Is the Department of Defense Serious About Games?
Part II of Manifesto Games’ Serious Games Summit Coverage

by Johnny L. Wilson

In 1976, an officer on the USS McKean (DD-784) began running a series of games aboard ship built off a game called NAVTAG. NAVTAG was an official U.S. Navy game that used classified data. This was good because it provided “validated” data and algorithms so that participants did not receive “bad” information, but it was bad because there could only be one copy of the game per ship and that game had to be locked away with other classified data when not in use. This limited the possibilities for using the game for ongoing training. To remedy this, the officer began working on his own set of rules, using realistic but non-classified data. In 1980, that rules set became the Harpoon game of naval miniatures rules. That officer, Larry Bond, became a best-selling author.

Breaking news on the next version of Harpoon and good news for those who see games as educational, analytical, and training tools highlight this year's confab for those who not only play and take games seriously, but build games for serious reasons.

Is Manifesto "Serious?"
A "Gamer's" View of the Serious Games Summit

By Johnny L. Wilson

HOT NEWS from the Serious Games Summit: At last week's Serious Games Summit, Don Gilman (developer/programmer on all of the PC versions of Harpoon and current CEO of Advanced Gaming Systems) revealed that Larry Bond and Chris Carlson have been updating their database to allow future versions of Harpoon to mix and match vessels from different eras.