US Spies Use Custom Video Games for Training

Wired reports that the US Defense Intelligence Agency has just acquired three PC-based video games which they will use to train the next wave of analysts. The games are short, but they have branching story lines that change depending on how a trainee reacts to various problems. Quoting: "'It is clear that our new workforce is very comfortable with this approach,' says Bruce Bennett, chief of the analysis-training branch at the DIA's Joint Military Intelligence Training Center. Wired.com had an opportunity to play all three games, Rapid Onset, Vital Passage and Sudden Thrust. The titles may conjure images of blitzkrieg, but the games themselves are actually a surprisingly clever and occasionally surreal blend of education, humor and intellectual challenge, aimed at teaching the player how to think."

Comments

2.6 Million?

[Aranykai]

It cost them 2.6 million to get 3 ~90 minute training games made? Hot damn! I need to get me some government contracts.

Re:How to Think

[keysersoze_sec]

It's even more true for younger generations who grew up interacting with all kinds of pictures, playing video games at an early age. Some specialists argue that future generations may have trouble trying to focus on a particular subject for a long time. However, they may become more capable of addressing several problems at the same time.

out of curiousity...

[TrebleJunkie]

...what are the eight principles/questions of intelligence analysis, as mentioned in the article?

Spies?

[oodaloop]

These video games ara not for spies, they are for intelligence analysts - NOT the same thing. I am an all-source military intelligence analyst and instructor by trade and I do not do any spying. Spies are collectors; they do not need training in critical thinking, analysis of competing hypotheses, logical fallacies, biases, ad infinitum. Anyone at the DIA who calls himself a spy has watched too many Bond movies and/or is just trying to impress chicks. And the authors of this article should have known better. This is why we get new analysts who are disappointed they're not going to be James Bond. Hell, they're not even going to be Jack Ryan.