“It might be virtual, but it is not a game”. The statement holds true as I read the article by Rita Boland. In the article, Boland explains how the new game called Virtual Battle Space 3 is used by armies for their training and decision-making process. It is a game where soldiers can create avatars that best represents their ability and their physicality. I thought it was just a hoax until I googled pictures of VBS3 and found armies using this game.
Army playing VBS game
It turns out that the US Army Soldiers actually use this game to measure and plan army missions. They can train to use weapons like machine guns. This game also helps them to get certifications such
as marksmanship qualifications or special weapons training and personal performance data such
as physical training scores.
Members of Company K, 3rd Battalion,25 Marine regiment, Marine Reserves, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, rehearse live-fire operations, and practice call-for-fire missions using the Virtual Battle Space III (VBS III) simulator.
What I find astonishing is that they also ran side-by-side comparisons of what capabilities the soldiers included in the games and what they actually are capable in real life. The statistics came out to be 95% correct. The squad leaders can use the inputs put by the soldiers and determine which squad or part fits the best according to their ability. It can also give information on when the soldiers are active and passive. So, this game has solutions to real life problem of Armies.
This seamless game portraits real-life virtual environment and they can decide on giving out decisions on specific tasks. I see this as a future of our world where everything is virtual and people can train and have the real-life simulation in a virtual environment. I believe there will be a time when we won’t even need schools because we will learn from the virtual environment games like VBS3. We are not far away from that time.
