Rumor: Layoffs hit America's Army 3 studio
by Randy Nelson 
{ Jun 18th 2009 at 10:25PM } 
If you're a US Army game developer, do you get laid off or discharged? In any event, Shacknews reports that the Emeryville, Calif. development studio responsible for the just-released America's Army 3 has been closed, its staff let go and future work on the series handed over to a different team at an Army facility in Redstone Arsenal, Ala.
Its official forums bursting with bug discussions, the free-to-play game's launch has, thus far, been troubled to say the least. If the team has been let go in its entirety, the question becomes: Who's going to fix the game? We've contacted AA3 HQ for an official comment.
Its official forums bursting with bug discussions, the free-to-play game's launch has, thus far, been troubled to say the least. If the team has been let go in its entirety, the question becomes: Who's going to fix the game? We've contacted AA3 HQ for an official comment.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LordToastington @ Jun 18th 2009 10:31PM
What exactly is wrong with the game? I'm genuinely curious...
Gibbeynater @ Jun 18th 2009 10:42PM
Offline mode is, as far as I can tell, bugged. I've continuously played the training levels, and I kept failing. As for online, yeah right, I'm gonna give the US Army my details.
thecheesypoofs @ Jun 18th 2009 10:45PM
It's a tad buggy right now. Nothing out of this world, but little things that get under your skin. It does need some polishing.
Example : I just tried to complete a training and the communication between client and server bugged so I had to redo that 3 part training. In multiplayer, there's lag. But hey, still a free title. Think the biggest issues are client-server communication.
Maybe there's bigger problems, haven't spend time in the official forums.
kevinski @ Jun 18th 2009 10:57PM
I played for less than ten minutes. In that period of time, I realized that the game wouldn't save changes made in the options menu, and the x-axis movement for my mouse stopped responding in the first section. I uninstalled it immediately after that. Really, I didn't care to figure out what ELSE was wrong with it.
Erick @ Jun 19th 2009 12:40AM
@Gibbeynater
Because the US Army has a looooong history of grabbing people out of their bed and sending them to Baghdad using info gathered from a free game for education and recruitment???
Um. Ok.
LordToastington @ Jun 19th 2009 1:18AM
Thanks for actually answering my question. Too many times have I been accused of being ignorant by others due to a genuine inquiry. If you're ever in Stonehaven, I'll buy ye an ale.
Amoveo @ Jun 19th 2009 3:26PM
@Erik
The Army being unscrupulous in its recruitment strategies? Nooooo. Why I never thought I'd see the day when such slander was uttered publically.
Imaginationac @ Jun 18th 2009 11:13PM
I can't even get the game to not freeze and crash. Had trouble with the Beta the few days I played that.
Ubiqutous Oxymoron @ Jun 18th 2009 11:16PM
Staff are not being laid off, it is called 'triage' :P
/end smartass mode.
Arkitekt @ Jun 18th 2009 11:55PM
The game itself doesnt have any major problems. The major problems (freezing, crashing, training results not saving) are a result from the massive traffic the Auth servers have had since launch. They were not ready for such traffic and as a result the game pretty much broke... many many players are pissed.
crookedcarrot @ Jun 19th 2009 8:03AM
There are no major problems, but the major problems are... ?!?
If the game is freezing, crashing, and not saving because of high traffic, then the game still has major problems. Guess what... you make a free game of this calibur, a lot of people will play it, expect high traffic, do something about it. You're the US government, throw money at it.
Duke @ Jun 19th 2009 12:50PM
Funny thing is that these problems mirror those the game had upon its initial release years back.
Anticrawl @ Jun 19th 2009 12:01AM
Don't worry FPS sim fans, Operation Flashpoint is coming to the rescue late summer/early fall.
Breakerchase @ Jun 19th 2009 1:58AM
You can already get a dose of tac sim realism in ArmA2, which is a direct spiritual successor to the original OFP and inherits its massive multiplayer and mod community.
gordo @ Jun 19th 2009 12:39AM
There's one bug that accidentally asks AND tells.
Chris Miller @ Jun 19th 2009 12:46AM
Layoffs eh? Based on the current quality of the game, I can see why. Just kidding, but sort of not. I know some of the issues will be fixed. Main one for me right now is the mouse jumpiness.
Einhanderkiller @ Jun 19th 2009 3:16AM
The quality of the game is the fault of the US Army's, not the developers. The Army doesn't really know much about how game development works and what kind of time the developers need. The previous America's Army games were a bit better since the Army was more hands-off with those projects.
Here's the story.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10388496#post10388496
http://www.americasarmy.co.za/forums/index.php?topic=1324.0;imode
Chris Miller @ Jun 19th 2009 3:28AM
I don't think the Army had much to do in the way of programming how the mouse controls the camera. That's really my only major complaint thus far.
Arkitekt @ Jun 19th 2009 1:30AM
The dev team was forced to release the game pre-maturely.. not exactly their fault.
As for mouse jumpiness.. adjust the mouse sensitivity in-game
Azariel_z @ Jun 19th 2009 1:37AM
America...F*ck yeah! ... coming again to save the motherf*cking day..yeah!...
Bobs @ Jun 19th 2009 2:58AM
My game won't get past the splash screen :(
It might be the new 9.6s that are screwing it up for my 4850 & Vista x64
Oh well, I can wait a bit for a fix I guess.
Arkitekt @ Jun 19th 2009 11:34AM
did you not read my post? the game ITSELF does not have major problems, the problems lie with the servers, which is seperate from the coding of the game.
And the game is paid for by taxes, not exactly a free game but free enough. The government sets the US Army's budget so the military cannot exactly just 'throw money at it' as you say, as well have you taken a look at the economy lately? I am sure that the current economic situation has affected the game as well.
DaisukeKiriyama @ Jun 19th 2009 1:02PM
I remember seeing some developer's blog post saying how they were rushed to release, and then having a lot of their team laid off that were actually working to fix these problems. He also stated that he felt that the new team won't be as successful.
I saw this last night and it probably got deleted since I read it in copy-paste form.