MMOWGLI Leverages Video Games for Military Intelligence

The U.S. military is gearing up for its next public game MMOWGLI, introducing a fresh concept that presents real-world problems to players and lets them offer solutions to progress through the game.
MMOWGLI Leverages Video Games for Military Intelligence
Joshua Philipp
5/11/2011
Updated:
5/12/2011
The U.S. military is gearing up for its next public game, introducing a fresh concept that presents real-world problems to players and lets them offer solutions to progress through the game.

The game, simply referred to as a Massive Multiplayer Online War Game Leveraging the Internet (MMOWGLI), will begin with a scenario on how to deal with Somali pirates. The first pilot run of the game will last three weeks and launches on May 16.

It is best described as an advanced, interactive, crowdsourcing project that seeks solutions on how to deal with problems and presents them in the form of a game.

Although it will be played as a game, the ideas players come up with and the outcomes will be considered for actual solutions to real-world problems, “enabling the game controllers to tag data for later retrieval and analysis,” stated the initial proposal for the project released on Nov. 12, 2009.

“Beyond that, MMOWGLI is ultimately the answer to a few questions, ones that haunted me every day during my tour as a science adviser at the Pentagon: why did I experience such a disconnect between technologists and ‘innovators,’ on one hand, and warfighters and end users on the other? Why didn’t ‘game changing innovations’ generate more enthusiasm from those who were ‘in the game?’ And what was I doing to make it better?” wrote Garth Jensen, the director of Innovation at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Carderock Division, in a blog post at Armed with Science.

Jensen, who is leading the project, said a speech on alternate reality games was the spark “that grew into MMOWGLI,” adding it “showed me a world where alternate reality games were being used to engage the imaginations of thousands players to harness fresh insights. ... Redefining how we look at technology horizons. ... And where the notion of innovation as a social phenomenon was moving to the fore.”

According to the proposal document, the game will start with a strategic planning stage, where players across the Web attend an International Anti-Piracy Conference. Players will be set into different working groups facing different aspects of the piracy problem, and will “address activities related to military and operational coordination, information sharing, and the operational role of the regional coordination center.”

The second and third parts will include carrying out an actual mission against virtual pirates, with teams tasked with working together, and finally moving ashore to help “the Somali Transitional National Government and Puntland officials restore order and the rule of law,” set up a Somali Coast Guard, and give humanitarian aid.

The game will pull from a pool of users throughout the “ranks of academia, defense, and government and nongovernment organizations,” according to a Navy press release.

It states the issue of piracy was chosen for the initial launch to show it can be used for any scenario. The first three weeks is meant to show what the concept could do.

“We hope MMOWGLI will help us to understand what happens when your insights are combined with the observations and actions of another player,” said Dr. Larry Schuette, ONR’s director of Innovation, whose office is managing the project, in a press release.

The concept is still new, and even developers of the program are waiting to see what the outcome will be.

“I’m eager to see how network dynamics, social media, and collaborative tools can reshape the way we approach volatile global security problems,” stated Institute for the Future (IFTF) Research Director of Human-Future Interaction Jason Tester, on the IFTF website, one of the groups behind the program.

The MMOWGLI will build on the military’s collection of games, used for nearly everything from training to recruitment.
Joshua Philipp is an award-winning investigative reporter with The Epoch Times and host of EpochTV's "Crossroads" program. He is a recognized expert on unrestricted warfare, asymmetrical hybrid warfare, subversion, and historical perspectives on today’s issues. His 10-plus years of research and investigations on the Chinese Communist Party, subversion, and related topics give him unique insight into the global threat and political landscape.
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