SERIOUS GAMES MARKET

GDC 10: Serious Games Go Mobile

2010-02-09T18:14:00.000-02:00

Serious Games on mobile platforms is starting to unfold

Via: Game Developers Conference 2010 - Serious Games Summit

SGS Session: Serious Games Go Mobile: Three Projects Pushing Serious Games into Mobile Platforms

Speakers: Nisha Alex (Teachers College, Columbia University), Matthew Kam (Assistant Professor, Carnegie Mellon University), Larry Holland (President & Creative Director, Totally Games)

Session Description

As the world increasingly adds millions of mobile platforms from Nokia, Apple, Google, and others the opportunity for Serious Games on mobile platforms is starting to unfold. This session features presentations of Serious Games for mobile devices that attempt to take advantage of the unique aspects mobile platforms can offer including accelerometers for measuring physical activity, mobile availability for behavior change interventions, and the reach of mobile platforms into emerging economies.

Three specific projects are highlighted in back-to-back-to-back demonstrations:

Lit to Quit: A Mobile Game for Health

Designing engaging games using mobile technologies has significant implications for game and health industries. This presentation describes iPod Touch/iPhone features that can be harnessed to create games that have positive health outcomes.

Funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Lit is being designed specifically for the iPod Touch/iPhone as a health intervention for smoking reduction.

Breathing into a microphone to control gameplay, coupled with sound, graphics, challenges and feedback to mimic the stimulant and relaxant effects of smoking, it provides a potential alternative to smoking with the goal of reducing or eliminating tobacco use in players' lives.

You can play music on the iPhone with the Leaf Trombone app. Researchers believe they can come up with a similar app for smokers to help them quit smoking. Credit: Peter DaSilva/Los Angeles Times

Game Background and Concept

Columbia University's Teachers College received a $150,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, through the foundation's Health Games Research national program to develop a smart phone app that emulates the physiological responses smokers get from smoking.

The first apps are likely to be for Apple Inc.'s iPhone or iPod Touch. The user would control the game by blowing into the device's microphone in response to different color and sound stimuli coming from the handset. Researchers hope that it will be able to elicit the same brain patterns, heart rate levels and relaxation responses that smokers get from smoking. The game, Lit: A Game Intervention for Nicotine Smokers, is expected to be released in about two years.

Breath therapy has been used to help smokers quit smoking for a while, but it's hoped that the game will disseminate this technique to the masses. "You don't have to learn anything; the game will cause you to breathe the right way," said Charles Kinzer, professor of education in the Communication, Computing and Technology Program and the Game Research Lab at Teachers College.

Technology is being used in another way to help smokers quit smoking. Researchers at the GRAP Occupational Psychology Clinic and the University of Quebec in Gatineau recently found that smokers who crushed virtual cigarettes experienced a significant reduction in nicotine addiction.

Tobacco use is still the leading cause of death in the United States, according to a statement from Kinzer and the Lit project team. It added that 70% of adult smokers say they want to quit, and more than 40% try to quit each year.

Kinzer said, "If we can capitalize on the motivational aspect of games and the availability of mobile devices, there is tremendous potential to positively affect heath and wellness for smokers who want to quit, and this would have implications for healthcare costs as well."

MILLEE: Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies

MILLEE is a cellphone-based game that enables poor children in the developing world to acquire language and literacy in immersive, game-like environments.

The MILLEE project is in its 6th year and has seen extensive field tests. It adopts a human-centered approach to designing immersive, enjoyable, language learning games, modeled after the traditional village games that rural children find familiar.

The project has received major sponsorship from MacArthur Foundation, Microsoft, National Science Foundation, Nokia, Qualcomm and Verizon. It was featured in the press in India (where the last 10 rounds of field studies took place), a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation television documentary and ABC News.

Game Background

Literacy levels in most poor countries remain shockingly low. Even more challenging is the tension between regional and “world” languages – economic opportunities are often closed to those who are literate only in a regional language.

In India for example, English is the language of instruction in private schools and all universities, a large fraction of business and government, and the language which is driving India’s service economy. The value of English is widely recognized by ordinary Indians, and it is the poorest citizens who are lobbying most strongly to expand English teaching. For complex reasons, however, English teaching in public schools is not succeeding. For instance, teachers in rural Indian schools were unable to converse with us in English despite being required to teach the language. Worse, regular school attendance is out of reach for those children who have to work for the family in the agricultural fields or households.

At the same time, the cellphone is the fastest growing technology platform in the developing world. India is the largest market for cellphones worldwide, with the majority being bought by illiterate and semi-literate users. A growing percentage of these phones feature advanced multimedia capabilities for photos and gaming. These devices are a perfect vehicle for new kinds of out-of-school language learning, which can occur at places and times that are more convenient than school.

These factors create an extraordinary opportunity for complementing the formal educational system: to dramatically expand English skills in young Indians, which is the fastest way to open the doors for employment and further education.

MILLEE aims to realize this opportunity through a scientific approach. It adopts a human-centered approach to designing immersive, enjoyable, language learning games on cellphones, modeled after the traditional village games that rural children find familiar. It has won several competitive grants and seen extensive field tests.

In addition to scaling-up the project in India, MILLEE is being expanded into rural China (Mandarin literacy), Kenya (English literacy) and elsewhere.

Dr. Matthew Kam started MILLEE in 2004 as his Ph.D. thesis at the University of California, Berkeley, where he is an alumnus of the Berkeley Institute of Design and TIER research group (Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions). He had a thesis committee that was committed to giving him the support to pursue truly interdisciplinary research that went beyond the traditional boundaries of computer science, development economics, or language and literacy studies.

Since graduating with his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2008, Matthew joined Carnegie Mellon University in January 2009 as an Assistant Professor, where he is expanding MILLEE into India, China, Africa and other underdeveloped regions. At any one time, Matthew advises about 20 Ph.D., Master’s and undergraduate students who contribute to the design, programming, graphics and playtesting of the MILLEE games that will be piloted in the field.

Technology transfer takes place in parallel to the above research activities. Shabnam Aggarwal joined the team in 2009 as the project manager who is based full-time in India. Matthew and Shabnam work hand-in-hand on business and partnership development. The goal is to build a social enterprise that can create and distribute MILLEE games in underdeveloped regions around the world on a cost-recovery basis. With mobile technology that can extend the reach of learning beyond formal school environments, the vision is to revolutionize educational services delivery throughout the developing world.

Methodology

Since MILLEE began in 2004, the project has conducted 10 rounds of fieldwork spanning almost 12 months in India. Exploratory studies revealed social and infrastructural challenges to using desktop computers to promote learning in school settings. On the other hand, there is a tremendous opportunity for out-of-school learning via educational games on cellphones.

The foundational games have gone through numerous iterations since 2006, through formative evaluations with four communities of rural and urban slums learners in both North and South India. By field-testing with multiple communities, the project team observed user behaviors with the technology that generalize across settings. Through ethnographic studies, they also studied how social factors such as gender and caste affected MILLEE gameplay in everyday rural environments.

The end-product is therefore not only the games themselves, but a suite of tools and methods for adapting and extending them for local use.

The project has concluded a summative evaluation where 27 students attended an after-school program at a village in Uttar Pradesh, India three times per week over a semester to learn English using MILLEE games. They drew on the latest research in language acquisition and also reviewed 35 successful commercial language learning packages to identify their best practices.

Ongoing Work

MILLEE achieves a seamless integration between social entrepreneurship and scientific research, in which research is an ongoing process that feeds back into social enterprise. According to the World Bank, “despite growing hype [about the potential for mobile phones to improve education in developing countries,] there are still precious few widespread examples of the use of [mobile] phones for education purposes inside or outside of classrooms in developing countries that have been well documented, and fewer still that have been evaluated with any sort of rigor.” To make a more compelling case for adoption to governments, non-profits working to improve education, parents and educators, the next phase of research focuses on a larger-scale evaluation of learning benefits.

Hills of Gold: Walk to Play

Hills of Gold is an iPhone/iPod Touch game project being built for Humana, Inc. that combines everyday walking around with a fun-to-play resource strategy game about the California Gold Rush. According to an article posted by the American College of Sports Medicine, a number of large- scale studies over several years have shown that individuals who walk at least 30 minutes per day may reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease up to 50 percent compared to sedentary individuals.

Hills of Gold aims to promote and support such habitual activity by bringing some overlaid gameplay to everyday walks. Players must move their character and his resources of mules, miners, food, gunslingers, and more around the gold rush country of California in 1849 trying to find their fortune. As the player walks the iPhone/iPod Touch accelerometer measures physical activity and translates that into gameplay data the player uses to move their lead miner and his party around the game world. Players must fend of claim jumpers, manage their budget, and keep moving!

Idea Takeaway

As the world increasingly adds millions of mobile platforms from Nokia, Apple, Google, and others the opportunity for Serious Games on mobile platforms is starting to unfold. This session features presentations of Serious Games for mobile devices that attempt to take advantage of the unique aspects mobile platforms can offer including accelerometers for measuring physical activity, mobile availability for behavior change interventions, and the reach of mobile platforms into emerging economies. Three specific projects are highlighted in back-to-back-to-back demonstrations.

Serious Games Securing Sensitive Information

2010-02-08T22:12:00.008-02:00

Serious Games For Clean Desk Policy and Information Security

Via: MAVI INTERACTIVE - Agent Surefire – Infosec

Agent Surefire – Infosec is a Serious Game addressing corporate information security violations inside the physical office environment and providing methods to secure sensitive information.

Players have the opportunity to learn by trial and error at their own pace while identifying violations in a virtual office.

The goal of the game is to train employees to safeguard sensitive information. The game requires the player, as Agent Surefire, to search the office, looking for information security violations.

The game presents few repetitions of problem areas, motivating players to conduct more thorough searches at each work station, thus increasing attention to detail in the game setting.

After 10 minutes playing the game, you feel like Agent Surefire trying your best to uncover security mistakes left by company's employees.

Industry Recognition

Winner:
2009 Summit Emerging Media Awards
Innovator Award in Interactive Online Games

Winner:
2009 Summit Emerging Media Awards
Leader Award in Interactive Flash Design

Finalist:
2009 Serious Games Showcase & Challenge
Best Business Game

Finalist:
2010 Digital Media Awards
Best in e-Learning

Agent Surefire – Infosec Stats & Info:

Game Environment

• 275 interactive views
• 550 interactive objects
• 54 files/documents with 350 pages
• 97 violations waiting to be uncovered
• 9 violation categories

Training Completion and Performance Metrics

Success Rate is the percentage of violation categories correctly identified.

Minimum Success Criteria is 70% of violation categories correctly identified. (This percentage is customizable).

Game Score is the number of points collected by way of actions inside the virtual office space. It is independent of Success Rate.

Training completion is discovering/experiencing at least one violation from each violation category. Minimum Success Criteria must still be met.

Training conclusion is optional. Trainee may continue playing the game even after attaining 100% Success Rate. This provides continued learning and discovery, increased learner engagement and much-needed repetition for retention.

The State Of Play Report: Recess Improves Learning

2010-02-07T19:48:00.001-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Via: Interactive Media Technology - Recess is Linked To Academic Achievement

Lynn V. Marentette, on her latest post, provides links to Gallup Survey of Principals on School Recess, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and Playworks.

"With the push for academic rigor and higher performance on one-size-fits-all state-mandated group tests", she says, "young children have had fewer opportunities to play while at school, despite the observation that children return from recess more focused and ready to learn."

