a presentation by lee lewis herrington dominic orchard duncan stead games for training by ralph...

A Presentation by Lee Lewis Herrington − Dominic Orchard − Duncan Stead

Games for Training by Ralph Chatham

Presentation Overview

• Roadmap towards Games for Training

• Review of the Paper by Ralph Chatham

• Future of Games for Training

• Conclusions

Definition of a Game

Games for Training – Slide 3 of 44

• Structured activity undertaken for enjoyment

• Sometimes used as an aid to education

• Early Learning Centre

• Ring a Ring a Roses

• Key Components

• Goals

• Rules

• Challenges

• Interactivity

Computer Games


• Invention of the computer leads to the birth of the computer game industry

• Pong

• Digital version of Ping Pong Sport

• Major commercial success on Atari

• Games industry then divides into two

• Games consoles driven by Nintendo, Sega & Sony

• Game software driven by Konami, Capcom & Electronic Arts

Computer Games


Wolfenstein 3D – Super Nintendo late 90’s Battlefield 1942 - 2004

• Hardware accelerated 3D Graphics

• Increased clock speed allowed faster graphics rendering

• Games present a more realistic experience

Networked Multiplayer Games


• Traditionally games are played using a single console and a monitor, screen is split to support multiple players

• Introduction of PC, LAN and internet creates a new genre of game that enables tens and eventually thousands of players to enter virtual worlds

• First popular game was ‘Doom’ released in 1993 to critical almost religious like acclaim

• Military games appear that allow people to get a feel of what it is like to fight in a real war and the phrase “serious games” appears in the media

Serious Games


• Growing technical abilities of games to provide realistic settings, led to a re-examination of the concept of serious games in the late 1990s

• Rise of the multiplayer games such as Battlefield earth attracts interest of military and emergency services of the possibility of using virtual worlds to train soldiers and disaster management teams

Serious Games


• A game specifically designed to train a person or persons to fulfill a role or a given task in the real world by simulating as accurately as possible training scenarios in a virtual world

• Training games allow players to explore scenarios that are impossible or just to dangerous to simulate in the real world

• Extreme Weather

• Real time destruction of property

• Incendiary devices eg roadside bombs

Risks Costs & Benefits of Serious Games


• Risks

• Negative Transfer of Knowledge

• Games cannot easily model human behavior especially in combat scenarios when stress and fear can impair a person’s response

• Over reliance of game training can provide a false sense of readiness which is dangerous in War

Risks Costs & Benefits of Serious Games


• Costs• Upfront development can run to millions of pounds

• Continued royalty payments

• Benefits• Simple & rapid distribution to a wide audience

• Complex scenarios can be explored that would be difficult to simulate in the real world such as freak weather. A current example would be a sand storm in Iraq which would reduce visibility

• Existing game engines can be re-used

Who is using computer games for training and what are they using them

for?


• Aviation• Significant costs associated

with flying e.g. fuel, maintenance and actual lessons

• Training games allow a pilot to learn basic techniques and flight deck layouts before even stepping into a cockpit


for?


• Commercial• Driving schools use

simulators to train pupils

• Companies use games to teach Health & Safety issues such as how to tackle fires and deal with emergencies


for?


• Medical Industry• Shortage of people

donating bodies to medical science

• Obvious danger of practicing on humans

• Doctors can learn complicated surgery in the game


for?


• Government• Emergency Planning

• Language and cultural training for ministers before meeting foreign counterparts

• Games to train councils on how to manage financial budgets


for?


• Military• Dangers of warfare

combined with the cost of munitions

• Need to simulate events occurring in places like Iraq such as convoy ambushes, urban warfare and civil unrest


for?


• Military• US Military trains

millions of personnel

• Rapidly renewed force

• Many different situations

• This training can be done through games

Case study – “Games for Training” by Ralph Chatham


• 1970s and 80s saw a new phase of training centres and AAR (After Action Review) with limitations

• In 2001 & 2003 - Recommendation for electronic deployment of experiential knowledge

Unexamined assumptions of training games

• Cheap to create, deploy & maintain

• Fast development & delivery

• Effective to transfer competence

• Trainer-less & unsupervised

• Universally accessible to anyone with a PC


DARWARS

• A scheme started by DARPA to undertaken the development of games for training the military.

• Two training products under the DARWARS umbrella are discussed here

• Tactical Language & Culture Training Systems

• DARWARS Ambush!


“DARWARS won't teach you how to drive your 10-ton truck through narrow urban street, but it will teach you to look up when you do. DARWARS won't teach a pilot stick-and-rudder skills, but it will teach her to communicate with and support an inexperienced forward observer” – Ralph Chatham

DARWARS


Tactical Language & Culture Training Systems

• Aims to provide soldiers with a basic knowledge of

• Culture

• Gestures

• Language

• Vocabulary


“You can't shoot, you must talk your way out”

Scene from the Iraqi Tactical Language Trainer



• Based on the Unreal Engine

• However some problems

• Resource use

• Undocumented “features”

• “Game developers stop fixing things when the game works”



DARWARS Ambush!

• Training those involved in identifying, preparing, carrying out and recovering from ambushes.

Scene from DARWARS Ambush!


DARWARS Ambush!


• Multi-user, networked PC Based

• Allows users to learn from experience built by others

• Adaptable scenarios and maps

Ambush! - Flexibility

• Users can adapt scenarios

• Learn from their own ideas

• Embedded training on how to do this

• No continuing development costs for new scenarios

• Cost is users own labour

• Valuable

• “Commander-identified training needs are met through user modification”


Why use game engines?

