Americans ages 16 to 24 reported that the America’s Army game is one of their leading sources of positive awareness about the Army.

Out of the public eye and reach, the Army Game Project has led a successful effort to repurpose the America’s Army technology and select content for creating educational, training, and visualization applications. Game assets have been used to produce effective and engaging virtual learning for Force Protection, Adaptive Thinking and Leadership, Convoy Survivability, as well as applications ranging from mission rehearsal to modeling advanced weapons systems and fire control systems, and the list continues to grow at a rapid pace.

Have these goals shifted since the game's release?

The success of the brand has led us to pursue the creation of more touchpoints in other product markets. As a result, expansion into console, wireless device, and arcade games, as well as initiatives such as the America’s Army Real Hero program, are all underway.

Simultaneously, the success of the technology in rendering highly realistic scenarios made it possible to create game scenarios for other purposes. To date, the Army has several training applications in use or under development for Soldier use, all of which offer leap ahead improvements in training effectiveness. The America’s Army game is rapidly becoming a platform for training and this effort will continue to be a significant growth area for our team in the future.

Recently we spoke with Robert Brown at Pragmatic Solutions, during which he spoke about how America's Army has grown beyond being just a U.S. application, and has thus become a global phenomenon. In your mind was this always part of the game's underlying design to reach beyond a U.S. Userbase?

Clearly, the internet is a global forum. So, internet based games are also global, causing us to always factor in the potential messaging implications involved with foreign audiences. When foreign gamers play America’s Army, they see that American Soldiers operate within a value-laden organization. This aspect of the Army message is very important for global, as well as national, strategic communications purposes.

What has surprised you most about the success of America's Army?

The pace at which the success of the public game has grown has been extremely surprising and satisfying. I recall that we set the first year goal for registered users at 1 million (described as unrealistic at the time by some industry experts), but we were able to surpass that number in the first few months. Ever since, the growth continued at an exponential pace.

The other great surprise is the interest that the game has engendered in the press. America’s Army seems to be a perennially interesting good news story. There have been over 2700 articles written about the Army Game Project, from business, marketing, training, and pop culture angles. Ever more stories are possible as we expand the game into a variety of new and efficient serious applications for the military and government.

What would you say was, or perhaps continues to be, the most significant challenge you have experienced during your time on the America's Army project?

The most significant challenges come from the fact that America’s Army is required to be a nimble, cutting-edge, business-like organization but within the context of being a government entity. As such, there are countless challenges in funding, accounting, legal, contracting, administration, and human resource aspects that are very uniquely challenging. Fortunately, we have worked through all these issues, but we expect many more.

Finally, thank you again for taking the time to speak with us today. Is there anything else you would like to add that we have not touched on?

Only that I am particularly proud that the Army Game Project has proven that the U.S. Army has internal organizations that foster creative thinking to accomplish any mission. We have had the privilege to create a superb multi-functional team from scratch, in order to build a superb game/messaging device from scratch. In the process, I think that America’s Army showed the world that the Army can take the lead in refining and defining a robust technology.

Further though, our success shows that the U.S. Army will accomplish any mission assigned to it. In this case, the needs of Strategic Communication and Recruiting have produced leaders and innovators outside of traditional military arenas, in the areas of marketing, public relations, and other business functions.

So, keep watching the people of the Army Game Project….there are many more innovations on the way.