First-Of-Its-Kind Gallup Poll Links Recess To Academic Achievement

The State of Play: Gallup Survey of Principals on School Recess

State of Play Recess Report (pdf)

Here is a taste of the report findings:

"When most people talk about how to improve education, they tend to focus only on what happens in the classroom. But the most unexpected opportunity to boost learning lies outside the classroom: on the playground at recess.

A new, first-of-its-kind Gallup poll reveals that elementary school principals overwhelmingly believe recess has a positive impact not only on the development of students’ social skills, but also on achievement and learning in the classroom.

These findings arrive on the heels of groundbreaking research linking more recess to better behavior and focus in the classroom.

Recess doesn’t come without challenges. Because it is often disorganized and difficult to manage, recess is the time when principals encounter the vast majority of their school’s disciplinary problems. While principals unequivocally see recess as an asset to learning, even a modest effort to improve behavior on the playground can pay significant dividends throughout the school day.

The Foundation’s interest in recess evolved with its understanding that health is not only something that happens at the doctor’s office but instead starts in families and workplaces and in schools and school playgrounds.

Education in particular has a tremendous impact on one’s health. If a child’s learning environment is disruptive then so is their ability to grow up to be as healthy as they could otherwise be."

Survey Background

"A growing body of clinical research concludes that play is essential to the social, emotional and physical development of children. But the reality is today’s kids spend more of their time in a school classroom than almost anywhere else, and even that time is much less playful than it used to be, given the heavy focus on meeting testing requirements.

A 2009 study by the Alliance for Childhood found that playtime is shrinking and even disappearing in kindergarten classrooms. (Miller & Almon, 2009).

Recess has traditionally served as the one outlet during the school day when kids get to recharge their bodies and minds. But those minutes have been steadily eroding. Up to 40 percent of U.S. school districts have reduced or eliminated recess in order to free up more time for core academics, and one in four elementary schools no longer provides recess to all grades. (Zygmunt-Fillwalk and Bidello, 2005; McKenzie and Kahan, 2008).

There is already evidence that scaling back recess comes at a cost to learning. In January 2009, the journal Pediatrics published a groundbreaking study of 11,000 third-graders, comparing those who had little or no daily recess with those that had more than 15 minutes of recess per day. The findings show that children who have more recess time behave better in the classroom and are likelier to learn more. (Barros, 2009).

There is also research that shows that investing in recess can have a positive impact at schools that struggle with managing student behavior. A Harvard Family Research Project case study of Boston’s Ohrenberger Elementary School, which revamped its recess with the help of Playworks, revealed visible improvements in several key areas of childhood development.

Teachers witnessed how a well-functioning recess could foster supportive relationships among students, create opportunities for meaningful youth involvement, and teach conflict resolution and other life skills.

Playworks also routinely surveys hundreds of faculty members at its partner schools and has found that teachers can reclaim up to 18 minutes of learning time per day because there are fewer problems from the playground spilling over into the classroom.

Ultimately, principals are most capable of evaluating the role that recess plays in the school day and estimating its true value. Any recommendations regarding recess must take into account what principals think because they are uniquely positioned to replicate best practices. Together, these reasons served as the rationale for exploring principals’ attitudes toward and experience with recess first hand."

Please find the full report at http://www.rwjf.org/files/research/stateofplayrecessreportgallup.pdf

Serious Games For A Better Future - EnerCities Out Of Beta

2010-02-07T11:58:00.000-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

PRESS RELEASE

Gaming For A Better Future

Leiden, The Netherlands - February 3rd 2010

Following my prior post EnerCities: The First Serious Game On Facebook, on February 3rd, game developer Paladin Studios has launched EnerCities 1.0. It is an online game in which players are challenged to build a sustainable city. It will run online and on Facebook, and is available in six European languages. The game is part of an educational platform dealing with energy issues, backed by European Commission funding of €1 million.

Casual City Building

The game starts with a small village and a bit of land to build on. There is a simple drag-and-drop interface, with which players can build structures and expand their city. They then need to balance People, Planet and Profit - all while supplying the growing city with sufficient electricity and minimizing fossil fuel use. When done well, players can level up their city, providing them with more room to build and extra building options. Dylan Nagel, product manager for EnerCities: "Each decision influences the score: for example, if you build a nuclear plant, you minimize impact on your environment. The downside is that if you put it close to residential areas, your citizens will get unhappy." A similar example is with forests. "When clustered together, the environmental bonus of forests multiplies. However, when a forest is positioned next to a residential area, your citizens will be happier and healthier. This leads to interesting dilemmas."

Let's Get Serious

The project is funded by the Intelligent Energy program of the European Commission, and aims to improve the awareness of energy issues among young people. It will be rolled out by the project partners on schools in the UK, Netherlands, Slovenia, Greece, Germany and Spain. There is an educational platform which allows teachers to sign up for the program and link their students' accounts to their school. Nagel: "Players will be able to leverage green technologies and concepts in order to make their city future-proof. Players can improve their structures with innovations like solar roof panels and thermal storage. They need to power their city, and can pick a range of power sources. Would you choose a Coal Plant or Windmill? Each have their own pros and cons. This allows players to execute a strategy, and see the results of their actions on the long term. I think it makes for a great toolkit for teachers who want to embed the energy topic in their curriculum."

The initiator of the project, Dutch organization Qeam, will investigate the results of the project. Erik Knol, director of Qeam: "By validating the project outcomes, we hope to answer the question whether serious gaming is a valid tool for raising awareness. The reports will be shared with the educational community, to provide more insight into the effective use of innovative platforms like gaming." The research will be conducted in the course of 2010 and 2011.

Facebook

With over 350 million users, Facebook has proven to be a viable platform for games like Farmville. The farming game can boast 75 million monthly players. Derk de Geus, CEO of Paladin: "The potential of social networks is enormous, although we would already be successful with much lower numbers. Remember that EnerCities was not designed to be a truly social game, but an educational tool running on a social platform."

The new release includes a Post To Wall feature, which allows players to brag to their friends if they reach a new high score. De Geus: "We decided to put the game on Facebook at the end of 2009, right after the initial pilot tests. Many of the Facebook users are in our target group, so it is an excellent distribution platform. The use of social gaming for education is relatively new, but already proves to be very powerful. The beta players either loved it or hated it. That's a lot more emotion than you would get from an average educational tool, so I guess we are on the right track."

During the two-month beta, the game was played 10.000 times on Facebook by over 3.000 people. At the regular website, the game was played only 4.000 times. De Geus: "This trend will likely continue during the rollout phase, even when schools get involved. The social aspects of Facebook get players involved. Students finally have a good excuse to be on Facebook during school."

Out of Beta

The game became out of beta on February 3rd. The official launch will be at Learntec in Karlsruhe, a German conference about technology and education. The game will then open up to players worldwide, both for educational institutions and just for fun. Nagel explains: "The first thing we said when we started the project, is that the game should be fun to play. The city building theme was great for a game which resembles a puzzle more than a simulation."

Paladin's social gaming adventure apparently worked out well for the company. De Geus: "We dipped our toes in social water with EnerCities, and liked it a lot. It sparked a lot of ideas, and we have another social game in preproduction. So stay tuned."

The game can be played for free at http://www.enercities.eu/. Educational institutions are welcome to register at the website.

About Paladin Studios

Founded in 2005, Paladin Studios is a Dutch game development company based in The Hague. They have released several serious games and are currently creating games for social networks. With a portfolio ranging from hardcore offshore simulators to interactive visualizations and online games, they provide a wide range of 3D game development services. Their clients include Philips Design, EMI Music, and the European Commission. The 7-headed team consists of a talented bunch of programmers, designers and artists. Paladin's motto is "Life is Play", and their official mission is to make people smile.

The EnerCities Consortium

Initiator: Qeam (Netherlands): http://www.qeam.com/

Coordinator: ROC Nijmegen (Netherlands): http://www.roc-nijmegen.nl/

Game developer: Paladin Studios (Netherlands): http://www.paladinstudios.com/

Lancaster & Morecambe College (United Kingdom): http://www.lmc.ac.uk/

Akademie Klausenhof (Germany): http://www.akademie-klausenhof.org/

Unified Vocational Training Centre of Cyclades (Greece): http://www.ncyclades.gr/

Ljudska Univerza Velenje (Slovenia): http://www.lu-velenje.si/

Agencia de la Energía de Granada (Spain): http://www.apegr.org/

Links

EnerCities Website - http://www.enercities.eu/

EnerCities on Facebook - http://apps.facebook.com/enercities

EnerCities Press Kit (contains high res screenshots and additional material) - http://www.paladinstudios.com/resources/enercities_presskit.zip

Paladin Studios - http://www.paladinstudios.com/

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/paladinstudios, http://www.twitter.com/enercities

Dylan Nagel - http://www.twitter.com/dylannagel

Derk de Geus - http://www.twitter.com/derkdegeus

For more information about the game, please contact Paladin Studios at info@paladinstudios.com or via +31 71 513 2222.

To sign up for a teacher account, please contact project coordinator ROC Nijmegen or register via http://www.enercities.eu/project/

Derk de Geus (www.twitter.com/derkdegeus)

Derk co-founded Paladin Studios, and has since been involved in both the business and creative sides of the company. As CEO he makes sure that the core values and commercial health of Paladin are preserved and developed.

Derk blends creativity with strategic thinking and entrepreneurship. The most important principle for him is "Good Business", a concept revolving around respecting another's rights, striving for mutual success and providing a healthy workplace as an employer. This dimension of entrepreneurship provides him with a purpose beyond making money, something he believes is essential for sustainable success.

Dylan Nagel (www.twitter.com/dylannagel)

Dylan has been playing and creating computer games from a young age. He is convinced of their potential and relevance to modern society. In his opinion, games enhance people's lives, and can be used to enrich design, communication and training strategies.

One of Paladin's founders, Dylan is Vice President of Business Development. His responsibilities include consultancy and account, sales and product management. He is the conduit between clients and the production team, ensuring optimal understanding.

Sabbatical Cruising - Next Stop: Serious Games Summit @ GDC 2010

2010-01-30T12:11:00.003-02:00

Dear All

I'll be traveling about over the next few weeks. My next stop will be early March, in San Francisco, to attend the Serious Games Summit at GDC 2010.

As my friends from Electric Owl Studios, Pittsburgh, PA, said: GDC is a "blast" - I would add: an "unmissable" (blast).

Brazil's Video Game Ecosystem: Superior Serious Games Products

2010-01-25T17:48:00.002-02:00

Serious Games are part of nascent Brazilian games market

Via: Gamasutra - Analysis: Inside Brazil's Video Game Ecosystem

by James Portnow

Gamasutra has posted on January 20 an in-depth analysis of Brazil's video game market, authored by Divide By Zero CEO - James Portnow. According to the article, Brazil's game dev. market is underdeveloped, but James Portnow believes it has "infinite possibility." In this detailed regional analysis, he explains why.

James also states that "The Brazilian government has been active in subsidizing, assisting, and incentivizing the creation of educational games". As a result, the Serious Games products coming out of Brazil are, in his opinion, superior to what he has seen come out of the US.

Here is the full article:

Recently, an unusual opportunity came across my desk. It required that I do some business in Brazil. I knew nothing of the Brazilian games industry, so I began to ask around. To my surprise, no one else seemed to know much about either, so I just took the leap and headed south.

Beyond my business dealings, I tried to do as much general fact finding as possible while there. Here’s what I learned.

Overview

Brazil is a place of infinite possibility. It has the drive, the wealth, and a large enough highly educated populace to become the next Korea. It has a large, well established "gamer" demographic and a remarkable desire to grow its own national industry. It is also unfettered by the traditions and mindset that many of the more established markets have developed.

