Kotaku: Spies

Custom Video Games Training American Spies

ogood — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 13:00:00 MDT

Fascinating article on Wired.com — the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, the Pentagon's CIA counterpart, just paid $2.6 million for three custom video games to train its entire analyst corps, young and old. So, you want to bitch about $60 titles on the Xbox, think of that next time. Plus, these games are bereft of squad-based FPS tactics or any real arcade action. They're designed to get to the heart of epistemology, which is, in essence, how you know what you know, and in these three cases, it's how to assess a threat or judge the quality of information.

The three titles are called Rapid Onset, Sudden Thrust and Vital Passage, which is a Freudian trilogy if I've ever heard one. Seriously, the DIA's Bruce Bennet told Wired that the games are more effective than daylong powerpoint torture sessions at getting training and a message across. And I can dig that.

DIA aren't the only ones using video games to train analysts. The Army has a game training interrogators that is entitled "Intelligence and Electronic Warfare Tactical Proficiency Trainer Human Intelligence Control Cell," which is based on Far Cry's architecture.

Fascinating and enjoyable read, of course. And, ulterior motive, I know someone who also might kinda sorta do spooky intelligence shit and that person's monitored my Interwebs traffic before, so I'm wondering how soon after I post this that I'll get an email from ... oh Holy Jesus that was fast.

US Spies Use Custom Video Games to Learn How to Think [Wired]

British Spies, Found in Videogames

Mark Wilson — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 10:40:29 MDT

British intelligence agencies—specifically the Government Communications Headquarters—will start recruiting Xbox 360 and PC players of Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent through virtual billboards. So what is this organization exactly in charge of? Spy stuff. Cool stuff. Surveillance stuff. According to an agency rep, they are looking for recruits who are:

computer-savvy, technologically able, quick thinking...We find increasingly we have to use less conventional means of attracting people . . . to go beyond glossy brochures and milk-round stalls.

In short, they're looking to teabagging specialists. But before you get your hopes up, know that most of what they need are less with the knifey and more with the typey.

Why video gamers make the best spies [timesonline] Thanks Ad!

Citizen Zero Canned, Spy MMO Announced

Mike Fahey — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 12:40:00 MST

Once it was an MMORPG. Then it was a persistent world online shooter. Now it is so much poo gas, as developer Micro Fort 's crumbles up the 7 year old project and tosses it in the rubbish bin, while their other hand distracts us with news of a top-secret spy themed MMO.

Steve Wang - Head of Studios for Micro Fort commented, "Although we were sad to stop working on CZ, we are extremely excited about the progress of our spy project."

The new MMO looks to "bring the social MMO experience together with game-play that has been traditionally the domain of single player games," which incidentally exactly what the recently launched Heatwave Interactive plans to do. I'm beginning to think what I thought was a great idea is simply a common buzzphrase in the MMO industry. Either way, rest in peace, Citizen Zero. Michael Fahey

Micro Fort cancels Citizen Zero project - Announces development underway on new IP.

(Sydney, AUSTRALIA): - Micro Fort , a leading Australian developer of MMOs, today announced that it has cancelled development on the "Citizen Zero" project, with internal development now focused on a top secret spy-themed MMO.

Steve Wang - Head of Studios for Micro Fort commented, "Although we were sad to stop working on CZ, we are extremely excited about the progress of our spy project."

The top secret project has been in production since mid '06 with a core development team working out of Micro Fort 's Australian studio.

"We're not giving too much away at this stage," commented Micro Fort Lead Designer, Paul McInnes, "Obviously our new project is a spy-themed MMO, but it incorporates new game-play elements and technologies that we are really looking forward to delivering to the public."

Steve Wang added, "We are at an exciting crossroads where many new game-play styles and experiences have become possible in virtual world environments. This is a great opportunity for us to leverage our 7 years of development in the MMO space to bring the social MMO experience together with game-play that has been traditionally the domain of single player games."

Micro Fort will be making further announcements in the coming months with a view to showcasing the project toward the end of this year. Micro Fort is currently taking expressions of interest from distribution partners and has already begun discussion with some of the world's leading publishers.

Splinter Cell: Double Agent Multiplayer Vids

brownlee — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 11:40:05 MDT

We hope you're curious about multiplayer in Splinter Cell: Double Agent and want to see some videos, because we've got two of the blasted things to insert into this one throwaway post. The first details the 'Spies' multiplayer mode; the second, 'Mercenaries', after the jump. I'm not quite sure I'm any more in the clear on how 'Spies' is played after watching it, though. But 'Mercenaries' sure looks cool. Florian Eckhardt