Play Games Online to Fight Real Pirates

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Here's another story you can send to mom in response to all her complaints about the time you've wasted playing video games: the Office of Naval Reserve has decided to crowdsource new strategies to fight the African pirates off the coast of Somalia by launching MMOWGLI, an awkwardly-named online game inspired by World of Warcraft.

Massive Multiplayer Online Wargame Leveraging the Internet (really) is being introduced via the pirate scenario but its designers believe it can be adapted to help solve other intractable military situations around the world. The game will utilize a "diverse group of players drawn from the ranks of academia, defense, and government and nongovernment organizations." There's no word out there about how you can get on that list or exactly when the game will launch.

ONR is violating modern gaming protocol by not releasing the standard gameplay trailer designed to excite the market.  We'd be happy to post anything they want to share and would love  to hear from anyone who actually gets a chance to play.