I believe there are great opportunities for members of the US game industry in Brazil, but there are also great obstacles. Piracy is rampant, the industry is inexperienced, funding is almost nonexistent, distribution is next to impossible, and the government is either apathetic or hostile. It’s a risky place. My money says there will either be a boom in the next decade or the industry in Brazil will never start.

I’ll try to go over in depth what I see as the challenges facing the industry in Brazil, the possibilities on the horizon, and what we, the international development community, can do to help the Brazilian industry overcome the hurdles they face -- and how we benefit by doing so.

Hurdles and Possibilities

First, the elephant in the room...

Hurdles

Piracy in Brazil

I’ve long heard other people in the industry say Brazil simply isn't a viable market for games because of the piracy rate. This isn't true. It’s not a viable market for games because of the tax rate.

Games which are six months old in the US are being sold through legitimate vendors at 250 reais, or around $140 US dollars. This is an exorbitant price. It’s prohibitive. If you’re reading this article, you're probably pretty into games and know many people who are. Think about yourself and your friends. How many games would you purchase per year at $140? One, maybe two? Would you buy a console in the first place if you knew that every game you were going to buy was $140? All the consoles I saw in Brazil were sold at roughly one and a half to two times their price in the United States as well.

What if I then told you that you couldn't get on Xbox Live in Brazil? Would you buy an Xbox 360?

Even the very wealthy Brazilians with whom I spoke bought the majority of their legitimate games through Steam or other digital distribution services. For console games, Play Asia is by far the most popular choice (Amazon won’t even ship most games to Brazil), followed by Submarino.com (which still has exorbitant prices but occasionally has good sales), with the local retail outlets being a distant third.

The sad fact about all this is that the retail outlets seem almost exclusively to cater to parents who don't know where else to go. That's anecdotal evidence, but after spending several hours loitering in major retail game stores in several different states, it seemed universally to be the case.

All this isn’t to say piracy isn't an issue. Pirate stores sell games at 5-15 reais ($2.80-$8.50) and have better service. For the most part, pirate game dealerships are small local operations that know their clientele and are willing to go further for their customers than the large retail chains. Interestingly enough, I heard people say that their pirate dealers would let them buy a game and, if they didn't like it, come back a few days later and switch it for something else. That's the sort of service I wish we had in the US.

Regardless of the extra service, people seemed interested in legitimate versions of games so long as they came at a reasonable price. In general people told me they’d be willing pay $20 to $30 more for a legitimate game over the pirated version. That number went up to approximately $40 if the game had internet play and required a legitimate version of the game to play online.

If anyone has sales figures of PlayStation 3 games in Brazil, I’d like to know. PS3 games are currently un-piratable due to the Blue Ray discs.

Academia in Brazil

In the field of research, Brazilian academics far outstrip current US efforts, at least with respect to the cultural and artistic merits of games. There is a disproportional number of government grants and university-sponsored research positions available to those who wish to explore the sociological and historical aspects of our medium.

Unfortunately, in terms of educating future developers to be prepared for the rigors of a career in the industry, Brazilian schools are woefully behind US standards (with the possible exception of a program being set up by Ubisoft in southern Brazil).

Universities across Brazil are currently making a concerted effort to offer game development as part of the potential coursework for students. Unfortunately these nascent programs have met with little success. Given the level of passion and determination I saw in the teachers and the students, I believe these programs will grow and perhaps become the backbone of the Brazilian games industry. But right now, they face challenges unthinkable in the United States.

Brazilian professors have an incredible opportunity -- their game development programs have the chance to grow alongside the private sector aspect of the industry and thus be considered a vital part of the industry as a whole, as opposed to in the United States, where university efforts aren’t well integrated into the larger machinery of the industry. Unfortunately, this opportunity brings with it a monumental challenge: building development classes without a strong local development community.

Schools in Brazil do not have the existing industry from which to draw resources. They do not receive technology from game companies, they don't have internships available to their students, and, perhaps most importantly, they don’t have the opportunity to draw on the experience and talent of the industry to provide teachers and lecturers.

Additionally, interdepartmental cooperation in Brazil seems to be an even bigger hurdle in Brazil than in the United States. In many of the schools I visited, the game development courses were the purview of specific departments. (The split is fairly even between schools that had game development courses run by an art department and those run by the computer science division. Humorously enough, I ran into several programs that were essentially part of the fashion design track.) This means students rarely get to work in interdisciplinary groups, and we all know game development simply can't be taught in a useful manner without exposing students to the diverse specialties that go into game creation.

On top of these underlying challenges, many of these programs lack the resources and infrastructure vital to a successful game development degree. They lack commercial software, modern hardware and even, at times, proper lab and classroom space. If anyone reading this is interested in donating software or hardware to some of these Brazilian programs, feel free to contact me.

Oi Futuro Nave

There was one particular school I came across during my trip, a high school called Oi Futuro Nave. In it I saw the future.

Oi Futuro Nave may be the boldest educational experiment I've ever encountered. It is the child of a partnership between one of Brazil's largest cell phone carriers, Oi, and the government of Rio de Janeiro. The goal of their experiment is nothing short of preparing students for the technological culture of the future.

Every classroom in Oi Futuro Nave is equipped with the latest technology, from digital white boards to modern computers. Even the building is a reminder of and a monument to technology, for Oi Futuro Nave occupies part of one of Oi’s central switching stations. Students can see the massive banks of cables that keep their neighborhood connected through the windows in the cafeteria's walls.

The students specialize in animation, script writing, or game programming. They work in multidisciplinary teams to create projects that incorporate each of these specialties. They spend long days, usually from 8am to 5pm (most Brazilian public high schools have a truncated school day of only four to five hours), working both on these projects and learning all traditional subjects.

t's a young school, having been around only three years, so it has yet to see a class graduate. When the first class enters college, the metrics they return in higher education will say a great deal about the success of the experiment, but so far what I saw there seemed like a testament to the power of technology and education.

Oi Futuro Nave is a public school. This means none of the students pay to go there and they all come from the public school system, which is otherwise notoriously awful. The engagement I saw from students who would may otherwise have simply checked out proves to me its success. Its value comes from the fact that, while the setup costs for the school exceeded other schools of its size, the year to year operating costs (as I understood it) are competitive with other schools of its size -- schools which offer a much worse education.

Oi Futuro Nave takes the mystery out modern technology for these kids, but it leaves the magic. This is the future of pedagogy.

Publishers

How do you finance a project in Brazil?

This question may present us with the biggest hurdle facing the Brazilian games industry. There are no major Brazilian publishers and none of the major Eastern or Western publishers have a large presence in Brazil, with the possible exception of Ubisoft. Venture capital for game development is even more difficult to acquire in Brazil than in the United States (I did not meet a single venture-backed developer, and all agreed that since the dot-com bubble, finding venture has been nearly impossible). Bank loans are equally difficult to get for Brazilian developers. All of the companies I encountered were either self-funded or backed by small private angels.

There is limited governmental support in the form of grants for edutainment games and simulations, which has lead to some growth in the serious games industry in Brazil, but there is little in the way of subsidies or matching funds available to traditional game developers.

Without financial support, many companies are reduced to relying on work for hire to stay in business. This means that their own projects drag on and rarely reach completion, which in turn hamstrings the growth of the Brazilian games industry.

Development

With the exception of Southlogic (the makers of Deer Hunter, recently acquired by Ubisoft) and perhaps Tendi Software (creators of TriLinea for Xbox Live Arcade Indie Games), most of the viable Brazilian industry is focused on smaller non-console titles. They have some incredibly strong mobile developers, including Gameloft and Glu Mobile, but -- much as in the United States -- the mobile game market is practically a separate industry to those creating experiences on any other platforms.

PC and console development in Brazil is in its nascent stages and the Brazilian games industry suffers from many of the problems that afflict the amateur and independent game development community in the United States. Primarily, they have no sense of scope (this is a gross generalization; there are plenty of exceptions, but not many that I encountered). Unlike in the US, where the industry had the luxury of growing up in the Atari era, when a game could be brought to completion by a single individual, game makers in Brazil expect to jump in and start making AAA experience like those they play. Given the funding and trained talent available in the Brazilian industry today, this is an impossibility.

The Brazilian industry is also plagued with too many people who want to be designers. The industry there hasn't coalesced enough yet to establish designer as a separate job. In many of the teams I encountered, most of the team members took part in the design (with perhaps a designated designer as the lead) and, while I believe everyone should have some input, this design by committee approach leads to massive amounts of scope creep and lack of a clear and unified vision. This is something the industry will mature beyond, but until it does, it will prevent the community from ever successfully developing larger products.

There is also something of a brain drain. The most talented and successful Brazilian developers tend to end up working in the US, which means that there aren't enough experienced leads available for beginning businesses. Many times I saw Brazilian developers reach outside the industry for their leads, looking to commercial software engineers and members of the advertisement industry, which uses a great deal of pre-rendered CG, for artists and developers.

On the positive side, wages are lower than in the US. Junior staff tended to receive roughly 20 percent of US wages, with more senior people (especially foreign employees) getting closer to parity with their US counterparts. Unfortunately for anyone hoping to set up a company there, it’s important to remember that you have to estimate wages to roughly double in total cost because of taxes and mandatory benefits.

Another difficulty facing the nascent Brazilian games market is the way the international community deals with Brazil. The few major multinational companies that have game development studios in Brazil seem to be focused on producing products for the international market rather than attempting to grow the national market. This is clearly the safer choice at this point, and may be the correct business decision, but it does curtail the growth of Brazil as a viable marketplace for games.

Several startup companies working on handheld projects mentioned to me they had difficulty getting dev kits and had to switch over to developing for the PC instead. I don’t know how prevalent this is, but without development kits, Brazilian talent will never learn to build for the consoles and will remain of little use to the triple-A console industry.

Distribution

The Brazilian games market also faces the lack of a dominant national retail chain devoted exclusively to games. Say what you will about GameStop, but they do us one service: They provide us with a single entity to work with.

uring my stay in Brazil I visited 31 different game stores. Each of these stores had different ownership, different stock, different displays, and different billing systems. Ensuring your product got into all of the small legitimate stores in Brazil would be a nightmare. Trying to ensure they all paid you on time -- well, that might be an impossibility.

Brazil lacks its own digital distribution structure as well. The majority of the Brazilian gamers I spoke with knew (and sometimes used) Steam. Some had heard of Impulse and Greenhouse. None could tell me of a Brazilian company that provided the same sort of service.This problem is compounded for the Brazilian developers. Most of the studios I talked to didn’t know how to, and didn't believe they even could, get distributed through US services.

Without distribution the internal market in Brazil is stillborn.

Possibilities

Despite all this, there are many ways for Brazil to bloom into an incredible market and a powerful development industry.

Online

The first and most obvious area of opportunity is the online space. I don't think Brazilian developers have the knowhow at this point to make a major Western-style MMO or even compete with second-tier MMOs coming out of Korea or China, but they do have the ability to create very powerful social network- or browser-based MMOs.

The market for traditional MMOs in Brazil is deceptively small. There are about 1.5 million players playing traditional MMOs on legitimate servers in Brazil, but there are a great number of people in Brazil who play MMOs on pirate servers. For many MMOs, Brazil is second only to Russia in its number of pirate servers. While this may seem like a negative, it proves two things: one, that there is interest in MMOs, and two, that there is a lot of rudimentary knowledge of how the back end for MMOs works. After all, if you can figure out how to set up a pirate server from the packets sent to your client, you’ve got to know something.

