MMOWGLImania and some thoughts on purposive social media

The impending online playtest of MMOWGLI (the “Massively Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet,” developed for the Office of Naval Research) continues to draw considerable media coverage. One of the most recent contributions is an article in yesterday’s Washington Post: To combat Somali pirates, the U.S. Navy has relied on warships, snipers and SEAL teams. Now, it [...]

Serious games and teaching intelligence analysis

Kris Wheaton, who teaches intelligence studies at Mercyhurst College, is among those who have used serious games in the classroom—in this case, to help students develop and sharpen their analytical skills. He also writes about it on his excellent blog on intelligence matters, Sources and Methods, which is very helpful for the rest of us too. As [...]

World Bank = gaming geeks?

One might be excused these days from thinking that the World Bank is becoming the Games Workshop or Electronic Arts of international financial institutions. They have the Carana simulation on fragile and conflict-affected countries (which my PaxSims co-conspirator Gary Milante moderates). They have the award-winning Evoke game that Jane McGonigal designed, intended to “encourage [African] [...]