What Can Virtual Worlds and Games Do for National Security?

Dickerson, John, Subrahmanian. "What Can Virtual Worlds and Games Do for National Security?" Science 326.5957 (2009): 1201-1202. Brigham Young University-Scholar Search. Web. 23 Feb. 2010.

The authors of this article are professors in the Department of Computer Science and Institute for Advanced Computer Studies at the University of Maryland. In this article they describe how virtual games and models are used by the military to simulate different battle scenarios and predict the outcome of each scenario. Each scenario and its possible outcomes are then analyzed to determine which has the most favorable outcome. This is beneficial because it makes for more informed decision making, and keeps costs and casualties down. The benefit of video games and simulations are not the same across the board; Games like World of Warcraft and Second Life are not beneficial because they do not model real-world situations so therefore they do not provide valuable knowledge or information.