David Bowman - CEO & Creative Director of Tulga Games' Horizons: Empire of Istaria spoke with Stratics today about their Horizons Military Appreciation Program which recognizes and appreciates the efforts of the men and women who have volunteered to be part of the United States military, by providing all new and existing Horizons: Empire of Istaria accounts created using the .mil email address used by military personnel and families, a second CD key added to the account for free.

Essentially, the idea is to provide military personnel and their families another method of communication, while they are stationed away from their families.

Stratics: What gave you the idea to create such a program and why?

Bowman: The idea grew out of several overlapping events. I was recently playing Horizons, chatting with a player from California who did not know who I was, when another player who was playing a dragon flew over and landed beside us. The dragon said "Hi, Mom. How is everybody?" The dragon was being played by her son, who was in military training on the east coast of the United States. They were using Horizons as a way of chatting, and of getting together for fun while a large distance separated them. This reminded me of an earlier similar experience that I had had while working on Asheron's Call.

The next day, Carl, one of our players who is in the military, was talking with me in IRC about the military. I asked him for some suggestions about how to reach out to military families and provide a method for them to play together inside of Horizons. We knew that some of our existing players were in the military, and that they would sometimes contact us to suspend their account until they were back from deployment. Carl did some investigating and came up with several suggestions, but the one that was feasible for us to do without requiring us to require documentation (which was way outside of our scope) was to just let military families use their .mil email address when setting up the account.

I was born on a military base just outside of Death Valley. My mother would talk about the isolation and the long times when my father was abroad. That was the background setting for this. My mother is a very strong woman, but I could always hear the hurt from that time. Her brother Mike volunteered for Vietnam, and re-upped through the end of the war. It doesn't matter at all what you think of Vietnam, my memories are of the family at home wondering how he was doing, was he alive? Scanning the images of dead soldiers on the evening news for a glimpse of him. We've come a long way technologically since my father and uncle were in the military, but families are still separated, and often isolated. The question was: What can I do to help?

Stratics: Why do you think there is a need for other methods of communication such as this?

Bowman: Letters, photos, emails, and phone calls are all great. But they can't let you play with your kids. Persistent worlds like Horizons allow people to get together and DO something together, even when separated by thousands of miles. They are the next great form of communication and interaction.

Stratics: Do you think there will be a great response? How has Tulga Games prepared to handle the response?

Bowman: I've already gotten the best response I could have hoped for. I've received emails from military personnel thanking me for thinking about them and their families. We realize that in many cases, the deployed military members won't be able to access a computer or the Internet, but we've done our side, and they appreciate the acknowledgement of their situation. I hope that we can get the word out to military families that this is available, because many do not know they can play in a world like Horizons. We have the capacity to handle more players if there is a positive response, but the goal is truly to facilitate the ability for separated military families to play together.

Stratics: What obstacles did you have to overcome to implement this program?

Bowman: Once we realized that we wanted to do this, Dennett (Ingram) was able to provide the programming support very easily, since it fit within our existing subscription system. We are not a huge, multi-national company with great resources; we are a small, focused, family-like, small business. By making the program email based, we didn't end up needing to integrate our systems with some agency's database. This meant we could implement without dependency on others. We expect there to be some mistakes in getting out emails for existing players, since that is the most complex portion of the process, but any problems can be resolved by contacting us.

Stratics: What was the military or JAG response to this?

Bowman: Rather than attempt to create a program that integrated with any official military system, we chose to make the program unilateral and passive. We aren't asking for anything from the military other than publicity to their members. Our system simply chooses to add an additional CD key to otherwise normal player accounts if they have a valid .mil email address. If they choose to not use their .mil address, that is fine, we are not trying to coerce anyone, we simply want to provide this as a free upgrade out of a deep respect for military service.

Stratics: Have you received any feedback yet?

Bowman: As I mentioned briefly before, I'm already satisfied that we are doing the right thing based on the overwhelmingly positive response. We've received some criticism for not including other international organizations and I wanted people to know that this is just the first program that we are offering. I also spent over two years in Ecuador with the Peace Corps, and I realize there are other ways that people have chosen to contribute to their countries. Horizons: Empire of Istaria is an international product, with players from around the world. If we can find ways to create programs for the families of others who have contributed to their countries and as a result are separated for long periods of time, we will.

Games CAN BE complete time-wasting, anti-social, isolating experiences, but they can also bring people from around the world together... I want to facilitate that positive effect. We don't have four million subscribers; we can't afford to do many things outside of "work on improving the game," but we can afford to do this one thing, and hope it is not exploited to hurt Horizons. I mentioned the Peace Corps, my wife was in Canadian Crossroads, and I know there are many other programs that are voluntary, that separate families and that are international... I just need to know how to verify participation within our resources.

Stratics: Are you going to track feedback by putting up a players screenshot gallery? Or share that information?

Bowman: We have to be very careful to make sure that this is just a respect program. We are not tracking these players because I don't want any possible way for their participation in our program to be misused. We have a voluntary, player-moderated forum at http://community.istaria.com where players share screenshots and even real-life photos.

Stratics: Feel free to add anything else you wish to. I am all for promoting support for our troops.

Bowman: Our implementation of this program is in response to a need among families. If other companies want to grow this as well, then that would be the best possible outcome.

Stratics: Thanks once again for speaking with us, David!

Interested readers may find out more about the program by visiting the official Horizons website at http://www.istaria.com/military. Players can also contact Horizons at support@istaria.com.

September, 2005
Carolyn "Sylvene" Koh