• Funding is often limited

• Therefore time of development is key

• Existing engines can provide a good environmental basis for the game

• Multitude of pre-built technologies


Ambush! - Game Engine

• Operation Flashpoint - PROS

• Outdoor terrain

• Ability to modify map

• Vehicles

• Realism

• Multi-player support

• Relatively low sys.

• requirements

Scene from Operation Flashpoint


Ambush! - Game Engine

• Operation Flashpoint - CONS

• Licensing disputes

• Lack of source code access


Distribution of DARWARS Ambush!

• Visits and face-to-face demos

• Word of mouth

• No hindrance of government bureaucracy


Why has Ambush! succeeded?

• Understands training needs

• Training manuals on how to use

• Flexibility

• Rigorous testing

• “Release early, release often” (facilitated by using an existing game engine)



Cheap to create, deploy & maintain

• Create - Use of engines requires negotiating licensing

• Expensive

• Broader licenses of older games

• Maintain - User adaptability

• Deploy

• Service costs

• Training the trainer



Fast to provide development & delivery

• Use of a well understood well documented game engine (preferably with complete source access)

• But, game engines are typically only tested for gaming



Effective to transfer competence

• Only if used in the correct environment

• Flexibility and adaptability help to disseminate experiential knowledge and grow new experience



Trainer-less & unsupervised

• Unrealistic

• No “golden disc” that compels trainees to use it by themselves

• “Humans must be available for effective training”

• AARs – After Action Reviews


Universally accessible to anyone with a PC

• System requirements must be met

• Military PCs are typically low spec

• Use of older engines may be more appropriate



Conclusions from the paper

• Trainer-less trainers don't exist (not yet) Use of training software does not equal good training.

• Adaptability is key

• Use of existing engines has advantages and disadvantages

• Strong evidence of positive transfer of skills learnt in computer based trainers


Future of Games for Training

• Further Adoption

• Technical Developments

• Conclusions


Further AdoptionMulti-purpose trainers

• Recruitment• Games as an accessible

first point of contact

• Introduce key concepts

• Raise awareness – “Free” advertising

• Negative training can form bad habits early

• Could mislead the wrong people into applying

The popular “America’s Army” game was commissioned for recruitment and public relations


Multi-purpose trainers

• Speculation• Experimenting with possible (long term) future

scenarios to aid decision making

Full Spectrum Warrior was originally intended as a military simulation to test ideas for future US tactics, but ended as a commercial product. Shown above is Full Spectrum Command, used to train higher ranking

officers


Methods of distribution

• Downloadable

• Internet or Intranet. Typically cheaper than CDs/DVDs, and more prevalent as Ethernet/high speed ADSL is common

• Browser based

• Maximises accessibility, but technologically limited.

• Impossible to sell to individuals

• CDs/DVDs

• Relatively expensive, useful for image and simplicity


Future Research

• Tools• Building a complete training game (even a basic

browser game) requires a team of dedicated professionals with knowledge of programming, art and audio.

• If simple tools were made available for making training games, could small scale games become interspersed throughout curriculum?

• Would it be possible (or even desirable) to have a general enough tool to fulfil all needs?


Future Research

• 3D learning environments

• Research has been done into combining 3d worlds such as the popular “Second Life” with traditional teaching methods

• Possibility for supervised distance training

• Encourages peer learning and group work


Technical DevelopmentsApplications to games for training


• Graphics

• The most identifiable part of a game – Aids immersion and product marketability

• Scalability – New engines often provide detail options to support older systems (the range varies)

• Physical models

• Modern games commonly incorporate rigid body dynamics using physics middleware (Havok, Ageia) - Enhances realism, but often irrelevant for training

Technical DevelopmentsApplications to games for training


• Artificial Intelligence

• Although progress slower, the latest AI methods are usually adopted first in games (NNets, GA)

• Networking and Persistence

• Rise of Massively Multiplayer games – tech yet to be applied for making large scale training games

• Such games track and store data on thousands of clients simultaneously – this tech could be applied to the monitoring and after action review of huge groups (with data persisting between sessions)

Conclusion

• Games for training are still rare, especially in education

• There exist a few barriers to progress:

• Social acceptance

• Funding/High development costs

• Diverse, specialised requirements

• Commercial scepticism


Conclusion

• There are some important lessons to be learned:

• Adaptability is important

• Using existing game engines can be extremely useful

• A good game engine doesn't mean good training

• Trainer-less training is not always possible

• Cognitive and communication skills can be trained effectively with games such as DARWARS Ambush!


References


• Chatham, R. Games for training. Commun. ACM 50, 7 (Jul. 2007), 36-43

• Chatham, R. Training Superiority. The 2005 DARPATECH Symposium (Anaheim, CA, Aug. 2005); www.darpa.mil/darpatech2005/presentations/dso/chatham.pdf.

• Freeman, K., MacMillan, J., Halmson, C., Well, S., Stave, W., ad Diedrigh, F. From Gaming to Training, Soceity fro Advanced Learning Technology, Orlando, FL. Feburary 2006.

• Smith, R. Game Impact Theory, The Five Forces That Are Driving the Adoption of Game Technologies within Multiple Established Industries, 2007, Games and Society Yearbook

• Serious game. (2007, November 29). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 16:08, November 30, 2007, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

title=Serious_game&oldid=174567910

a presentation by lee lewis herrington dominic orchard duncan stead games for training by ralph...

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