Serious games in the Military sector?
The need for games in the area of military was recognised 30 years ago. Serious games offer practical benefits as training in military environments that simulate reality is often very dangerous, expensive, time-consuming, hard to plan and schedule, and cannot easily be repeated or reviewed (Ulicsak and Wright, 2010). Some games focus on developing practical skills, for example flying a helicopter. Others focus on strategic planning, decision taking, and communicative norms in military life.
ARMA 2 exposes users to ‘team-based combat’ and offers them opportunities to collaboratively practice military tactics and strategic skills. Another example is the virtual web-based environment of America’s Army , ‘in which players experience soldier development from individual and collective training to deployment in simulated missions’ (Ulicsal and Wright, 2010, p.41).
Johnson (2010) described the Tactical Language and Culture Training System (TLCTS), another type of serious game with direct application in the military sector. TLCTS engages users in spoken dialog with artificially created characters. Users, who are mainly soldiers, build experience on the way English is used in the location where they are about to be deployed. Cultural dimensions of communication are also introduced into the game including the local language, local culture, gestures, and more through immersive course-structured experiences.
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References
Ulicsak, M. and Wright, M. (2010). ‘Games in education: Serious Games’. Available online [1]
