Gaming Communities as a Simulation Tool to Fight Piracy on the High Seas

With all the 10s of millions of Americans playing online war games in gaming communities, it seems there is a tremendous amount of brain power being expended each and every day. These humans are learning to adapt, fight, strategize, and make decisions on the fly – with one goal in mind; to win, and, winning means scoring the most points, eliminating the most enemies, and surviving to fight another day, which does indeed sound a lot like the real thing – that is to say; war in the real world.Training the military strike teams using simulation works and is a wise use of such technology. From logistical work to the tip of the sword simulation and online community gaming should be tapped to do this training. That makes sense right? Sure it does it makes sense on so many levels, and thus, I am pleased to say that it’s now being done.In fact, there was a very interesting article published not too long ago in Homeland Security News titled “New Anti-Piracy Tool: 1,000-Participant Internet Wargame” published on May 10, 2011″ which stated; “The U.S. Navy is recruiting a community of more than 1,000 players from across the U.S. government to collaborate on solving real-world problems facing the U.S. Navy: high-seas piracy; the participants will be asked to suggest ways to combating piracy off the coast of Somalia.”In discussing this concept with a fellow think tanker, Troy Laclaire, we had considered who the participants are scheduled to be, and perhaps which groups were excluded, why, and even why they should have been included in this Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet or MMOWGLI. As you may well know, Troy is an expert on online gaming communities. Troy said he believed the idea was interesting yet also noted;They will be pulling players from “academia, defense, and government and nongovernment organizations”. Perhaps they need to setup such a system and allow for the average person to try it out. [This was they might] increase the talent pool, and perhaps get more solutions, [Also,] since they do say “nongovernment organizations” however, they should specify the type.Troy has also suggested that perhaps these gaming simulations should be played by both gamers and non-gamers. And those expert gaming folks may indeed be able to add value to this strategy and come up with an array of realistic solutions as well. All great suggestions indeed and so, I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.