The government is spending millions of dollars to determine whether video games can be designed as instructional tools for intelligence analysts, who help compile reports that U.S. officials use to identify potential threats from emerging foreign powers.
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), research arm of the director of national intelligence, is coordinating the effort by hiring some of the nation's largest defense contracting companies. The latest contract, a $9.1 million project awarded to a team led by Boeing Co. for work through December 2015, was issued in April through the Air Force Research Laboratory.