Not Just a Game

At any given time, Norrath — a virtual nation in the world’s most popular online game, EverQuest (everquest.station.sony.com) — has up to 60,000 e-citizens of 13 races and a per capita gross national product just shy of Russia’s. For years, games like EverQuest were dismissed as pure entertainment. But the increasing sophistication of online gaming ...

At any given time, Norrath -- a virtual nation in the world’s most popular online game, EverQuest (everquest.station.sony.com) -- has up to 60,000 e-citizens of 13 races and a per capita gross national product just shy of Russia's. For years, games like EverQuest were dismissed as pure entertainment. But the increasing sophistication of online gaming is now encouraging governments and private industry to use games in serious professional and policy applications.

At any given time, Norrath — a virtual nation in the world’s most popular online game, EverQuest (everquest.station.sony.com) — has up to 60,000 e-citizens of 13 races and a per capita gross national product just shy of Russia’s. For years, games like EverQuest were dismissed as pure entertainment. But the increasing sophistication of online gaming is now encouraging governments and private industry to use games in serious professional and policy applications.

Video game advocates such as Ben Sawyer, cofounder of game developer Digitalmill (www.dmill.com), say games are effective, real-world tools for modeling systems and exploring human behavior. For instance, international trade games allow college students to tinker with details and challenge conventional assumptions about the North American Free Trade Agreement. Other examples are detailed in a report that Sawyer recently released in cooperation with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on the future of "serious games" (wwics.si.edu/foresight/game/index.htm). At the forefront are training simulations that provide military officials or civil servants (such as air traffic controllers) the chance to practice responding to different scenarios. The U.S. Army, which has been exploring links between the realms of defense and video game entertainment since at least 1996 (see report at bob.nap.edu/html/modeling), uses variations of these online combat games as recruitment tools at www.americasarmy.com.

The site, unveiled last July, allows players to fire M24 and M82A1 sniper rifles, parachute out of C-130 aircraft, and carry out swamp missions as an Army Ranger.

The Army says its online games are a "public service" — an increasingly common theme in the corporate and nonprofit worlds. Consider www.supershagland.com. Developed by the British nonprofit educational foundation K-Generation, Super Shag Land advocates safe sex and hiv/aids prevention. Since launching Super Shag Land in November 2001, K-Generation says it has reached 125,000 people with its game, during which naked characters trying to get lucky win points by gathering condoms and lose points by drinking alcohol.

Pavani Reddy is a Charlottesville, Virginia based writer.

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