CIRCA:Virtual Peace

From CIRCA

Virtual Peace "the humanitarian assistance training simulator" is multi-user virtual environment (MUVE) created through collaboration between "Virtual Heroes (a Durham, NC-based developer of game-based training and learning environments), the Duke-UNC Rotary Center for International Peace and Conflict Resolution, the Duke Computer Science Department, and the Program for Information Science + Information in Society at Duke." [1].

Contents 1 Purpose 2 Funding 3 Technology 4 Audience 5 Implications

Purpose

Virtual Peace's primary objective is to to take "game environments designed to train US Special Forces and repurpose them for training workers in the field of peace and conflict resolution." [2], hence its secondary byline "turning swords to ploughshares".

Funding

Virtual Peace received a $238,000 innovation award from the MacArthur foundation. and HASTAC, the Humanities, Arts, Science, and Technology Advanced Collaboratory [3]. Plantronics contributed 50 headsets to the Virtual Peace project.

Technology

Virtual Peace is based on America's Army, a game created for the US army by Virtual Heroes INC[4]. America's Army itself is built on the Unreal engine, a top of the line game engine used primarily for the creation of first person shooter (FPS) games. Virtual Peace is thus built on

Audience

Implications

Games as education