Gaming trends: industry has yet to crack government market code.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: WARGAMING

The collective perception of the video game industry is that defense and homeland security remain largely untapped markets.

Insiders believe it is only a matter of time before government decision-makers fully appreciate the potential of gaming technologies as training tools.

A mix of cultural barriers and misconceptions about gaming make many companies reluctant to seek government business. The upshot is that the military and homeland defense establishment could be missing valuable opportunities to improve their training, experts contend.

"We need more program managers in the Defense Department who understand gaming, and what they can and can't get from the technology," says Ben Sawyer, chairman of the 2006 Serious Games Summit--an annual event that was created to promote the use of gaming technology in non-traditional markets such as government and health care.

"The biggest thing holding us back is a lack of understanding between developers and program managers," Sawyer says.

Only a handful of companies have been able to "figure it out" and thrive in the military market, he says. Many other companies--which prosper in the commercial entertainment industry--choose to stay away from the government sector because they perceive the "serious game" market as humdrum and bureaucratic.

"We need more capacity ... more companies involved," says Sawyer.

One hurdle for the industry to overcome is the widespread belief, particularly in military circles, that games create a false sense of reality because they don't rely on "accurate models," Sawyer says.

"Critic try to paint a broad brush against the technology," he argues. The truth is that expecting game designers to build accurate models may not be the best use of their talents.

Training-oriented games for military users, for example, are most effective when they challenge the player's decision-making skills under high-pressure situations. If the customer wants the game to also have accurate models that replicate the battlefield exactly as it is in the real world, they have to understand that what they are asking for is not what typically game companies do.

"Game developers are good at building representative models based on imperfect information," Sawyer says. If the goal is accurate models, they have to clearly communicate that requirement to the developers.

"I'm telling clients that sometimes we need to purposely stay away from realism," Sawyer says. Skills such as team building or decision-making...