Brazil also has a highly wired culture, with a great deal of wi-fi-based internet access in the urban centers and 2,000 to 3,000 major internet cafes plus an additional 20,000 smaller unlicensed internet cafes. The problem with the internet in Brazil is that it's not always reliable.

All these facts, as well as the limitations of the hardware available at the internet cafes, suggest to me the possibility of a vibrant web-based MMO community fueled by microtransactions or even more creative monetization methods. Anything that could leverage the man hours and human labor available in Brazil rather than charge hard currency could be incredibly powerful there.

Outside Political Pressure

At relatively low cost, I believe international corporations could work with the industry in Brazil to get the protective tariff on games removed, which would allow game retailers to drop the prices of consoles and console games to US standards, which would in turn go a long way to help eliminate piracy. Without such a step, I believe eradicating piracy or reducing it to manageable levels will be impossible.

There is already such a bill in front of the Brazilian senate, but it is currently languishing in committee.

I also believe the Brazilian government could be convinced to begin incentivizing foreign investment in the games industry. The government is amenable to both cultural programs and to technological investment.

Once piracy decreases, the Brazilian development community and the internal Brazilian market can become viable within a few years. As it takes publishers much longer to coalesce than development houses, I see an opportunity for major Western (or even Eastern) publishers to become the dominant force and the exclusive publishers for Brazil. Foreign publishers could then exploit the comparatively lower development costs in Brazil to turn out culturally relevant (that is, locally successful) titles for all of Latin America, Spain, and Portugal.

Serious Games

The Brazilian government has been active in subsidizing, assisting, and incentivizing the creation of educational games. As a result, the Serious Games products coming out of Brazil are, in my opinion, superior to what I've seen come out of the US.

While subjects that fall under the liberal arts are harder to translate across international lines, the sciences are universal. I saw products that could easily be integrated into American classrooms or shipped around the world as top-tier educational games. In the world of edutainment, Brazil will undoubtedly be an international player in the years to come.

Interactive TV

The last and perhaps most interesting prospect for kick-starting the games industry in Brazil is the country's version of digital cable. Its system is designed for interactivity to a much greater degree than ours is in the US. In 2016 they will stop using analog signals entirely, forcing a nationwide switch to digital, and, given television's incredible 90 percent-plus penetration rate, there will be roughly 150 to 170 million digital televisions in Brazilian homes as soon as the switch occurs.

This means that in 2016 there will effectively be a new console with an install base of at least 150 million -- higher than the install base of every current-generation console on the market combined right now -- with software that is totally unpiratable, which lends itself to smaller games, and which is free from outside competition. You can see where I'm going with this.

The only question is how the content will be monetized. None of the developers that I spoke with could tell me if the government or cable companies would simply pay for content then freely distribute it, or if there would be some sort of App Store-like model. If they go with the latter, I believe it will single-handedly infuse the Brazilian industry with the capital it needs to get off the ground.

There might also be incredible opportunities here for foreign developers. I am currently exploring the possibility of getting foreign content onto the system.

Conclusion

Now is the time to get into Brazil. The margin is right. If I were a betting man, I'd say the odds are about three to one that the Brazilian industry never gets off the ground. But at the same time, I'd say the return on resources invested in Brazil at this point will be at least ten to one if the industry does get past its infancy. I also believe that foreign entities have an opportunity to better those odds of the Brazilian industry becoming successful.

But Brazil is not a place for the risk-averse. You can't walk into Brazil assuming things operate there the way they do in the US. It's an easy place to lose your money and wind up with absolutely nothing to show for it. Things there will be the wild west for at least another five years. On the other hand, companies can test the waters right now at little expense, and if things go the right way, a little money now could be a lot of money in the near future.

For what it’s worth, I’m going to commit a little down there. Not enough to leave me busted, but enough that if it goes well, I'm in on the ground floor.

If you have any further questions or inquiries about the Brazilian video game industry, please contact me. I will respond to the best of my ability, or at least see that they get forwarded to the right people.

New Book: Creating Independent Serious Games From Start to Finish

2010-01-24T20:56:00.001-02:00

End-to-End Serious Games Development

Via: End to End Game Development Blog

About The Book

The tools for game creation are more widely available, and less costly, than ever before. Schools, businesses, organizations (public and private) and political movements are all aware of the power of interactive games to teach, train, and persuade — and grants, internal corporate funding and other monies are often available to create serious game and simulation products. But if you’ve never made a game before, what do you do with that money?

End to End Game Development: Creating Independent Serious Games From Start to Finish, issued in December 15, 2009, is about the process of conceptualizing, developing, producing, distributing and marketing independent serious games and simulations.

Written by two veteran media content producers and creators, End to End Game Development provides no-nonsense advice and a step-by-step process to building an independent, low-budget serious game or simulation from start to finish.

About The Authors

Interested in a more detailed overview of how to combine narrative with gameplay? Wondering if classic Hollywood storytelling techniques might apply to the creation of serious games and simulations? Check out the author's first book for Focal Press, Story and Simulations for Serious Games, issued in November 29, 2006.

Nick Iuppa

Nick Iuppa has 40 years experience as a production executive, writer and interactive designer for entertainment and industry. Recently Nick completed an 11-year stint with Paramount Pictures where he served as Vice President and Creative Director of Paramount Digital Entertainment. For more about Nick…

Terry Borst

End to End Game Development is the second book Terry Borst has co-authored on the subject of serious game and simulation development, based on his narrative scripting and design work in the field during the decade. For more about Terry…

Extended & Bonus Chapters

There are good reasons to visit their website, and here are a few of them:

•View, print and download an extended chapter 20 (Selecting Development Tools), an extended chapter 21 (The Design Document), and a bonus chapter 28 (Your Game, Version 2.0). And read updated information about game engine licensing fees (free! — in an increasing number of cases).

•A bonus fable! More on wizards and corporate wizardry
Product Description By Amazon

You're part of a new venture, an independent gaming company, and you are about to undertake your first development project. The client wants a serious game, one with instructional goals and assessment metrics. Or you may be in a position to green light such a project yourself, believing that it can advance your organization's mission and goals. This book provides a proven process to take an independent game project from start to finish.

In order to build a successful game, you need to wear many hats. There are graphic artists, software engineers, designers, producers, marketers - all take part in the process at various (coordinated) stages, and the end result is hopefully a successful game. Veteran game producers and writers (Iuppa and Borst) cover all of these areas for you, with step by step instructions and checklists to get the work done.

The final section of the book offers a series of case studies from REAL indy games that have been developed and launched successfully, and show exactly how the principles outlined in the book can be applied to real world products.

Cerebral Vortex: Research Driven Serious Games

2010-01-23T14:58:00.001-02:00

Casual Serious Games

Via: Cerebral Vortex Games - Free iPhone Games On President’s Birthday

PRESS RELEASE

THOROLD, ON – January 22, 2010 – Cerebral Vortex Games, Inc. (CVG), a Thorold, ONTARIO-based developer of casual games, has announced that its President, Keith Makse is giving away their iPhone games away for free.

“Birthdays are like spinny rides”, said Makse. “You keep going around giggling until you lose your lunch. Then you get on again!”

In his best imitation of a spinny ride, Makse has dropped the price of his popular iPhone games, Word Burst, Sonus and iPrioritize to Free. “I should be celebrating my birthday like this every year”, said Makse, “Instead of me getting presents, I’m going to give them away! It’s like I’m January’s Santa!”

Established in October 2006, Cerebral Vortex Games is an independent Canadian-based developer creating casual and research driven serious games.

Cerebral Vortex Games is developing the Augmented Reality Game, Ghost Breaker, and have also been working on the psychology recorder, Happy Thoughts.

Download Word Burst on iTunes free

Word Burst is the on-the-go version of the company’s popular word/action Flash game. Gamers are presented with a grid full of random letters while a timer ticks down. Players spell words by rapidly clicking on letters. Creating a word and making it “burst” will award you points and more time—the longer the word, the better!

"With over 130,000 words, Word Burst has a bigger vocabulary than your English teacher," said Keith Makse, President of Cerebral Vortex Games. "Everything from 'Aardvark' to 'Zymurgy.'"

Download Sonus on iTunes free

A high-tech variation on a classic memory game, Sonus challenges players to study a pattern of musical tones and multi-colored lights. They must repeat the pattern back by touching the correct buttons on screen. The stakes get higher as the pattern gets longer!

“Think you’ve got a good memory? Prove it with Sonus,” says Mr. Makse. “We have two awesome modes available: Repeat After Me and Reverse. We’ll be adding more cool modes for Sonus in the future,” added Mr. Makse. “So stay tuned.”

Download iPrioritize on iTunes now

iPrioritize is a simple idea. It's a tool for you to use to get more results. Like any tool it takes some experimentation and playing with to master but many people find that it's the simple idea that makes the big difference.

To use iPrioritize just follow these steps:

- Add your main tasks that are in your head right now

- Answer the six simple questions

- Give your instant answer...don't over think

- Not sure means 'no'

BBC Back To The Games Market

2010-01-22T15:11:00.001-02:00

BBC's commercial arm to make a return to the world of games

Via: MCV - BBC Gets Back Into Games

The BBC's commercial arm is to make a return to the world of games "in a big way" following the closure of its multimedia division in 2005, reports exclusively industry news source MCV.

BBC Worldwide is looking for publishers and developers who can turn suitable intellectual properties into games for the Nintendo DS, the Nintendo Wii, the iPhone and even into online games for the likes of Facebook.

The Worldwide department has even hired a former EA and Yahoo exec, Robert Nashak, as executive VP of digital entertainment in order to do so.

Children's brands such as "In The Night Garden" are said to be ripe for DS and Wii games, while Doctor Who titles could appeal to the older child and the likes of Top Gear to the big kid in all of us.

"We are open to conversations with anybody in games about all kinds of business models to see how we can extract more value", MCV quotes Neil Ross Russell, MD of children's and licensing as saying.

"Outside of Disney we have the most well-known line-up of children’s characters around the world".

Here is the full article :

Broadcaster's commercial division Worldwide wants to turn key IPs into DS, Wii, iPhone and online games, MCV can reveal.

After spending years sat on the fence, the BBC is returning to games in a big way, MCV can exclusively reveal.

Via its commercial arm BBC Worldwide, the broadcaster is courting both publishers and developers to turn Doctor Who, Top Gear, In The Night Garden and many, many more into games for all audiences.

No stone will go unturned: the BBC wants to see its brands on iPhone and Facebook as much as it wants to see them on DS and Wii.

“We are open to conversations with anybody in games about all kinds of business models to see how we can extract more value,” said Neil Ross Russell, MD of children’s and licensing.

“Outside of Disney we have the most well-known line-up of children’s characters around the world.”

It’s a big about-turn for the broadcaster. The BBC closed its Multimedia division in 2005 after sales crashed in its boxed product business, subsequently aborting an attempt to get a PS2 game of spy thriller Spooks off the ground.

“We’ve been reactive to the market in the last few years,” explained Dave Anderson, head of multimedia development at BBC Worldwide.

“There were a few opportunistic licensing deals, but we were largely aggregating and holding on to our properties to wait and see how the market developed.”

The new effort will push key kids’ IPs towards games for DS and Wii, while more long-running brands find their feet on all sorts of platforms.

But the move goes beyond just licensing out properties.

Said Ross Russell: “What we’re trying to do is build the brands here – this is not about opportunistic licensing. If we wanted to do that we would have done more with these key brands over the last few years.”

As part of the move, BBC Worldwide has hired former EA and Yahoo exec Robert Nashak as EVP of digital entertainment. More details on his appointment will follow tomorrow.

MCV will reveal more on BBC's new strategy to fund new titles based on its properties and work closer with games publishers and developers next week.

