My ex-roommate, Mike, is pursuing his MBA and is currently doing a project with Atari. Here is what he sent me:

Time sensitive! It would really help if you took 10 minutes today to complete this anonymous survey to support a joint project between NYU Stern School of Business and Atari Inc.

Click on the following link:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=675222207369

Please forward this to your friends. We could also use your help getting this survey out to people not in our everyday circle. We are interested in hearing from all ages (including children older than 8 years old). Interest in video games is absolutely not required to complete this survey. In fact, we are very interested in getting a wide range of perspectives.

Surveymonkey does NOT require you to register and does not bombard you with advertising. The information you provide will be completely anonymous.

For this project, we are working under the guidance of Scott Galloway the branding guru who founded www.redenvelope.com. Scott credits David Aaker, the father of modern brand theory, for teaching him the secrets of Building Strong Brands. The information in this survey will be used in conjunction with the Aaker model to develop a suggested brand strategy for Atari.

Remember this is extremely time sensitive! This is a summer class and is therefore 1/2 the time of a normal class so we need this information back ASAP. Please do this survey right away and then forward it along. As long as the survey is still open we are still taking responses.

Thank you so much for time and effort.

One thing I noticed while doing it myself is that while I game fairly frequently and I know who th emajor publishers are, I don’t really have a very good knowledge of what games are published by who. I don’t think I’ve ever picked up a game which I otherwise wouldn’t have (or the other way around) just because of the publisher. I don’t want to throw off his results so I better not add any more editorial content of my own.

My buddy Cary used to be a tank commander in the US Army and had noted that the soldiers with games consoles in thier barracks tended to make the best Abrams gunners. Strategypage has a story with the (slightly cheesy) title of Video Games Can Save Your Life, which makes a similar observation. This time the weapon system in question is CROWS (Common Remotely Operated Weapons System) which I gather is a remotely operated (duh) 50 cal turret commonly mounted on a hummer. While is may be obvious that skills such as hand-eye coordination and reaction time would transfer, what really struck me was this quote.

experienced video gamers are skilled at whipping that screen view around, and picking up any signs of danger

Now they only need a system that makes circle strafing and bunny-hopping a real world tactic.

[via Engadget]

[Pac Man is 25](http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/10/commentary/game_over/column_gaming/index.htm?cnn=yes)!