The U.S. Navy seems to have run out of ideas of how to fight Somali pirates, which is why it’s turning to crowdsourcing.
I mean, where better to get strategic ideas of how to kick some pirate booty than from a giant multiplayer online game?
With a mouthful of a name, the Massive Multiple Online WarGame Leveraging the Internet (or MMOWGLI for short), is designed to “encourage out of the box thinking about contemporary pirate issues.”
In the game, players act as naval officers or commercial ship crews to fight pirates in situations similar to real life pirate-fighting escapades. And you don’t have to just be a “good guy,” you can of course be a pirate if you so choose.
The goal of the game is to either protect sea lanes, launch sea attacks and run hostage rescue missions, depending on your role within the virtual environment.
The U.S. Navy hopes to gather new ideas of ways to tackle pirates based on gameplay. Currently only around 1,000 military personnel and some specially chosen civilians will be able to fulfill their childhood dreams of being a pirate, I mean, playing the game.
Launching in the near future is another version of MMOWGLI, in which you can suggest pirate busting ideas in brief Twitter-style text boxes. Users can also vote on ideas of the best way for the Navy to bring down unruly pirates.
No word yet exactly what the U.S. Navy is looking for when choosing the perfect player for the pirate game, but if you’d like to get involve, you can apply on the MMOWGLI website.
(Via Tech Radar)
