The Ministry of Defense for the UK Wants BF3 and MW3-like Simulators for their Military

It's no secret that today's soldiers train on video game style simulators. Both the Secret Service and British servicemen use Virtual Battlepace 2 as part of their training regiment. The VBS2 is a product of Bohemia Interactive, who also made the first Operation Flashpoint games. However these simulators need an update from it's 2007 model. And in the video game world, that's about the equivalency of being ancient. With recruits already having experienced the better graphics and gameplay of titles like Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3, British military are finding that VBS2's isn't meeting up the demands of todays' military and new recruits.

So, UK's Ministry of Defense now wants to use the tech of games like Battlefield 3 for their current simulators. A Gamasutra article quotes from a Guardian interview with Andrew Poulter (a technical team leader of the UK's Defense Science and Technology Laboratory) the following:


"Back in the 1980s and 1990s, defense was far out in front in terms of quality of simulation...Military-built simulators were state of the art...but now, for fifty British Pounds (around $77), you can buy a commercial game that will be far more realistic than the sorts of tools we were using. The truth is, the total spending on games development across the industry will be greater than spending on defense."

 

When asked about acquiring or licensing the engines of modern-day titles, Poulter says that such tech would have to be tuned more towards portraying realism, as opposed to the Michael Bay styles we know and love from Modern Warfare 3. So basically he wants the simulation to be as realistic as possible. So don't expect the UK's best to be calling in UAV after UAV after UAV to find one annoying sniper.

SOURCE:
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/39364/UK_Ministry_of_Defense_Adapting...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/dec/28/ministry-defence-war-games-xbox