Iraq - The Computer Game

Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing out the Slate article called Iraq: The Computer Game, and subtitled "What 'virtual world' games can teach the real world about reconstructing Iraq." Written in a similar vein to an MSNBC article we covered a few weeks back, it looks in a bit more detail at how simulations "may offer useful lessons for rebuilding broken nations in the real world", mentioning the recent news that virtual world company There Inc. has been commissioned to create anti-terrorist training simulations, as well as Richard 'Lord British' Garriott's suggestion that "..games do clarify the essential rules for stabilizing a chaotic society."

Comments

Programmers for a Free Iraq

[kalamazoo904]

Friends! Americans! Countrymen! Lend us your code! I come to bury Saddam, not to praise him.

Seriously: the Slate article suggests that Slashdotters could code and contribute to the peace effort in Iraq. Plotz describes a needed update/upgrade to Kingmaker, an old 1970's computer game. Assuming someone could get rights (or reverse-engineer what must be a reasonably simple game, considering that it's a board game), what are the chances that someone could make an open-source version of what DoD and our friends in Iraq need?