Games Market: Specialization Proceeds At Extraordinary Pace

2010-01-22T12:17:00.004-02:00

Games companies learning about the value of specialization

Via: gigamesindustry.biz

giDaily Newsletter dated January 14th states that although most comentators agree that the story of games business in the past few years has been all about breaking into the mainstream, an assessment of what's actually happened in games of late is a tale of companies learning about the value of specialization.

"The mid-section of this narrative is about companies learning that actually, the only way to keep those profit margins high is to learn what their strengths are, and focus on those areas - and about companies who can't make that transition gradually falling by the wayside."

Tha author goes further by saying that he suspects that this story ends in a few years' time, with a landscape largely made up of highly specialized companies, each focused on a relatively tight market segment. Some of them will be modern publishers who have learned to focus; some will be developers who have learned that such tight focus can actually remove the need to work with a dedicated publisher, if you can build the right skillset.

The author provides anecdotal evidence of this transition in progress, the most dramatic example being Electronic Arts, whose entire restructuring plan can, on some levels, be summed up "as an attempt to give the giant publisher a laser-sharp focus on a small number of key areas which it can dominate, rather than simply being one among many in a wider variety of industry sectors. There's more to it than that, of course, but it's beyond question that Riccitiello's EA is proving much more circumspect about picking its battles than Probst's EA, which was willing to wade into any arena that presented itself, no matter how ill-equipped it may have been for the challenge."

"Meanwhile, outside the world's giant publishers", the author continues, "specialization proceeds at an extraordinary pace. When we first got excited about browser based games, Flash games and mobile phone games, there was always a vague assumption that these would be integrated into the operations of "real" game publishers some day. Even those companies which set themselves up as the leading publishers of such new content were often essentially designed to be acquired by a game publisher at some point down the line, rather than with the intention of ever really being a force in the wider market."

The author wraps up stating that companies are learning that such specialization isn't just viable, it's often healthy. In other words, "it's only to be expected that many of the industry's top publishers, after their flirtation with emerging markets, will fall back on what they know best - making core games for a core market."

Here is the full story:

Ask almost any journalist or commentator what the story of the games business in the past few years has been, and you'll probably get the same stock response. It's all about breaking into the mainstream, you'll almost certainly hear. It's about the rise of the Casual Gamer, this mythical mass-market beast unleashed upon the market by the dark genius of Nintendo's Wii and DS, whose successes other companies are now rushing to emulate.

It's a fairly straightforward narrative, and like any good story, there's a grain of truth at the heart of it - but as an assessment of what's actually happened in games of late, it's sorely lacking in insight, which makes it all the more disappointing that it's such a widespread view of the market.

What's really happened isn't so much a tale of cracking the mass-market (your granny may have bought a Wii, but the stark reality is that the console's installed base is still less than half that achieved by the PS2) as a tale of companies learning about the value of specialization. It's a story that starts in an industry dominated by publishers who view themselves as jacks of all trades, capable of straddling every genre and target market in the business - because after all, the consumers are all gamers, at the end of the day. The mid-section of this narrative is about companies learning that actually, the only way to keep those profit margins high is to learn what their strengths are, and focus on those areas - and about companies who can't make that transition gradually falling by the wayside.

And the third act? As ever, I'm reticent to stare too deeply into the crystal ball, but I suspect that this story ends in a few years' time, with a landscape largely made up of highly specialised companies, each focused on a relatively tight market segment. Some of them will be huge companies, aiming their efforts at a tight but very large segment, and some will successfully span several different sectors with highly differentiated subdivisions and sub-brands. Some will be modern publishers who have learned to focus; some will be developers who have learned that such tight focus can actually remove the need to work with a dedicated publisher, if you can build the right skillset.

The evidence of this transition in progress can be seen fairly readily in the behaviour of the industry over the past couple of years. Perhaps the most dramatic example is, of course, Electronic Arts, whose entire restructuring plan can, on some levels, be summed up as an attempt to give the giant publisher a laser-sharp focus on a small number of key areas which it can dominate, rather than simply being one among many in a wider variety of industry sectors. There's more to it than that, of course, but it's beyond question that Riccitiello's EA is proving much more circumspect about picking its battles than Probst's EA, which was willing to wade into any arena that presented itself, no matter how ill-equipped it may have been for the challenge.

Staying at the top of the market, Activision, too, has made it clear that it's keen to pick its battles with care. The company has been blunt - perhaps too blunt - about its ambition to launch nothing that isn't a $100 million franchise, representing a clear attempt to remove the publisher entirely from the middle ground and turn it into a brand that only launches slick, expensive, core gamer titles.

Admittedly, the ambition to make this transition and the reality are rather different things - not only does a publisher ignore smaller titles and new IP at vast risk of letting the next break-out hit slip through its fingers, but a firm with Activision's ambitions in this regard needs better quality control and product assessment processes than the company presently demonstrates. Modern Warfare 2 hides a multitude of sins, but not everyone has forgotten that Activision's two other major Q409 titles were a slow burning cult success (in the case of DJ Hero) and an outright embarrassing flop (Tony Hawks Ride), rather than commercial triumphs.

Then there's Ubisoft, which this week made clear that it's planning to tone down its efforts in the casual market and focus on what it's been really good at recently - high quality titles for the core market. It's not that the casual market is doing badly - far from it - rather, it's that the people making money there are specialists, not daytripping core game publishers. Ubisoft has done better than most in the sector, but even it cannot really compete with companies whose raison d'etre is to reach this market segment.

Look, for a perfect example of this specialization at work, at the top 10 games of 2009 in the UK, a chart conveniently unveiled by GfK ChartTrack this week. The top ten has two Activision titles in it - both Call of Duty games, hardcore first-person shooters prized for their online multiplayer. It has two EA games in it - both FIFA titles, from the unrivalled EA Sports catalogue, which dominates the sports markets on both sides of the Atlantic. There's one Ubisoft title in there, core gamer favourite Assassin's Creed 2. The other half of the top ten is all about Nintendo, with five casual or family-friendly games making up the rest of the chart.

What games define Activision? Call of Duty, of course, and since the Vivendi merger, World of Warcraft (which isn't in the chart but still made enough money to wallpaper the moon in hundred dollar bills and still have enough left over for the taxi fare home). Electronic Arts? Brave attempts at new IP and pushes into exciting new digital markets will probably pay off in the end, but right now, it's Madden and FIFA. Ubisoft? Assassin's Creed and Splinter Cell, pretty much. Nintendo? Mario, of course, and Wii Sports / Wii Fit - the Axis of Casual.

It's not an accident, of course, that the defining games of each publisher are the ones which sell the most. It's perfectly blatant logic that commercial success and widespread recognition go hand in hand. Each publisher has a strength that it's playing to, and they are increasingly learning that playing outside those comfort zones is hard work, prone to failure and ultimately a fairly weak investment compared to simply playing the game you're already good at.

Meanwhile, outside the world's giant publishers, specialization proceeds at an extraordinary pace. When we first got excited about browser based games, Flash games and mobile phone games, there was always a vague assumption that these would be integrated into the operations of "real" game publishers some day. Even those companies which set themselves up as the leading publishers of such new content (often by means of hiring better PR people than their rivals rather than any real achievements) were often essentially designed to be acquired by a game publisher at some point down the line, rather than with the intention of ever really being a force in the wider market.

Yet today, companies are learning that such specialization isn't just viable, it's often healthy. Specialization - be it on a genre, or a target audience, or a medium - provides a wealth of benefits, both in terms of specific expertise and in terms of the ability to structure your entire company around the requirements of your market sector. It's hard for a company used to building monolithic boxed software to embrace the mindset required to iterate quickly and release lots of smaller products, or to run a full-scale service for several years. It's not just the developers who have to change their working habits - middle and upper management, too, require re-education, and bare basics like how money flows into and through the company need to be reconsidered.

Moreover, if you're a company used to selling $60 software to your customers and making a $10 margin, it's natural to have a serious conceptual problem when setting up a service which deals in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) figures instead, especially if those ARPUs are being measured in cents rather than dollars. Isn't this cannibalising your lovely, straightforward high-margin business, to some degree? Maybe it is, maybe it isn't - but for the specialist firm, which deals in nothing but high-traffic, low ARPU business, that's not even a consideration, making them more nimble and less constrained in how they choose to do business.

In other words, it's only to be expected that many of the industry's top publishers, after their flirtation with emerging markets, will fall back on what they know best - making core games for a core market. This won't excuse them from having to think about new business models - even core games are going to see their revenue models overhauled vastly in the coming years - but it'll certainly mean that the list of what we consider to be the world's "top games companies" will need a serious rethink in the coming years.

Those who will be left behind by this change - those most at risk in both this transition and the move to new business models in general - are those who simply don't have a specialisation. Studios which can produce major, exciting, AAA games have nothing to fear - no number of highly addictive iPhone and Facebook games will ever remove that market. Equally, those who can create genuinely entertaining family and casual products will find comfortable niches, as will those with valuable expertise with running games as services, rapidly developing high-quality titles for small-game plaftorms, and so on.

There exists, however, a crop of development studios - many of them quite venerable - whose existence has been entirely predicated on the existence of a market for games which fall somewhere in the middle. They're not bad games, but they're not fantastic games either - competent movie licenses for movies that don't quite set the world on fire, decently made clones of games that were popular a year ago, enduring classics like racing games where the cars have guns on them, or nondescript shooting games where you fight aliens, demons, or alien demons. They're the games that scrape back their investment, because the investment is low, and because they're delivered on time and on budget, the publishers come back for more.

This work, I fear, is going to dry up - for the simple reason that the investment required for a PC or console title has risen to a level where a "competent but unexciting" game can't really justify it. Meanwhile, whole new markets have sprung up underfoot, less risky ones where small investments can turn into significant rewards. We're already seeing a polarisation in the industry between games that were hugely expensive to develop, and games that were incredibly cheap to develop, with companies deserting the middle ground and flocking to the extremes. That's going to leave studios which presently eke out a living on that middle ground in a seriously bad place. It's time for them, too, to pick a lane and stick with it - to find a specialisation and master it, before the undifferentiated ground they're standing upon is swallowed up entirely.

Total Immersion Serious Games Transforming Brand Assets

2010-01-21T12:04:00.001-02:00

Serious Games for entertainment marketing

PRESS RELEASE

MARRYING THE MARKETING TO THE PRODUCT, TOTAL IMMERSION BRINGS AUGMENTED REALITY TO MARQUEE HOME ENTERTAINMENT RELEASES

AR Gives Movie Buffs Reason for a Double Take – And Marks Company’s First Music Industry Campaign, for Universal

LOS ANGELES (January 20, 2010) – In what may herald a new benchmark in entertainment marketing, augmented reality is beginning to transform the way key brand assets of hot film and music properties – performers, characters, scenes, and more – migrate from the original medium to the consumer’s world.

The just-concluded holiday season affirms the trend. With the DVD launch an increasingly important coda to tentpole titles, Total Immersion (www.t-immersion.com) has infused augmented reality (AR) into three of this season’s hottest home entertainment packages – for Paramount’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Star Trek, and Fox’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

At the same time, the company has executed its first campaign for the music industry, for Universal Music TV/All Around The World artists N-Dubz. As part of its latest release, the platinum-selling band interacts with viewers – and performs in AR.

Total Immersion’s latest applications reveal an evolution in marketing that merges multiple channels and uses the latest in AR technology to engage consumers in the brand experience as never before. The company supplied AR applications to Paramount and Fox to promote the theatrical release of all three titles.

Among this past holiday season’s biggest movers, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen “went AR” in two-disc Blu-ray and DVD sets.

