How valuable is playing commercial video games to increasing strategic, operational and tactical decision making skills?

It is difficult to ascertain the value of a video game.

When combat patrol training is conducted soldiers deal with the rigor of their equipment and loss of mobility, etc. Add in a dash of in climate weather, no showers, hunger/thirst, and the urgency of decision making and attention to detail.

They cannot compare in that regard.

I've played Call of Duty, Battlefield and many other FPS video games. These are largely used for distractions and entertainment. When attempting to communicate with a squad or platoon sized element, majority of players are completely removed from a team oriented objective - they are looking for their next achievement or to simply troll someone.

Even if you put two military platoons squared off against one another with VOIP - the field of view eliminates peripherals and other important factors that matter in the battlefield. They could do bounding over watch and other movement techniques, they could fire their weapons the way they are trained to in the game, etc. It wouldn't have the same effect as putting two platoon in a small forested area with miles and/or air soft weapons and having them engage one another. They have full control over their environment, creating ranger graves, foxholes, ambushes, traps, etc. Video games offer no such tactical advantage. Furthermore, I've tried to coordinate L shaped ambushes and other things in the game - but due to the individualistic style majority of players use - someone is always watching so the ambush will largely fail every time.

I will say, that you can improve IN game in how you make decisions, based on knowledge of map layouts, player observations and other factors, such as knowing how weapons fire - but largely that decision making stays in game. I think when the physical and emotional factors that come into play when boots are on the ground under the pressure to succeed with full equipment load in completely unknown terrain - everything changes.

My two cents.

I tried the Army's games once that were part of mobilization for 11Bs . They were bad, slow and we gained nothing from them. They didn't fit to current battle fields like the terrain in Afghanistan for example and specially parts like RC EAST and or NORTH.  Also I find that current games are kind of realistic but not really. They are too fast paced and they don't represent the reality. I say this based on my experience as an 11B with two combat tours in Afghanistan.

I believe they CAN be.. but it would depend on the 'game'. When it comes down to it, where is the dividing line between a 'game' and a 'simulation'. As technology improves, that line become more and more blurred. Simulators have been proven to be effective (think aviation - although those are an extreme example) and are being utilized in more varied applications every year. I saw an article the other day where surgeons are using simulators prior to an actual surgery.. pretty high tech stuff there, and the reviews have been outstanding.
Many of the current games are good for developing strategy and reaction time and I suspect that as the games and input devices become even more realistic the difference between game and simulations will become even smaller.

I think they should be incorporated, for tactical training, But, actually going out in the field is a much better tool, it's more realistic and gives the soldiers training a better idea of what's at stake, giving a better skill set than a video game could offer.

There will be great training value when our Army transitions to camping under a burned out office desk with heartbeat monitors on our shotguns.

It depends on the video game in question. I don't think there is much value in FPS types. Those tend to be highly unrealistic. However, I find some of the turn based games (tactical and strategic) good in that to beat them (particularly at the harder levels) you have to THINK and use some of the tools that we are taught.

Two of my favorite squad tactical/strategic games are XCom and Jagged Alliance. Both are turned based. At the micro level, both require you to maneuver a squad (which you outfit with equipement and weapons of your preference) through a battle. Each requires knowledge and applications of squad tactics, use of terrain, employment of weapons, etc. At the strategic level, they require you to have a coherent strategy to achieve the end goal (defeat the big bad boss) through management of money, resources, taking terrain and resources, defending gained terrain and resources, etc. Games like those CAN help you learn military theories and tactics.

The advantage of simulators is you can try out new (riskier) TTPs without endangering lives, and at less cost than going to the field.

The Army spends a LOT of money on Simulations, we have a entire Program Executive Office for it (2 Star level Command).

http://www.peostri.army.mil/

Hard to keep up with the leaps and bounds in technology but I would think that any Game could pretty well equate with working CIC on a ship of war. In a dark room in front of a console is how we fight in the navy and there are plenty of games now days that could handle that I think.

Not sure if anyone else has seen this before, but there was a 'game' made for medics at one point. It would simulate injuries and you had to go through and 'treat' them on the casualty. It seemed like it was more for trying to get processes down but there was zero hands on involved. I know there are quite a few out there.

Also, isn't the virtual trainers such as ESTs and FSTs esentially advanced video games? I know the police force uses them a lot to teach communication skills in scenarios without wasting ammunition or other resources.

I swear to goodness I thought this was a Duffelblog or Onion article.