"Attention! Videogames are a cost-effective investment for the US Army. The military spent $12 million making America's Army as a PR ploy to get kids playing soldier (for free!) again. Now the teen-rated first-person shooter has become so popular - 5 million PC users are playing for a combined 100,000 hours a day - that the Feds are cashing in and spinning it off. The Army has licensed the franchise to Ubisoft, which will release America's Army: Rise of a Soldier for Xbox and PS2 ($50) in August, and to indie toymaker Radioactive Clown, which is selling action figures ($13).

And the game is so realistic that other branches of the military are using it for training lessons.

Operation Spin-Off

Secret Service They can't shut down the White House to train, so the Secret Service used tech from the America's Army PC game to create a 3-D replica of the building for its agents to run drills in.

Navy Fire Support Overcoming the infamous rivalry between military branches, the Office of Naval Research developed an application with the A.A. game software to demo naval gunfire techniques.

Talon Robots The Army's Future Applications team is using the A.A. technology to put together a virtual training device for bomb-disposal bots being used in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Crows Turret Want to play with a remote-controlled machine gun turret for Humvees? After troops get this A.A.-based trainer, it will be added to the free consumer version (as will the Talon tutorial).

• John Gaudiosi (Wired)