Fans can give life to an augmented reality incarnation of robotic character Optimus Prime by simply displaying DVD or Blu-ray boxes before a webcam. Viewers can also access a special website, which asks that they assemble the Matrix of Leadership to bring Optimus Prime back to life, fix his armor and calibrate his weapons by controlling his aim during target practice.

Paramount Home Entertainment’s DVD and Blu-ray Disc releases of Star Trek deploy AR to take consumers on a self-guided tour of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Showing the disc box to a webcam triggers an AR journey of five cabins on the Enterprise -- and even enables consumers to fire on foes from the ship’s deck.

20th Century Fox’s Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian likewise enables consumers to enter the movie experience. Just as museum wonders come to life in the film, so the DVD and Blu-ray Disc packaging (abetted by a webcam) unleashes Rex the Dinosaur, the giant squid and Amelia Earhart’s plane, among other snippets. All seemingly pop off the box -- and put the consumer at the center of the action.

N-Dubz’ new album, Against All Odds – released on Universal Music TV/All Around the World -- features an augmented reality performance by the band, triggered from data embedded within the album artwork. When displayed before a webcam, the artwork reveals 3-D images of the band chatting with the viewer and then giving an impromptu performance of the hit new single, “I Need You” -- all within the palm of the viewer’s hand. Consumers can turn the sleeve artwork around to view the band from alternative angles. Band members move as fluidly as they would if they were physically standing on the paper held aloft.

“We’re helping home entertainment marketers engage their audiences on an entirely new level, with experiences from each film crossing from cinematic ‘reality’ to theirs, ” said Bruno Uzzan, CEO and co-founder, Total Immersion. “After more than a decade in development, augmented reality has moved into prime-time. Some of the world’s largest brands are using AR to enhance both brand loyalty and the customer experience, by propelling consumers into a unique 3D interaction with their film. Hollywood is embracing the opportunity to enable fans to explore their handiwork through a process that blends the physical and digital worlds.

“AR is a major technical achievement,” Uzzan said. “But it’s just as compelling a marketing milestone. Through AR, we’re taking the equity of the franchise – key assets like characters and scenes – and giving them to consumers. AR adds value by enabling consumers to explore and experience what amounts to a new entertainment ecosystem. And this is just the beginning.

About Total Immersion

Total Immersion (http://www.t-immersion.com/) is the global leader in augmented reality. Through its patented D’Fusion® technology, Total Immersion blurs the line between the virtual world and the real world by integrating real time interactive 3D graphics into a live video stream. Leading the augmented reality category since 1999, the company maintains offices in Europe (France and the UK ), Asia and in the U.S. , and supports a network of more than 50 partners worldwide.

Find the latest news concerning Total Immersion projects at: http://augmented-reality-news.com/.

New ARG EVOKE: Serious Games Changing The World

2010-01-20T19:11:00.002-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play a better future

Via: Avant Game Blog - URGENT EVOKE: Help Run A 10-Week Crash Course In Changing The World

Avant Game (Jane McGonigal) is launching a new Alternate Reality Game called Evoke - a crash course in changing the world.

The goal of the game is to help empower young people all over the world, and especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most pressing problems: hunger, poverty, disease, war and oppression, water access, education, climate change.

The game is a project for the World Bank Institute (the learning and knowledge arm of the World Bank).

The game runs for 10 weeks, with a new mission and a new quest each week.

Players who successfully complete all 10 missions and all 10 quests will be able to claim their honors: World Bank Institute Certified Social Innovator – Class of 2010.

Top players will also earn mentorships with experienced social innovators and business leaders from around the world.

If you just want to play the game, follow @evokenet on Twitter or email evokenet@gmail.com to receive an alert when we launch.

If you want to help running the game, they’re putting together a team of five game assistants. Honorarium: $1000 USD, plus an invitation to the EVOKE conference in Washington, DC.

You’ll be needed online for 1 full day (8 hours) a week for 10 weeks (March 3 – May 12, 2010), plus a few days for pre-game orientation and training. You can work from anywhere in the world and choose which day (or night) of the week you’ll work.

Responsibilities:

• Play the game

• Help answer other players’ questions

• Moderate discussions

• Review “mission evidence” (blog posts, videos, photos, e.g.) completed quests, so you can award points to players

• Write a weekly blog post, or make a weekly video, reviewing your favorite moments from the game that week

Skills required:

• Great at social networks and social media (Facebook, Twitter, Ning, etc.)

• Able to consume lots of digital media quickly (watch lots of videos, read lots of blog posts, follow lots of Tweets) and pick out the most interesting stuff

• Trustworthy, reliable, able to work independently

• An epic sense of adventure – this is a brand new game with very big goals

TO APPLY please find all the details here at Avant Game Blog.

Serious Games By Serious Factory - France

2010-01-20T14:15:00.003-02:00

Serious Games democratize the use of 3D content in the work environment

Via: COMMUNIQUEZ.biz - Serious Factory Birth

Boulogne-Billancourt, January 19, 2010 - SoBuzzy, a leading publisher of 3D environments and AD-Invaders, a video game studio, yesterday announced their merger to give birth to Serious Factory, a group specialized in interactive 3D communication.

"3D virtualization is the future of the Web", says William Perez, CEO of Serious Factory. The synergy between 3D environments and video games responds to the increasing demand for experiential online content.

3DWeb and Free2Play games are a key element of Internet evolution. They provide immersion capabilities to game worlds, allowing anyone to manipulate objects and offering more realistic online experiences.

This rationale has become part of SoBuzzy and AD-Invaders natural evolution.

The purpose of Serious Factory is to democratize the use of 3D content in the work environment by means of integration with business communication”, says Sebastien Bru, co-founder of AD-Invaders and Serious Factory Marketing Vice President. Serious Factory will therefore benefit from the expertise of the two market players.

AD-Invaders, founded in 2006, is a 3D gaming agency offering specialized communication solutions by use of Advergames, Serious Games, and Social Games.

For the launch of the new Toyota Auris, the marketing and communication teams of Toyota France wanted to put another version of the game Toyota Auris Ice Experience on-line, showing the new Auris in the Andros Trophy 2008.

Making people discover the new Auris being the main objective, Toyota France wanted to create a showroom to make the public discover the range before playing on-line, an option lacking in the first version of the game.

Welcomed by Olivier Panis, net surfers are invited to select and customize the new Auris they will pilot on a snowy circuit. This project was developed together with Ad-Invaders, a company specialized in the creation of on-line advertising games. This partnership well appreciated by Toyota France has proven to be ideal for this version of the game, the first edition having been largely spread by word of mouth from the moment it was released in March 2007.

SoBuzzy, founded in 2007, is a leader in the design and development of interactive solutions and online virtual spaces.

Virtual Showrooms

This merger is expected to further strengthen their market positioning by combining two complementary visions.

Serious Factory's customers include well-known references such as Peugeot, Toyota, Renault, Atari GmbH, Dassault Systems, Euronext, Colas, Dassault Aviation or Ubifrance.

GDC 10 Serious Games Summit: Videogames Can Make A Difference

2010-01-19T21:31:00.000-02:00

Serious Games focusing on child safety issues

Via: Game Developers Conference 2010 - Serious Games Summit

SGS Session: Violence Prevention - Playing A Video Game Can Make A Difference

Speaker: Allan McCullough (President, Child Safety Research & Innovation Center)

Session Description

Video games haven’t always been associated with preventing violence against children but a new Serious Game entity intends to change that. The Child Safety Research & Innovation Center (CSRIC) is a non-profit organization that uses video games to teach children how to respond safety to potentially dangerous situations.

One of the most difficult challenges violence prevention experts have is measuring prevention, CSRIC uses the power of video games to track and measure the child’s change in behavior game play by game play - tracking the child’s prevention skills. To help bridge the child’s learning from the game to the real world CSRIC provides parents and educators with animated vignettes showing the teachable moments with guides these trusted adults can use with children.

Idea Takeaway

Attendees will learn about a new Serious Game entity whose primary medium for preventing violence among children is video games.

CSRIC's primary focus is on the child safety issues that have an offline and online component such as sexual predators and bullying / cyberbullying.

About Allan McCullough

Allan is President of Canada’s non-profit Child Safety Research & Innovation Center and CEO of the video game developer Entertaining Knowledge Inc. He is also an expert in the field of child safety and street proofing of children.

Allan founded Child Safety Research and Innovation Center to work with his computer game company to blend the non-profit world of advocacy and safety with the engaging world of computer games. The partnership is designed to develop computer games to teach and reinforce safety skills, as well as measure vulnerabilities in children.

Born and raised in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and trained as a ships navigator with simulation computer programmers, Allan adapted the tools designed to train navigation to training children on safety.

His passion to help protect children from sexual predators began in 1985 when two members of his family were involved in the search for a missing girl in the United States. Her body was discovered hours later - she had been abducted and murdered by a known child molester.

From that point forward, Allan devoted himself to finding ways to street proof children. Early in his work, Allan determined that the most effective way to engage, entertain and educate children is through role-playing computer game so that the safety skills could be acquired by having the player simulate the safe practices he or she should use in real life.

Sydney Safe-Seeker and The Incredible Journey Home Game

His first product, released in the Fall of 2008, was Sydney Safe-Seeker and The Incredible Journey Home.

Sydney Safe-Seeker and the Incredible Journey Home is a suite of products focused on “Street Proofing”. It is comprised of an entertaining CD-ROM game to teach child safety; parent and educator assessment tools that track the child’s safety knowledge; and a wealth of support materials and activity sheets for parents, educators, police, and other child safety professionals.

The game provides an interactive exploratory environment where 5 - 10 years old children are asked to make decisions based on game scenes that were developed to mirror real and sometimes dangerous situations. The game actually measures and reports back to teachers and parents the vulnerability of the child to ten different ploys used by sexual predators.

In addition to measuring and reporting, the game develops safe habits through the use of prompts and feedback during the course of the game. The more the child plays, the more they learn about safety.

The game is a role-playing adventure style game with numerous interactions that lead up to a potentially unsafe situation. The player is presented with an audio/visual decision prompt for each potentially unsafe situation that must be answered to continue the game. Based on the player’s selected answer, the game branches to one of two outcomes showing either a safe or potentially unsafe situation (no violence will be shown). Animation and audio will be used to provide more detailed feedback, and animation branches provide educational outcome knowledge.

Sydney Safe-Seeker enhances a child’s confidence and self-esteem by teaching them safe behaviors when they encounter a potentially threatening situation.

Educator and Parent applications identify particular situations where a child responds unsafely and then coaches them on how to handle the “teachable moment” without raising the anxiety of the child.

Allan’s work has received the support and attention of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Victims of Violence, Chris Hansen (of Dateline’s To Catch a Predator series), WiredSafety.org and many others.

Allan continues to reside in Canada and splits his time between there and the NY Metropolitan area where he maintains a second home with his wife.

GDC 10 Serious Games Summit: G4LI Update

2010-01-19T12:06:00.003-02:00

Research on Design Patterns for Effective Serious Games

Via: Game Developers Conference 2010 - Serious Games Summit

SGS Session: The Games for Learning Institute: Research on Design Patterns for Effective Educational Games

Speakers: Jan L. Plass (Associate Professor and Co-Director, G4LI, NYU), Ken Perlin (Professor, NYU), John Nordlinger (Senior Research Program Manager, Microsoft Research)

Session Description

What makes games fun and engaging, and how can these concepts be measured? The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI), a multi-institutional collaboration of 14 game design and education faculty from 8 universities, conducts research on design patterns for effective educational games.

