While FPS players bask in the aftermath of recent developments in the War on Terror, the freedom of seafaring souls are still threatened by pirates. And these aren't the cool, peg-legged pirates or the dodgy, warez-hawking ones – these are bona-fide, kill-a-bitch pirates, who pose such a real threat that the Navy is... making a videogame about them.
The Massively Multiplayer Online WarGame Leveraging the internet, or MMOWGLI, launches next week: a public anti-piracy game which challenges civilians to work together on “out-of-the-box†and “game-changing†techniques for cleaning up the seas. The Office of Naval Research's Director of Innovation, Dr Larry Schutte, hopes the MMO-style mass-participation of the project will introduce new ideas into the anti-piracy discussion: “Will the MMOWGLI platform teach us something about our traditional thought processes?" he asks Fast Company.
Above: At present the only images released are conceptual documents. If they're targeting WoW geeks, we hope it'll look a bit snazzier than this
Above: Also, don't forget to YVAN EHT NIOJ
If, however, you remain pirate-agnostic, you could always play the similar-but-different Phylo: an online puzzle game whose results will help scientists learn about genetic structure. So, hey, protect the high seas, map the human genome, or just become Mayor of your local Starbucks: whichever you think's most important.
May 12, 2011
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