America’s Army 3 Software Manager On The Troubled Launch

26 Aug 2009 at 12:27:34 by Andy Alderson

The software manager for America’s Army 3 has spoken to IncGamers about the game’s troubled launch earlier this year.

The original civilian development team was released the day after the game launched and there were a number of major problems which prevented users from playing the tactical shooter.

IncGamers questioned America’s Army software manager Marsha Berry about the launch and a former staffer’s rant concerning the “impossible deadline” and culture of “misinformation” surrounding the game.

“The contractor development team was on task from the government to develop the initial version of the AA3 game which was completed in June,” said Berry.

“All of the developers we had working on the contract that ended in June were very valuable to the AA3 game and we appreciate all the hard work that each person contributed.  When the development team’s contract ended some of the team members were offered new jobs with the core AA Platform Development Team (PDT) located at Redstone Arsenal.”

The disgruntled former developer also expressed doubt that the new team would fare any better, something which Berry contests.

“A team of Software Engineers and Developers at Redstone Arsenal has been managing and assisting in the development of the public game since 2005,” she said, “so we are well prepared to handle the future development of the game.”

Berry also told gamers what to expect in upcoming patches:

“The next release will fix some training bugs that we have identified and then the following release will fix some of the achievement logic issues that we identified at launch,” she said. 

“Those are the two main outstanding items we identified, based on community feedback, that need to be addressed.  The game is very stable at this point.  Many high priority and stabilization issues have already been addressed and pushed out to the community via Steam or the Deploy client.  The next patch is scheduled to come out shortly and at that point, we will begin to reset the training.”

There is also a long term strategy for the game, Berry revealed. Find out what’s in store and check out our review.

Read the full interview with Berry here.

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