This session will provide an update to the G4LI collaborators and research agenda, present educational games developed by G4LI, and describe the research methods used to evaluate these games in middle school settings. For these studies, G4LI researchers have developed an instrumented game design architecture that allows extensive user tracking, research methodologies to measure fun and engagement with a combination of biometric and behavioral data, and methods for integrated assessment of learning outcomes and learning strategies. This session will prove an overview of these activities.

Idea Takeaway

Attendees will learn about:

- The common research approach taken by the 14 members of G4LI at 8 universities

-The research methods incorporating behavioral data from user logs, biometrics, and user reports

-The instrumented game architecture that allows for the design of games and the integrated assessment of learning outcomes and learning strategies

-Summary of research results to date

About G4LI

The Games for Learning Institute (G4LI) is a first-of-its-kind, multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional gaming research alliance that will provide the fundamental scientific evidence to support games as learning tools for math and science subjects among middle school students. It is great example of how technology can play a role in changing how students learn and give teachers new tools to create dynamic and effective curriculum.

Bringing Game-Based Learning to Scale: The Business Challenges of Serious Games
G4LI White Paper – Published October 19, 2009

Excerpts

Beginning with Jim Gee’s recognition of bona fide learning processes in his and his son’s video-game playing, and propelled to public recognition through Ben Sawyer and David Rejeski’s launching of the Serious Games movement and its attendant conference, the use of video games to teach academic content has now reached a level of national interest.

Game-informed learning is now the basis for a new urban school serving grades 6-12; numerous colleges and universities offer game design courses; engineering professional societies have launched member sections devoted to games; foundations have recently poured millions of dollars into research on games and learning ($50M from the MacArthur Foundation alone), and the venerable National Academies has begun to hold workshops on the topic.

Why Learning Games Are So Hard To Find – It’s Not What You Think

Presuming, for the moment, that games can teach, the question arises as to why a wildly popular medium in other spheres has not gained a greater foothold in both formal and informal education.

Several initial hypotheses can be discarded almost immediately – for example, that there exist no games that teach academic subjects.

Indeed there are many, ranging from games covering physics (e.g. Crayon Physics, Physicus, Coaster Creator to math (e.g. DimenxianM for algebra, NIU-Torcs for numerical methods) to mechanical engineering (Time Engineers), to network engineering (Mind Share) to biology (Virtual Cell, Cell Saver, Immune Attack) to ecology (Resilient Planet, River City, Quest Atlantis, Wolfquest ) to many others.

A secondary hypothesis is also contraindicated: that games covering academic
content, particularly math and science, are doomed in their attempts to attract an audience because the subject matter itself is so inherently dull.

Another hypothesis offered to explain the near-invisibility of “games that teach” is that a truly fine exemplar – one that captures all the production value of a AAA entertainment title, thereby commanding public attention and generating high profits – has yet to be built.

The lack of a $100M academic game is, as far as the author knows, a true fact. Production costs for academic learning games tend to be much more modest, typically no more than $5M and most commonly under $1M.

In his presentation, “Serious Game Production,” Noah Falstein, whose commercial credits include Star Wars: Empire at War and Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, as well as several “serious game” titles, explains what one obtains for increasing levels of development cost: more scope (more game levels and story lines to explore), higher quality graphics (3D rather than 2D, higher realism, larger world or variety of places to inhabit), more extensive playtesting and production value (better software engineering for faster game response time, higher frames per second, professional sound, fewer execution bugs, more powerful physics engine – leaves flutter in the wind; items break according to resolved forces instead of stored animations).

He gives the following examples to illustrate the cost hierarchy, indicating what each price point was able to buy.

From Falstein’s list:

$5K: Example Happy Neuron (brain teaser)
2D
simple puzzle-type game (brain exercise)
Based on a prior game’s mechanics
Less than 2 months’ development time

$15K (approx): Example: Airport Insecurity (Airport security practices)
2D
original game design
more complex game mechanics (game outcomes modeled on real TSA reports)
6 months’ development time (estimated)

$200K: Freedom Fighter 56 (Hungarian revolution)
2D, detailed art
original game design; graphic novel with embedded mini-games
15 months’ development time

$2M: Re-Mission (first person shooter, cancer treatment)
3D
Detailed but not high realism graphics
original game design
User testing and multiple redesigns to ensure product met effectiveness benchmarks (change in patient attitudes and health)
18 months’ development time

$10M: Gears of War (3rd person shooter)
3D
original game design
Highly realistic graphics
Up to 8 simultaneous players
$10M (cheap by entertainment game standards)
3 years’ development time

$50-$100M: World of Warcraft (fantasy)
3D
Fantasy art that spans continent-sized regions and takes years to exploreDetailed visual effects – light filtering through trees, footprints dissolving in the beach sand, mist rising from the ground
Tech services that respond to and support 8.5 million simultaneous users, on hundreds of different software/hardware configurations interacting with each other inside the game (as of 2009, over 10 million users)
5 years’ development time

What is instructive about this list is the relative independence of cost from engagement – measured either in terms number of users, or hours spent. World of Warcraft, the most expensive game on the list, has over 10 million players currently.

However, Happy Neuron, at an original $5K development cost, has since expanded into a suite of 35 similarly-themed quick ‘n easy brain teaser games with 35 million “exercises completed”. Each of its 125,000 users is therefore, on average, completing 280 game exercises.

Whyville is also rendered in cost-effective 2D. Its cartoon-drawn characters, some of which are no more than mere ovals, have attracted 5 million players, from humble beginnings of $30,000 and one in-world activity.

Thus, for orders of magnitude lower production cost, simple Flash-based games can be very addictive, and with a profitable business model they can grow to significant size.

With respect to science education, many of the features that can be purchased at the tens-of-millions-of-dollars level have yet to be equated with improved learning outcomes. Characteristics that have been equated with improved learning outcomes include learner control (ability to navigate through the game under one’s own choice, instead of being “led along”) and in-game user help systems. The former is also a large contributor to user engagement, as measured quantitatively in, and the latter is largely responsible for the exceptional learning outcomes of low achievers when they learn via game.

Classroom research has shown that cooperative learning improves learning outcomes by 25% over solo learning; if we extend this concept to games, then multiplayer design should prove to produce superior learning outcomes over single player design. Note however, that none of these proven or potential learning-related features are show-stopping cost drivers. Even the most complex of these, the multiplayer structure, has already been adopted by several medium-budget commercial learning games: DimenxianM from Tabula Digita, Making History from Muzzy Lane Software, and Whyville from Numedeon.

And, to make the cost issue even less germane, a slew of authoring products are now becoming available to drive game development costs down further. These include Blender, a free high end graphics tool; Multiverse, a free high end game development system, used to make customized virtual worlds; DARPA’s Real World, in which warfighters can easily create simulations of their own battleground experiences; and Torque, a low-cost game engine popular in academic circles.

Tools are also being created that will dilute development costs by spreading the effort among many co-developers: Medulla, being developed by the Federation of American Scientists, will enable structured multiperson collaborations on 3D environments, managing authentication, peer review, contractor payments, consumer ratings, volunteer participants and more.

In yet another development, the increasing adoption of standardized file formats for 3D objects, e.g., Collada, will enable copy and paste across 3D environments, so that game developers are no longer faced with the cost of having to develop new graphic assets from scratch.

Most of this work on free and easier-to-use game creation tools has been underway in just the past 5 years, but in aggregate, it should significantly reduce game development costs.

In conclusion, it appears it is not lack of product, or boring subject matter, or a more modest expenditure on game development that keeps learning games from attracting a significant audience.

Instead, this white paper proposes it is a series of business-related issues: finding a sustainable business model, creating or obtaining a distribution network, and achieving consumer acceptance.

Failed Attempts at Scaling – Why The Two Obvious Approaches Did Not Work

As described below, the two obvious approaches to bringing learning games, or Serious Games, to a national audience have failed primarily for business reasons unrelated to lack of product, content, or initial cost.

In the first approach, someone attempts to “scale up” a game developed in an academic research environment. This approach almost universally fails, for two reasons: 1) the grant on which the game was developed flatly does not provide funds for commercial hardening, marketing, sales, distribution or other functions that would be required to allow the game to be provided at commercial scale and 2) even when such funds are externally provided – as in the Department of Defense (DOD) experiment described below – the game is so poorly designed from the outset to meet these challenges, and its academic developers so unskilled at the tasks required to get the product to a level of commercial acceptability – that failure is also almost inevitable.

The second obvious approach – using the commercial know-how, investment capital, and leverage of a large company and pushing academic content through their existing pipeline, has also failed. Large entertainment game companies have difficulty seeing how their existing business model of enormous up-front investment, followed by mass uptake by an audience of millions in a few months following release, would work for educational offerings.

In 2003, Microsoft held a Higher Education Leaders Symposium, in which it concluded that high quality educational games would be “exceedingly expensive to build with a business model geared toward a mass market of consumers”. The question of “who will pay for development” weighed heavily in those proceedings, since the market Microsoft was experienced with was not the market that would buy educational games, and the obvious market of educational institutions (colleges, schools) was not seen as having deep enough pockets.

Established educational software companies do exist but limit themselves to the K-6 market, an age bracket where parents still make software purchasing decisions for their kids. Even so, these companies have not been spectacularly profitable and are not in a position to take on risky investments in academically-developed software.

The Three Business Challenges: Sustainability, Distribution, and Customer Acceptance

Sustainability
Developing a sustainable revenue model from paying customers is one of three major dilemmas facing the scale-up of serious games, the others being distribution and customer acceptance.

Economic sustainability is certainly the issue on the minds of commercial game companies that have toyed with the Serious Games space. It is also the major question for academic developers. Scaling up from academic origins requires a process of product hardening and ongoing maintenance that is consistent with commercial quality software production (versioning, user testing, marketing, etc). Some of the new developers are beginning to take on these functions or provide them as a service to others. However, they need a sustainable source of revenue to cover these recurring costs. A one-time grant, that covers only initial game development, will not suffice.

Sustainability requires revenue that is tied to product use, rather than product development. Somehow, the users must pay.

Distribution
Distribution is the second major challenge faced by those wishing to bring immersive education to scale. As noted above, commercial game manufacturer and textbook companies have the needed distribution channels but do not have business models that are compatible with selling Serious Games.

The academic researcher/game developer, by himself, has no virtually channels at all. Posting one’s game on the equivalent of “myuniversity.edu/facultymember/course1201/lecturenotes/~game” is not distribution. In the absence of a significant marketing push to drive traffic to the otherwise obscure website, no one will go there.

Unfortunately, marketing is a task well outside most researchers’ expertise and the grants’ funding allowances.

Thus the establishment of new distribution channels, well suited to this new product genre, is a major challenge for expansion of the field.

Customer Acceptance
Consumer acceptance is the third challenge, after ensuring the product can be reliably sustained and actually be distributed to the customer. The white paper examines several known factors relating to consumer acceptance.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
These three business issues: sustainability, distribution, and consumer acceptance are, in the author’s opinion, the three primary factors limiting the scale up of immersive education to million-user levels.

Find the full document at http://g4li.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Mayo_Gaming_CommissionedPaper.pdf

GDC 10 Serious Games Summit: Seriously, Make Your Game!

2010-01-17T17:07:00.000-02:00

Serious Games becoming a central element of the mediascape

Via: Game Developers Conference 2010 - Serious Games Summit

SGS Session: Seriously, Make YOUR Game!

Speakers: Jason Rohrer (Independent), Paolo Pedercini, Ian Bogost (Associate Professor, The Georgia Institute of Technology)

Session Description

Two top indie developers inspire us to get things done.

