“America’s Army.” Considered one of the most successful government-related games, “America’s Army” is an official Army recruitment tool that lets users experience what it’s like to be a soldier. The online game plays like many console-based action games and has nearly 4 million users worldwide. Try it at www.americasarmy.com.
BreakAway Games Ltd. Founded to develop sports games, the company now does a significant amount of work for the government. It recently developed a game called “Incident Commander” for the Justice Department that will teach first responders about new protocols. The project cost $200,000, but it will go out to 30,000 municipalities, which for an additional feecould have the game tailored to their areas. Learn more at www.breakawaygames.com.
Darwars. A project at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to apply persistent, massively multiplayer, online gaming principles to training. See www.darpa.mil/ dso/thrust/biosci/training_super.htm. One of the first companies to work on Darwars was Cambridge, Mass., simulation company Mak Technologies Inc. Learn what Mak does at www.mak.com.
Institute for Creative Technologies. ICT was formed at the University of Southern California to develop active learning systems. In 2003, its games project spawned the Defense Department’s “Full Spectrum Command,” which was recently ported to Microsoft’s Xbox game console. Learn more at www.ict.usc.edu.
Serious Games Summit. The first summit, an offshoot of the 2004 Game Developers Conference, was held in San Jose, Calif., in March. It was such a success, organizers have turned it into its own conference, scheduled for Oct. 18 and 19 in Washington. To learn more or register, go to www.seriousgamessummit.com.
ThoughtLink Inc. Founded by former researchers at the Institute for Defense Analysis, the company has done simulation and gaming projects for DARPA and is conducting a study for DHS on effective methods of computer training. Learn more at www.thoughtlink.com.
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. The Washington think tank’s Foresight and Governance Project co-founded the Serious Games Initiative to study the use of games in the public sector. It hosts workshops, such as last February’s “Game-based Learning Models and Simulations: Expert Blueprints for Project Success.” Learn more at wwwics.si.edu and www.seriousgames.org.
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