The Maryland Business Gazette is running a story on WILL Interactive and the Serious Game industry:

‘‘This is you,” says the voice in ‘‘Gator Six,” an interactive video filmed with live actors that’s used as a training tool for U.S. troops in Iraq.

‘‘You” — an Army artillery captain in the fictional nation of Ariana — ‘‘have just completed what turned out to be the last combat operation of the war,” the voice continues.

But before the troops can relax, ‘‘your” superior officer arrives by jeep and says he is ‘‘giving you a town”: Samara, population 13,000. He orders you to ‘‘pacify it, maintain order and prepare it for transition to democracy.” You have only 95 soldiers, who now must become town administrators.

The screen darkens. The voice asks you to make a pivotal decision: Do you set up outside of Samara and find out who’s in charge of the town? Or do you ‘‘roll in heavy,” to show you are in charge?

‘‘Gator Six” is a leadership game that teaches adaptability and cross-culture cooperation, one of many ‘‘serious” games produced by Will Interactive Inc. of Potomac. The company produces such games for military, law enforcement, health care and corporate clients.

Read the full article here.