Mac Gaming News - Army Drops Mac Version of America's Army || The Mac Observer

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Mac Gaming News - Army Drops Mac Version of America's Army

by , 3:55 PM EDT, April 27th, 2006

This week, Mac gaming programmer Ryan Gordon confirmed in his blog that the Army has dropped the Mac and Linux versions of its first-person shooter America's Army, which was created in 2003 to help military recruitment. While the Army officially ended development of everything but the Windows version at least a year ago, Mr. Gordon acknowledged that he had been allowed to keep working on the Mac and Linux versions on his own time.

He said, however, that the Army currently only pays him to maintain the Linux server for the game, with the Mac and Linux versions cancelled "several versions ago. Let's say it happened when GameSpy jacked their prices, but the port wasn't actually cancelled because of the GameSpy fiasco; while it definitely didn't help, the two events just happened to coincide."

GameSpy's licensing costs increase forced Mr. Gordon to pull that code out of the Mac version and create a workaround. "Sometimes the project is more important than the paycheck," he said of his pro bono programming work. At this point, however, he doesn't have the time to keep his America's Army work going, given the number of paying jobs he has.

"The Army, I think, probably sees these freebie ports as a nuisance, since they're almost always late, and all they see are complaints from the Mac and Linux users about delays in a project they thought they axed several releases ago," Mr. Gordon wrote. At this point, version 2.6 of America's Army "might still make it out the door; 2.7 probably won't."

However, he made it clear that Apple's release of Boot Camp had nothing to do with his decision, as some people on an America's Army forum thread thought. The Mac Observer is currently waiting to hear back from America's Army representatives regarding the decision to axe the Mac and Linux versions of the game, but responses to questions likely won't happen until next week. At that time, we will post their responses.

Observer Comments

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View Name:Guest
Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:20 pm Subject: America's Army

View Name:Guest
Thu Apr 27, 2006 10:54 pm Subject: This is Actually a POSITIVE for Mac users...

View Name:Guest
Fri Apr 28, 2006 7:11 am Subject: Party Posse/N*SYNC

View Name:Guest
Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:18 am Subject: I am in the Army and use a Mac

View Name:Guest
Fri Apr 28, 2006 8:25 am Subject:

View Name:Guest
Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:02 am Subject: Government Support Many OS

View Name:Guest
Fri Apr 28, 2006 10:54 am Subject: NASA uses a lot of Macs

View Name:Guest
Mon May 08, 2006 2:26 pm Subject: where can i download americans army the full game

View Name:Guest
Wed Dec 20, 2006 12:14 am Subject: Oh, Well

Close Name:tbone1 - TMO Staff Posts: 3960 Joined: 13 Jul 2001
Wed Dec 20, 2006 11:48 am Subject: Re: Party Posse/N*SYNC

Quote
Anonymous wrote:
Maybe MacUsers are a bit too free thinking for the army?

Please. Stop. I have several friends who've served in the military and they tend to be just as independent in thought as anyone else, often more so.

And why is it that free thinkers all think the same way? Odd, that.

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