It first appeared that it was just the PC game ported to XBox. There's no real development there, just a porting cost. The Army developed it, and makes no money for that. However, if it's not the same game, then I suppose a good chunk of the money is, and should be, going to Ubisoft. But if it's just a port, of a game that's otherwise free on the pc, no one should be making much money on that. I'm guessing that since it's cross-platform though, Ubisoft is probably getting a lot of licensing fees. From the commercials on TV, you'd think it was all Microshaft's doing, and that it probably cost them nothing. I still don't think a game using the title of America's Army should cost a dime though, since the PC game was developed as a free game, anything on a console under the same name should be free too. If it's too expensive to port it for free, well, tough, don't use the name America's Army then, since no one should be making money from that. It's illegal to sell copies of it for the PC, since they intended it be free, it just seems wrong to profit from it on a console.

And by the way, the _reason_ it's free in the first place is because we already paid for it. Taxpayers paid the programmers who developed the pc version, so it doesn't make sense to charge the public again, save for the cost of a distribution media. That's why most people got their copy from PC Gamer Magazine or just downloaded it.

Well from what I understand, it seems that the Xbox 360 version has a pretty decent single player campaign, not just training missions like the PC version did. I did play the PC version a bit, and it seemed like those training missions were the only single player experience, while nearly all of the real gameplay was online. So someone had to do some extra work like level and mission design, AI, other things of that nature.

Yeah, I've noticed that since my original posting, and because someone else has worked on it, besides the US Army, I don't see it right to label it with the same name.

Hmm, the army probably shouldn't have let them ubisoft use it. The game uses the UT engine, which is designed for portability. Porting it to xbox probably took one or two weeks.

I agree it seems like taxpayers are getting ripped off.

So maybe it's Ubisoft and not Microsoft this time screwing people over. I'm tempted to e-mail one of them and ask what the costs for publishing actually were.

How are the taxpayers getting ripped off?

Perhaps it is because the government is picking up the development tab and someone else is making money off taxpayer's money. An example that might be similar is me collecting a toll on 18th street.

And the fact that taxpayers are essentially paying twice for a game if they choose to buy it.

Except that we payed to get it on PC. There we can DL it and play it. That's what we payed for. Not to port it to XBox. If Ubi-Soft hadn't taken it and ported it, it probably wouldn't have gotten to the XBox, because of the licensing. So basically we're getting more options because of what they did, and more options is always good.

Ok, but that still doesn't apply to my first reason. If I pick up trash on a state road, should I be allowed to take a toll?

The point is that ubisoft is making out like a bandit. They get a free game, make a few changes, and are able to sell for a potentially huge profit. Now, if everyone was able to sell this game, then I wouldn't have a problem. If ubisoft can get away with selling America's Army, then I should be able to sell it also.

People do it all the time. All those mapping companies you see out there, the ones that provide aerial photos and stuff... for most of them all they do is take images that the government has compiled and sell it back to the consumer. That's what happens when there is something in the government (pretty much public) domain. Someone gets ahold of it, changes it a bit, and then sells it to make a profit. Welcome to capitalism.

Except that America's Army is not public domain. Welcome to reading my post.

Where do you say that and where do you get it from?

The game sucks. It doesn't matter.

Maybe because I looked at the software license?