Gaming helps soldiers get battlefield training from the safely behind a video screen. © Forterra Systems Inc.

The U.S. Military has always been a hotbed of animation — the first modern graphics boards were developed for military simulators, and the first 3D programmers and animators created models and movements for enemy aircraft to train our pilots. The three military services spend billions every year on animation-related services and products (termed M&S, for modeling and simulation) for thousands of 2D and 3D environments, for training, weapons design and policy studies. So why is there such an interest by the military in entertainment-style games? Why was the Army a chief sponsor of the Serious Games Conference last year, and why were people in uniform such a constant presence at the recent Game Developers Conference? Why is the Army seeking partnerships with videogame companies, while one of its training games, America’s Army, is about to come out on PlayStation 2 and the Xbox?

Background: Military Simulators
To understand the military interest in entertainment-style games, a few words on the nature of military simulators are necessary. An early simulator such as an F5 aircraft trainer consisted of a very detailed cabin — almost an exact replica of the aircraft — and a large dome or screen with enemy targets moving across. The user, generally a pilot candidate, was normally alone, learning to get comfortable with myriad controls while watching out for, and engaging, targets. These simulators were very expensive — at 30 or $40 million a piece, they often cost more than the actual aircraft. In addition to the big aircraft simulators, the military also developed smaller simulators, called PTTs (Part Task Trainers), which were built with parts of an actual weapon system and taught a specific function, such as loading a 155mm artillery shell into a howitzer, or firing the main gun of a tank. All of these simulators were essentially isolated — there was no networking, little communication with the outside, and most of all, no “backstory” — any and all elements of a Hollywood-style story, with character development, a plot and person-to-person contacts and social interaction, were missing, as was any concept that using simulators should be motivating or fun. Although thousands of people worked on simulations for the military, they were unaware of their entertainment industry brethren; they used different 3D toolsets such as MultiGen (see www.multigen.com) instead of common Hollywood animation toolsets for gaming and special effects such as Maya or 3ds max, and went to their own industry graphics show, the IITSEC (Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation & Education Conference , see www.iitsec.org) instead of the GDC or E3.

The military was happy with its simulators for some decades, until two things happened that radically changed the picture. The first was the development of SIMNET (SIMulation NETwork). Developed for DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), this was the first time that manned simulators were networked together, first by the dozens, then by the thousands, using the Internet, which DARPA had also created. SIMNET also pioneered many new concepts, such as the use of distributed computers (each simulator created its own 3D action, instead of waiting for a centralized computer to render and transmit such sequences) and the use of COTS (Commercial Off The Shelf) equipment — suddenly simulators could be made far more cheaply, using Radio Shack CB radios for $50 instead of actual military radios for $50,000, for instance (which in turn allowed many more simulators to be built). AI (Artificial Intelligence) was also a major part of SIMNET, to steer SAFORs (Semi-Automated FORces), so that one player could control many vehicles and troops, obviating the need to have every simulator in an action be physically manned. With the networking of many warfighters around the globe, playing both friendly and enemy forces, social interaction suddenly became common, and the need for comprehensive backstories to describe what everybody was doing was born.