Bohemia Interactive is best known for its ArmA series of combat sims and the standalone version of the borderline masochistic DayZ mod, but you may be surprised to learn that the company has had an outpost in Australia since 2001, with its primary focus being Bohemia’s Virtual Battlespace product (VBS).
Designed for the military, VBS is now used by the armed forces of the US, Canada, Sweden, the UK and of course, Australia. Recently, Bohemia’s local arm expanded its operations to provide a “dedicated training facility” at the Williamtown Aerospace Centre in NSW.
According to a press release from the NSW Government (the facility was helped along by the Regional Industries Investment Fund), the new digs will also be used for customer support and software development.
VBS is kind of a big deal. Support offices exist in multiple countries and pretty much anyone with a military is keen on it:
“The software is ideal for first-person tactical training and mission rehearsal, a very unique capability in the military simulation sector,” Mr Stephenson said.
The company recently launched the latest iteration of the software — VBS3. “We’re already seeing significant interest in what we can offer from military and defence organisations throughout Asia — including Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Singapore,” Mr Stephenson said.
In many ways, Bohemia Interactive Australia, or BIA, is a distinct entity from its Eastern European mothership. The release mentions the company actually snapped up a license from Bohemia to develop VBS — and its sequels — and over the years has become the “standard for military simulation across the majority of NATO partners”.
Military Training Game Company Expands into Williamtown Aerospace Centre [NSW Government]
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6 responses to “ArmA Developer’s Australia-Based Military Spin-Off Expands Its NSW Operations”
What exactly are the differences between Arma and VBS? Seems to me that they’re effectively the same product.
One’s for fun and the other is for training troops, there’s a lot of stuff that is different with VBS but it’s difficult to explain. Just look it up and you will find out.
VBS has no ‘game’ elements (campaign, story) and has more tools which focus on scenario creation, monitoring and after-action analysis. It’s targeted for training purposes and can be customised to the requirements for the military body employing it. As far as I know they’re very different products which have little in common these days.
VBS totally de-games the software, is much more malleable in terms of custom missions etc, it also has support for numerous hardware inputs not available for consumer use. There may be other differences but that’s what I know.
Oh ok. Cheers.
I was in Port Stephens not long ago and I trundled past a glass door for an office labelled Bohemia Interactive. Wonder if that was them. Well, I could look for myself. Could.
here is what the military use it for. it looks FUCKING AWESOME
http://youtu.be/hCGK2V6uXLE?list=UUD8bmW4A7eYzHrW7sXwsqwQ