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Gaming site is Army’s latest recruiting beachhead

NEW YORK — The Army is about to invade the online gaming community with an estimated $2 million sponsorship deal with the Global Gaming League Web site.

Starting in June, the Army will sponsor a “national gaming” area as a way to tap into the site’s 9.2 million players per month of everything from shooter games to pro baseball. It hopes to find candidates for recruitment among the 17- to 24-year-old males who are 80 percent of the gamers on the site — young men hard to reach with advertising.

“The consumer model for traditional media is changing,” says Gary Bishop, who oversees Army marketing and advertising. “We’re grappling with the challenge of how do we better use new media to tell the Army story. Online is probably the best way.”

GGL is a gaming community site that blends game news and play. Founder Ted Owen describes it as “ESPN meets MySpace for gamers. Video gaming is a culture. The Army has been a very forward thinker. They get it.”

It joins other advertisers who increasingly see gaming — sites and in-game product placement — as a cost-effective medium. In-game ad revenue was projected to reach $164 million in the United States last year and is expected to top $732 million by 2009, according to consumer tech researcher The Yankee Group.

The move comes as the Army aggressively expands its own online gaming presence, taking the “America’s Army” video game beyond networked game play to include a cell phone game, a coin-operated arcade game and a virtual combat trainer for soldiers. The highlight is the “Virtual Army Experience” — a traveling exhibition making stops at events like Speedweeks at Daytona International Speedway. Inside a 10,000-square-foot tent, visitors enter Humvee simulators with realistic weaponry and battle virtual enemies projected on video screens surrounding the simulators.

Players in the GGL national gaming area can compete for prizes and rankings in 15 games. They then can move into the top rung of competition with the “America’s Army” video game. Top players will face off in a monthly Elite Forces tournament. Besides winning video games, top players may win a chance to try out the Army’s sophisticated computer simulations of real combat situations.

“We’re taking the idea of military gaming and having the Army leverage an existing environment to find potential candidates for recruits,” says Reuben Hendell, CEO of MRM Worldwide, the agency that will create the specialized games section.

Players can opt-in to receive Army information when they register for the games. “Once their hand is raised, we’ll pursue it,” says Anders Ekman, an executive vice president with MRM. “There’s a pretty hefty (goal for leads) associated with this.”

While the Army has met its monthly recruitment goals through traditional media during the Iraq war, Bishop says the gaming deal presents an opportunity “to tell the Army story. It’s not all about combat. Being in the Army is about driving trucks, welding, nurses and computers. If we have an opportunity to tell the Army story, we may have better influence.”

Theresa Howard writes for USA Today. Military Times staff writer C. Mark Brinkley contributed to this report.