I really don't know where to begin with this one. On one hand, there are some resemblances in acts within the game, but actually comparing it to taking hundreds or thousands of lives? Lives that don't come back? No resurrection to recover from a wipe? Yeah... that's a bit much, honestly.
According to this article on Wired, the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies "thinks the game could provide a powerful new way to study how terrorist cells form and operate."
"The main strength is that [Warcraft] involves 'real' people making real decisions in a world with some kind of [controllable] bounds," said Blair, who said studying players' actions could prove useful to military intelligence analysts. "To put it academically, you have both dependent and independent variables."
A Yale University terrorism expert commented in the article by saying the following, which seems to make more sense than the initial foray into mild insanity.
"This is very interesting and relevant to the times," he said, "though I wouldn't base a new counterterrorism strategy on the nuances of a videogame."
What are your thoughts? Will the Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies find something useful, or are they barking up the wrong tree?
