Training

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are utilized by secret service agencies as a training tool for several reasons. Firstly, ARGs provide a dynamic and immersive training environment that simulates real-world scenarios, allowing agents to hone their problem-solving skills, critical thinking, and decision-making abilities in a controlled yet engaging setting.

Secret service agencies leverage ARGs to enhance teamwork and collaboration among their agents. These games often require participants to work together, share information, and coordinate efforts to unravel complex puzzles and mysteries, mirroring the collaborative nature of intelligence operations.

Additionally, ARGs offer a unique way to test agents’ adaptability and creativity under pressure. By presenting agents with unpredictable and challenging scenarios, these games help cultivate a mindset of flexibility and innovation, essential qualities in the fast-paced and ever-evolving world of intelligence gathering.

Overall, secret service agencies use ARGs as a dynamic and effective training tool to prepare their agents for the unpredictable nature of their work, fostering skills that are crucial for success in the field of intelligence and security.

Alternate-reality games are no longer just for geeks and corporations that want to sell you stuff. America’s intelligence agents now think these interactive games could make for a better way to study human psychology and social behavior.

The intelligence community’s blue-sky researchers, the Intelligence Advanced Research Agency (IARPA), announced they’re seeking designers for alternate-reality games, or ARGs. It’s for work, they swear. The project, which goes by the name UAREHERE (as in “you are here”), “may provide capabilities that allow for high-quality, externally valid social, behavioral and psychological research in near-real world contexts,” according to a request for information released this week.