In the 1990s there were a number of efforts made to pull together entertainment-oriented simulation and model developers and other parties, such as the military. Most of these efforts had limited success because of the structural and cultural differences between government/non-government organizations and the interactive entertainment industry. It is important to review and address these problems to improve the cooperation between game developers and designers.

In the 1996 paper "Opportunities for Collaboration Between Defense and Entertainment Research Communities from the Committee on Modeling and Simulation" a subcommittee of the National Research Council (http://www.nap.edu/html/modeling/) documented the key barriers to greater cross-industry collaboration. However, while offering a few recommendations to improve the landscape, the panel missed some points entirely due to its high-level composition. Some of the obstacles also identified have been positively affected by structural changes in the industry since 1996. The following is a point-by-point review of the major barriers presented in that paper and how, if applicable, these barriers have since been addressed.

• Cost and profit structures
• Development Timeframes and Structure
• Intellectual Property Rights
• Interaction and Sharing Between Communities

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