Few people realize that the most advanced online gaming concepts are way ahead of the most mind boggling Web 2.0 concepts. Since gaming is also developing as a perfect convergence ground for multimedia, it will no doubt dominate the media discussions during the coming 10 or 20 years. Therefore, in my mind, I tend to classify many mmorpgs as Web 3.0.
Some of the most interesting technologies and gameplays for mmporgs have originally been developed by or for the U.S. Army. And now it seems that the military are learning from the social aspects of some of these same gaming concepts in consumer environments, in applications they use to train soldiers in the field, blending the digital and the real world.
This article in Technology Review describes the genesis and future state of ES3 ("Every Soldier a Sensor Simulation"), a video game developed by the U.S. Army Research and Development Command's Simulation and Training Center, based on the military doctrine that every soldier is a "sensor", much more able to identify threats and targets amid the chaos of reality than any machine. ES3 is heavier on social skills than on combat:
"In our environment of asymmetric warfare, you're trying to win the hearts and minds of people," says Lieutenant Colonel Raymond Compton, director of military operations at the Orlando center. "The last thing you want to do is to pull your trigger." [...] Players are evaluated on how well they gather and report information. ES3 [...] allows soldiers to upload digital photos of real-life details - say, an undocumented style of Iraqi dress - to the army's online ES3 network. If administrators approve these additions, they are incorporated into future play.
In the coming months, ES3 will be modified to include a sort of built-in language trainer, which will familiarize soldiers with common Iraqi phrases and symbols. "These aren't games," says Compton. "They're a new type of digital training."
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