Military Turned First To Serious Games, Now To Virtual Worlds

by on 7 December, 2007 - 18:27

Military are increasingly making use of virtual worlds for training

Via: The Washington Times - Military Sets Sights On Virtual World

Since
1997, when the Marine Corps used Software Inc.'s popular "Doom" game as
the basis for a training tool, agencies have experimented with computer
games for serious purposes.

The Serious Games Movement got a start in 2002 when the U.S. Army released the video game America's Army
as a free online download. That game was the first successful and
well-executed serious game that gained total public awareness. More
than 5 million people have become registered users.

The US government and military have turned to the game
industry for two reasons: lower costs and improved quality of user
experience.

Computer games cost significantly
less than a large-scale simulator in which trainees sit in a cockpit,
or another life-size system. What's more, games can be deployed
cost-effectively online. With simulators, the military must bear the
cost of bringing trainees to the simulators.

Games
by their nature are competitive, fast moving and entertaining. They
also tend to include better and more realistic graphics and games are
different every time they're played.

Now, U.S.
military and intelligence agencies are increasingly making use of
computer-generated virtual worlds for training, teleworking and trying
to predict human behavior.

The
capabilities of so-called synthetic world software have increased at a
huge rate since they were pioneered for the public by such games as
"SimCity" and "Second Life." Now, scientists working for the military
and U.S. intelligence want to capitalize on that notion.

The
U.S. Navy recently announced it was looking for a contractor to develop
"a highly interactive, PC-based Human, Social and Culture Behavioral
Modeling simulation tool to support training for military planners for
handling insurgencies, small wars and/or emergent conflicts."

According
to a procurement document posted online, the software "should be
game-based" and must be "flexible enough" to allow users to design
their own scenarios, maps and "unique situations" as "plug-in modules
to experiment and train with."

The
Navy project will join a growing list of programs seeking to leverage
the power of such complex simulation programs for a variety of purposes.

"There's
a real big push in the military for this kind of thing," defense
technology analyst and blogger Noah Shachtman told United Press
International.

Original post: http://elianealhadeff.blogspot.com/2007/12/military-first-turned-to-serious-games.html