Well, most of the thinking public should be very well aware that war is a hell of a bad thing. In many ways it is the conglomeration of everything bad and evil that humanity is capable of. Unfortunately, war seems to be a necessary evil in so many ways. The notion of a “just war” is a tricky one and one whose ethical and humanitarian intricacies are well beyond the survey of my current topic.

I am an avid gamer. I am aware that war-games are not in any manner actually significant representations of war or soldiery, despite many of their publisher’s and publicist’s claims. There is a certain collegiate or fraternal sense of belonging to a squad or a team in a battle for an objective but it is really an empty representation in so many ways as war itself carries the potential price of one’s own life, one’s friend’s lives and in the worst case scenarios - the lives of everyone someone cares about and possibly their very way of life as well.

In the virtual reality of online gaming wars I have been an enthusiastic member of the Project Reality community here in Australia. I was reading some commentary on the Australian PR community’s forums about America’s Army which has just released version 3. As it it turns out it is a somewhat rushed and bodgy version of the game. The production team was shafted by middle and upper management and this letter from an ex-developer (of the now defunct production house making the product) appeared on the official game forums:

I worked as a Dev at AA Emeryville for the last year and a half and I hope I can appeal to your rationality and common sense. I would like you to imagine trying to build a game with an impossible deadline, steadily declining workforce (via firings), A hiring freeze, constantly being fed misinformation, having the “higher ups” completely ignore your weekly plea for either A) more time, or B) more manpower, working a ton of unpaid overtime, pouring your heart and soul into a misadventure only to have the uniformed community scoff at you for uncontrollable variables..... RIGHT when you’ve just lost your job.

There are problems with the release beyond the devs control. In fact, the bureaucracy is so convoluted that you can’t even begin to imagine the breadth and scope of B.S. the devs had to deal with daily. in short, imagine being the subcontractor of a subcontractor of a contractor to the government. Sure Millions of dollars may have been poured into this project, but how much do you think made it to the actual DEV team, the people MAKING the game, after it was filtered by the bureaucracy?

I realize if you are a gamer, you rightly expect a game to work. period. But I would ask that you imagine for a second that you actually DON’T understand what it takes to make this particular game, and you really don’t understand the many obstacles that were placed in front of the Devs... in nerdy terms: A Kobiyashi maru.

What I would like you to understand is that the Devs did everything they could, worked a TON of unpaid overtime, put their time and passion into an un-winnable situation, and were effectively stabbed in the back. Many of these guys are my close friends, they have family to take care of, and overpriced rent to deal with. They just came off busting their butts for months, to be let go, without warning. Perhaps a little empathy is in order here.

Almost every multiplayer online game has problems upon release. These problems become exaggerated when a development team is kept in constant turmoil and paranoia via misinformation and a high rate of employee turnover. When the people you trust around you are being let go, it becomes difficult to emotionally invest yourself in the titanic sinking ship. Nonetheless, I can tell you the Devs STILL pushed themselves as hard as they could.

Furthermore, the problem with the game at this point, has everything to do with the authentication servers being slammed, A.K.A not a controllable variable by the Devs. Sure there are bugs, they WERE being fixed, and now you’ll be lucky to see any fixes in the near future.

For those of you who think Redstone arsenal will do a better job, well.... I won’t have to tell you that you’re sadly mistaken because you’ll see for yourself.

I’m not sure why i’ve felt compelled to write this when I’m sure it will get deleted, or even scoffed at further, but I hoped to let the fans know that we tried as hard as we could and are very bummed to see the fruits of our labor shoved at gamers like a heaping pile of crap.

(Of course, this letter was also removed toot-sweet by forum moderation.)

If you read that you can perhaps see that the very military bureaucracy which has fluffed this project has unwittingly self-represented itself and it’s internal administrative errors and inconsistencies to the world - perhaps backfiring any effective use as a recruiting tool of this product for a thinking audience.

Of course a lot of people just don’t think and it would appear that this kind of personified intellectual vacuum may be an ideal recruit for America’s Army. They could do a better job. In every sense.