2008 Forecast for Gamers
A BANNER YEAR: SERIOUS GAMES ARE FINDING A HOME IN THE SERVICES’ TRAINING TOOL KIT.
The demand for serious games as learning tools is surging throughout military services in the U.S. and overseas. While the volume of start-up projects being launched across the military departments has garnered much attention, other developments have largely gone unnoticed, including the scope of training missions that will be supported by this technology and the community’s early efforts to implement standards and other technical guidelines.
A number of companies have their sights fixed on continuing to expand the market and addressing technical challenges in 2008.
SURGING GLOBAL DEMAND
“I can say that military demand exceeds our capacity to deliver customizations,” observed Nils Hinrichsen, director, marketing and customer service, eSim Games. Through these heady times, the company’s focus remains the continued development of its single product family, Steel Beasts Professional, to enhance its core competencies — that include the development of tacticaland crew-procedure trainers.
One current eSim Games activity is preparing to deliver a prototype for a new entry-level simulation for the Spanish Army’s mechanized infantry units equipped with the ASCOD (Austrian- Spanish Cooperative Development) Pizarro infantry fighting vehicle (IFV). “We were to develop a replication of the major functionality of the Pizarro’s fire control system, its arrangements of internal instrumentation (and replicating its functionality) so Steel Beasts Professional can be used as a desktop gunnery trainer as well as for constructive simulation and war gaming at company up to battalion level,” observed Hinrichsen.
Another recently announced eSim Games project will supply the Danish Army with a customized Steel Beasts Professional product that will be an entry-level simulation for CV9035 IFV crews. The first vehicle from this program was delivered to the Army Combat School this fall.
Also for 2008, the company expects new releases for the Australian Army, follow-on developments for the Spanish Army including its Leopard 2E main battle tank, and shoring up its artillery model.
Bohemia Interactive Australia’s recent projects involve existing and potential customers in North America. One priority project is developing the next release of VBS2–VBS2 Virtual Tool Kit—under contract to the U.S. Marine Corps. “This is a 12-month development project to enhance the VBS2 Simulation Engine and Tool Suite to provide a range of new and enhanced features including, but not limited to, destructible buildings, destructible terrain, rapid terrain development and support for cultural awareness training,” remarked Pete Morrison, general manager, Bohemia International Australia. The VBS2 Virtual Tool Kit is scheduled for release in March 2008 and will be a free update for U.S. DoD users of VBS2.
The company is also supporting the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) for Exercise Winged Warrior, in which VBS2 is the primary simulation used for a helicopter mission simulation exercise. “Bohemia Interactive has modified the VBS2 helicopter flight model and implemented support for very large terrain areas (more than 200-by-200 square kilometers in size) under contract to the CAF. VBS2 is generally used for ground-centric collective training, and this is the first time VBS2 has been used in an exercise where flight simulation is the primary focus,” added Morrison.
Another page from Bohemia Interactive Australia’s prospective business ledger is a proposal to update DARWARS’s Ambush! to VBS2 across the U.S. Army. Several years ago Bohemia Interactive developed the game engine behind Ambush!–Operation Flashpoint. VBS2 represents a quantum leap in capability with rapid terrain import, integrated after-action review, run-time authoring and other features, when compared to the legacy product.
EXPANDING THE LEARNING AUDIENCE
Serious games are not the exclusive domain of combat arms units. The services’ combat support and combat service support branches and first responders will continue to use these games as learning tools for individual and unit training.
Engineering and Computer Simulations (ECS), Inc. provides serious game solutions across a number of DoD missions. One evolving program will train the principles of Tactical Combat Casualty Care under the guidance of the U.S. Army Medical Department Center & School, Department of Combat Medic Training.
“This project is being leveraged into the One Tactical Engagement Skills Simulation (OneTESS), through PEOSTRI, to develop the Mobile Medic Application,” said Brent Smith, vice president and chief technology officer, ECS.
The Mobile Medic Application uses commercial gaming technology running on a handheld PDA and merges serious games with a live simulation to allow combat medics to virtually treat casualties generated by OneTESS. “Both applications leverage commercial gaming technology to create an environment where combat medics, combat lifesavers and eventually all soldiers can practice their battlefield medicine skills in the context of a game where they race against time to overcome the various challenges associated with providing medical care in the continuum of combat,” added Smith.
ECS also recently won a $30 million contract with the National Guard Bureau to develop the Joint State Response Training System (JSRTS) which relies heavily on serious game applications. Addressing another evolving attribute of serious games, the JSRTS program uses Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming technology to power a 3-D-persistent virtual environment where local, state and federal entities can all interact.
BreakAway is rapidly moving forward to develop new tools and models to add to its mosbe development platform. “Our goals for 2008 will be to add capabilities for incident command and emergency response management, allowing our customers to plan and rehearse homeland security exercises,” said Doug Whatley, founder and chief executive officer. And he added, “We are also working to ensure that the tools we have developed on the mosbe platform—our world-building and scenario editing tools in particular—will integrate with other models used by the military, making our platform as flexible as possible.”
One U.S. DoD training priority seeks to more fully include the C4ISR training audience and this mission in Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) and service training events. Help appears to be on the way through serious games.
Calytrix Technologies’ LVC Game has been an essential part of the connection of VBS2 to command and control systems, particularly C2PC (command and control personal computer) and FBCB2 (Force XXI Battle Command Brigade and Below). “This highly innovative work, connecting VBS2’s 3-D visualization with military command and control systems, was first accomplished by Army personnel at the National Simulation Center, Fort Leavenworth, Kan.,” explained industry veteran Damon Curry, international sales manager, Calytrix “They’ve since gone on and bundled VBS2 and LVC game into a program they call CITE,” he added.
