War in a Sandbox

One of my first postings had to with some of the ways people have already begun to play with the idea that games can be used to solve real problems. In my personal views, I prefer violence in video games rather than outside of them, but war is real and probably will be for a long time. In war, like almost anything, there are problems for example with war there are soldiers who must be trained requiring ammunition, trainers, and most importantly, actual land to practice on. Space to train soldiers has become a big issue. Army Col. Anthony D. Krogh spoke to the American Forces Press Service saying, "We have a lot of soldiers coming home to stations here in the United Staes, and...we don't have enough terrain in many of those places to train those soldiers out on live ranges." Luckily, for them, there's a game for that.

The video game that is most widely used for its success especially when calculating the cost versus usage aspect is called Virtual Battlespace 2 created by the Bohemia Interactive Studio. One of the most realistic and detailed specific virtual world designed for war. A large number of people can play at once whether they play on land, sea, or air. Lifelike happenings take place. Intricate and complex buildings and places may be destroyed, and the weapons work as true to themselves as far as a video game can currently do that. Krogh talked about having one battalion in real space while the others go into the game which is now being referred to as "constructive simulation". In a game most people are are equal in combat, unless someone is of a higher level,  which may throw some skeptics off thinking that you may not run as fast in real life as you do in the game or other thoughts of the sort but the Army is coming up with a new system that tracks real world data of an individual that syncs into the virtual environment or world. If someone is only a marksman then in the virtual world tried to become a sharp shooting expert the percentage of shots hitting and killing someone would drop because that person has no experience in that area.The same goes for physical test. If the player doesn't have do that well in the PT test then the avatar will not run as fast as other players who have higher PT. According to Krogh, this has assisted players realize that they have to increase their PT because they are getting left behind. He said, "I would say within the next two years we’ll be able to put many of these capabilities in place."

But a realistic experience is not the only use this game has to offer. The best practice is where a person can see how, where, and why the mistakes were made, which is exactly what a module called after-action review (AAR) does. It "records every player action, bullet path, explosion and vehicle movement for a detailed examination of the training mission" said Krogh. It shows what needs work and in what areas does the certain individual need to focus on.

Krogh optimistically stated," Despite the progress the Army is just getting started."
Do you think that future simulation can get to the point where people once would have thought it to be science fiction? Where are these games going to take us? A big question would be, will people believe war to be a game? (A more humorous thought would be if countries had war through a video game)

Pellerin, P. C. Defense Department, (2011). Army warfighters go digital to hone skills . Retrieved from American Forces Information Service News Articles website: http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SFL2086-0-4692&artno=0000314164&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=Virtual Battle Space 2&title=Army Warfighters Go Digital to Hone Skills&res=N&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=Y&ic=N
Fun Fact: In video game lingo, a sandbox style game generally refers to a large (sometimes massive) open world, free to roam game.
Let's keep playing!