America's Army has been deployed on many platforms.
America’s Army has been deployed on many platforms.

DEC. 9, 2009 • Following a successful Freedom of Information Act request, GameSpot reported that the U.S. Army has spent $32.8 million on its America’s Army recruitment title in the 10 years since 2000. The game is free to play on the PC, while Ubisoft publishes console versions on various platforms.

Impact: Considering the success of America’s Army and the cost of high-end game development, the amount spent on the product is surprisingly low.  Could it be that the U.S. Army could actually teach developers something about cost efficiency?  Of course, we would wonder how much of the cost was actually amortized across other Army initiatives.