Forterra Systems’ core On-Line Interactive Virtual Environment (OLIVE) software platform supports applications in military, homeland security, intelligence and medical missions. Of particular note, OLIVE is helping to expand the virtual envelope in medical care. “In addition to OLIVE supporting military training, those responsible for medical care in combat, hospital and rehabilitation are turning towards virtual worlds in which to treat and provide a rehabilitation environment for behavioral disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome and recovery from traumatic brain injury,” remarked another industry insider, David “Bart” Bartlett, director, marketing and business development, National Security Division, Forterra.
MORE REALISTIC TRAINING
One knock against serious games—perhaps owing to their recent genesis from entertainment products—has been an absence of fidelity in attributes, ranging from a lack of realistic behavior by physical objects, to inactivity or unrealistic actions by non-player characters in scenarios. Industry will dramatically bolster the fidelity of its products in 2008.
Military trainers around the globe are attempting to more fully integrate their programs into the embryonic Live, Virtual and Constructive (LVC) training environment. LVC-based training is the foundation of JNTC, the Australian Defence Force’s Joint Combined Training Centre and programs in other nations. Integrating serious games into the LVC environment is on the agenda of at least one industry team.
“One such COTS solution is Calytrix Technologies’ LVC Game, which provides fully bi-directional integration of VBS2 and Steel Beasts into any Distributed Interactive Simulation (DIS) or High Level Architecture (HLA)-compliant synthetic training system,” explained Shawn Parr, managing director, Calytrix. Parr also pointed out that through this integration, “serious games like VBS2 can extend the reach of the first-person environment to the broadest possible audience, allowing the training outcome to engage both the individual in a highly realistic 3-D scenario while simultaneously exercising higher command. Such integration promotes communication and increases the realism for all training participants.”
Other training applications envisioned by LVC Game include the engagement of a higher command to manage the battle space, the call for joint fires and the streaming of highly-realistic UAV imagery.
“To date we have seen VBS2 integrated with JSAF [Joint Semi- Automated Force], OneSAF [One Semi-Automated Force], JCATS [Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation] and a score of other similar systems. With enterprise license of VBS2 and LVC Game already in operations within the Australian Defence Force, New Zealand Defence Force, U.K. Ministry of Defence and U.S. Marine Corps, we anticipate seeing serious games being rolled out more extensively in future LVC training activities,” concluded Parr.
Other efforts to improve the fidelity of serious games and extend their utility beyond training are also on the way.
“We will be adding in new features and upgrades that make our model more robust—damage models, altitude control for air vehicles and pathfinding,” remarked BreakAway’s Whatley.
BreakAway’s mosbe product is also allowing its customers to develop custom simulations for experimentation and mission planning. “Mosbe has been used as a demonstration tool for proof-ofconcept of the Future Combat System and for visualization of the Joint Terminal Control Training and Rehearsal System,” explained Whatley. He continued, “The DARPA Information Exploitation Office (IXO) used mosbe to create an engaging demonstration of their advanced sensor concepts and capabilities for their booth at DARPATech. The Institute for Defense Analyses has used the mosbe platform to help their customers evaluate new sensor concepts of operations and deployment considerations, and we’re currently working with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab on experimentation projects.”
The adage “train as you operate” can be realized by virtually bringing together the training audience that will conduct a mission together. One ECS priority for 2008 will enhance its games’ networking capability and take advantage of many of the advances within the high-performance computing space.
“For example, within the JSRTS program, if a WMD event goes off, we should be able to allow all relevant agencies to work together to respond to that event,” said Smith. “This equates to hundreds if not thousands of individuals. However, the logistics of getting everyone within the system goes against the ‘anywhere anytime’ training paradigm that JSRTS is trying to promote. So while we build that networking capability, we also need to build the Artificial Intelligence to support the various required roles in order to allow individuals and small groups to train,” added Smith.
Forterra is also eyeing a more capable OLIVE program through upgrades. “One of the key areas is Artificial Intelligence and crowd modeling that will improve the simulation training experience,” noted Bartlett. Other improvements are advanced Avatars to include physiology models for combat medical training, weapons effects, larger Avatar base with children and older adults, along with new application programming interfaces to import legacy simulations and databases. “We will also look at increasing our Distributed Scenario Reply along with after-action review capabilities,” he added.
OLIVE 2.0 is expected to be released later this fall or in early 2008.
BOLSTERING THE FOUNDATION
Despite the flurry of activity in product roll-outs, serious games are at the same developmental point that the modeling and simulation world was at about 10 years ago with respect to addressing fundamental technical issues including the establishment of standards and specifications. In the absence of DoD policy or best practices on how games should be used, industry is forging ahead to ensure some level of conformance to standards exist within rapidly evolving product lines.
ECS is one company that is tying its serious games to Web-based courseware and Sharable Content Object Reference Modelconformant Learning Management Systems.
“We continue to build both types of content for both our military and corporate clients,” observed Smith. “We are particularly proud that we are game-engine agnostic and domain agnostic. This means that we have experience building serious games using different engines and can build content to support a range of training domains. In the past year, we have built serious game applications to help train and practice critical thinking skills on the battlefield, procedure-oriented games to support checklist maintenance and launch procedures for unmanned aerial systems among others.”
Other serious game vendors are also embracing HLA and DIS standards. eSim Games also expects “to maintain and expand the current HLA and DIS connectivity via Calytrix Technologies’ LVC Game gateway,” remarked Hinrichsen. ♦