Featuring a talk by Jason Rohrer (Passage, Between) titled E For Everyone: Making a mature game for the DS and by Paolo Pedercini (aka La Molleindustria, Every Day the Same Dream, McDonald's Videogame) Corrupting your Children.

The talks will be followed by a discussion and Q&A with Ian Bogost about the creators' work and what Serious Games developers of all types can learn from it.

About the Speakers

Jason Rohrer is an independent game artist, programmer, and critic. His 2007 release, Passage, received widespread critical acclaim, with Wired's Clive Thompson writing “More than any game I've ever played, it illustrates how a game can be a fantastically expressive, artistic vehicle for exploring the human condition.”

Passage is an art project that shows you life till the end.

There’s no prescribed objective. This app is an effigy of the real life. You start your journey alone and after a short time you meet a woman. Together you go through life, manage problems, grow old and die at the end. The whole experience takes five minutes. It has a beautiful soundtrack and an old school pixel graphic that strangely make the whole idea behind passage even more real and touching.

His 2008 release, Gravitation, won the Jury Prize at IndieCade, and Between won the Innovation Award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival. Rohrer was featured in Esquire's December 2008 Genius Issue along with 27 other innovators.

In Between, you know exactly what you need to do -- you can see it shimmering right there in front of you. You can see it while dreaming, too, and the difference has become subtle. Dreams wake into dreams, and people blend in and out: real characters and dream characters, all woven into the same script. Finally, they fade completely, and you're alone in the expanse with the construction. With time, you feel something growing, a pinhole that eventually yawns into a deep ravine of longing. The construction languishes, though the expanse seems indifferent.

One night, in a dream, they appear: things that you clearly could not have conjured on your own. Not snowflakes. Not the self-similar forms of leaves. Not distant planets' erosion networks as viewed through telescopes. Not those things that are beautifully external but lack the signatures of consciousness. These things that appear are ugly and non-procedural: indecipherable transmissions bubbling up through static, faded messages floating in bottles, and charcoal handprints on cave walls. Evidence has reached you through time of unknown duration and distance of unknown magnitude, but stale evidence is still evidence.

-- Jason Rohrer, November 4, 2008

Between is a game for two players linked by a network server. You can play with a friend or find a stranger on the server. There is no single-player mode. (If you must play in the same room as your partner, do not look at your partner's screen -- it will spoil the effect of the game).

Paolo Pedercini was born in 1981, somewhere in Northern Italy; he's currently based in Pittsburgh after surviving in Milan, studying in Troy, NY and lounging around in Brooklyn.

At the present moment he's a visiting professor, teaching classes as Game Design for Artists, mavericks and troublemakers or Electronic Media Studio I at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Art: a game designer working under the project name Molleindustria.

Molleindustria is an Italian team of artists, designers and programmers that aims at starting a serious discussion about social and political implications of videogames. This will involve media activists, net-artists, habitual players and critics and detractors of videogames.

They chose to start with online gaming in order to sidestep mainstream distribution channels and to overcome their lack of means. Using simple but sharp games they hope to give a starting point for a new generation of critical game developers and, above all, to experiment with practices that can be easily emulated and virally diffused.

They believe we can no longer consider videogaming as a marginal element of our everyday lives. In recent years, the turnover of the videogame industry has exceeded that of cinema, and there is a growing number of adult and female players.

There are more frequent overlaps with other media: there are videogames for advertisements (advergames), for educational purposes and for electoral propaganda. How did videogames become such a central element of the mediascape?

During the second half of the nineties, major entertainment corporations extended their activities in this sector and extinguished or absorbed small producers.

Now videogames are an integral part of the global cultural industry, and they are in a strategic position in the ongoing processes of media convergence. These developments inhibit the political and artistic emancipation of this medium: every code line is written for the profit of a big corporation.

GameDays 2010: Serious Games for Sports and Health

2010-01-16T12:50:00.006-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play better health

Via: Business Process Management Virtual Environments Blog - GameDays Conference 2010 - Call For Papers

GameDays was established in 2005 as an annual "Science Meets Business" event series, aiming to provide an information and cooperation platform that brings together academia and industry and discussing latest trends, challenges and Serious Games potential.

The GameDays 2010 will take place in the City of Science Darmstadt at the Technical University, located in the state of Hesse/Germany. Darmstadt calls itself a city of science as well as a city where arts are alive. It has also been a home for the avant-garde since the beginning of the 20th century. Jugendstil art in the Mathildenhöhe artists' colony was a centre of reform movements in Germany around the turn of the century, followed by further development of the Bauhaus design concepts.

2010 Scope - Serious Games for Sports and Health

Recent developments in the Serious Games field show that numerous games can have a positive impact on health and health-related behavior provided their appropriate use. These games have successfully been applied to prevention and rehabilitation. In sports first successful applications have been documented, too. Although there are positive examples many issues are still to be solved, e.g., sustainability and dose-response relations.

The purpose of this GameDays 2010 conference is to discuss the chances and challenges of Serious Games for sport and health. This includes innovative methods, concepts, technologies, and tools as well as 'best practice' examples, evaluation and field reports.

Following the tradition of the GameDays 'science meets business' event series, a fruitful exchange between science and industry is intended.

Call For Papers

Submission of research papers, case studies and demos are welcome provided they present novel scientific results, best practice showcases, or improvement to existing technology, methods, concepts and approaches in the multidisciplinary field of Serious Games.

Suggested research topics include, but are not limited to:

- Theory: Scientific models, methods and concepts for game-based prevention and rehabilitation

- Game Design: Sustainable concepts and methods for cooperative and competitive application scenarios

- Technology: Interfaces, Sensors, Authoring Tools, AI

- Business: Sustainable Business Models and Market Studies

- Practice: Field Reports and Evaluation Studies, Demonstrations, Commercial Games and Research Prototypes

Important Dates

February 1st, 2010: Submission Deadline

- Full papers: 8 - 12 pages

- Short and demonstration papers: 4 - 6 pages

February 10th, 2010: Notification of Acceptance

- February 28th, 2010: Camera Ready Version

- March 25-26th, 2010: GameDays 2010

Paper Submission

All submissions should use the format of the International Journal of Computer Science in Sport (IJCSS template: available at http://www.iacss.org/index.php?id=39). Please submit your papers via email to GameDays2010@kom.tu-darmstadt.de

Template File: http://www.iacss.org/uploads/media/ijcss_template.doc

Accepted papers will be published as a Special Issue "Serious Games for Sports and Health" in the International Journal of Computer Science in Sport.

Further information (e.g., registration, program and conference venue) is available at the GameDays website: http://www.innogames-forum.de/gamedays

Serious Games Market: 2009 The Year Of AR

2010-01-13T11:48:00.000-02:00

Serious Games as AR extensive deployment

PRESS RELEASE

TOTAL IMMERSION ASKS: IF 2009 WAS ‘THE YEAR OF AUGMENTED REALITY,’ WHAT DOES THE TECHNOLOGY DO FOR AN ENCORE IN 2010?

WHAT: According to Gartner, augmented reality is one of the Top 10 strategic IT technologies of this era. As recently as a year ago, the nature and scope of the market for augmented reality (AR) were unclear. As 2009 drew to a close, AR may well have touched half a billion people.

With that kind of rapid growth, what does the future hold? What’s true, what’s hype and what’s real? Does AR represent a “new human interface,” where digital information and the physical world co-exist seamlessly? Factoring in the growth on the hardware side -- with computers doubling in processing capability every 18 months and predicted to have the equivalent of human intelligence by 2020 – how will this technology reshape our perceptions and experiences?

Total Immersion is the global leader in augmented reality and a pioneer in commercializing the technology. Through its patented D’Fusion technology, Total Immersion blurs the line between the virtual world and the real world by integrating real time interactive 3D graphics into a live video stream. Founded in 1999, Total Immersion is based in France and maintains a U.S. presence in Los Angeles .

In the past nine months alone, the rapid evolution of AR has contributed to breakthrough digital marketing campaigns for Nike, Coca-Cola and McDonalds; AR Avatar toys for Mattel (said CNET , “I’ve seen the future of toys and it’s augmented reality”); social media applications for Kia;, AR entertainment promotions for Paramount’s Transformers and Star Trek; AR consumer packaged goods campaigns for Procter & Gamble; AR in publishing with InStyle magazine -- even an AR attraction at Six Flags Great Adventure theme park. And that’s just for starters.

With augmented reality proliferating on multiple screens and in various guises within such a brief period, the challenge in 2010 will be to decipher what truly is AR from what’s being billed as AR, and to understand how these very different versions – and visions – compare.

WHO: CEO and co-founder Bruno Uzzan runs operations and business development for the company and has built its client roster since its founding in 1999. North America General Manager Greg Davis oversees Total Immersion’s U.S. presence and has participated in the development of various breakthroughs in digital media over the past 13 years. Says Davis:

“AR has been in the consumer mainstream for less than a year now. Enabling web-based AR quickly opened up an enormous array of digital marketing applications. Digital marketing is the very visible tip of the iceberg, but below the water line, there’s a vast array of applications – many of them transformative – that are poised for development, even as marketing applications mature.

“AR is a trend, not a gimmick. It’s nothing less than a new human interface, a new paradigm that encompasses anything digital or virtual that ‘crosses over’ into your real environment. As such, this begins to define a new type of interactive, sensory engagement.

“We all need to catch up to the technology – it’s evolving so quickly that it’s been difficult to process and even more challenging to assimilate. We’re stepping into a new world, where a variation of Moore ’s Law applies: capabilities and application knowledge are growing almost exponentially. The skillset is expanding accordingly, and AR will be even more pervasive a year from now.

“Here’s what’s on the near- term horizon for emerging applications:

o E-commerce/retail enhancements

o Experiential education and entertainment

o Applications in medicine and science

o Embedded AR in durable consumer products

o Public safety and transportation

“At this stage of AR’s evolution, the killer app has yet to surface. But rest assured – it’s coming soon to a mobile phone, billboard, Mac or PC, or custom interactive kiosk near you.”

HOW: For further perspectives on the future of AR or to arrange a briefing with Uzzan or Davis, please contact Jennifer Spoerri (415-577-0171) jennifer.spoerri@gmail.com or Shari Nakakura (509-366-7778) nakakuras@aol.com , for Edge Communications, Inc.

Serious Games Fight Childhood Obesity With Museum Of Houston

2010-01-11T13:10:00.003-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play better health

PRESS RELEASE

PLAYNORMOUS FIGHTS CHILDHOOD OBESITY WITH CHILDREN’S MUSEUM OF HOUSTON

COMPUTER HEALTH GAMES ADDED TO POWERPLAY EXHIBIT DURING FAMILY FIT WEEK

Houston, Texas (January 6, 2010) -- Playnormous, an award-winning producer of health research-based video games and media for children, announces its debut at the Children’s Museum of Houston PowerPlay Exhibit.

Playnormous staff will be at the museum playing nutrition and physical activity video games with children and parents on Saturday January 9, 2010 as part of the museum’s Family Fit Week. Children who participate will walk away with a Playnormous balloon and a fitness toy.

“We hope putting Playnormous games inside the Children’s Museum of Houston will expose even more kids and parents to the idea that games can improve health,” explains Director of Marketing Melanie Lazarus, MPH. “Our ultimate goal is prevention of childhood obesity and type 2 diabetes using media kids love to play.” Playnormous video games are also freely available to children, parents and teachers at http://www.playnormous.com/, a 2009 Web Health Award winner and kids.gov-approved website.

Families who visit the Playnormous PowerPay table on Saturday can enter to win a Playnormous Monster iMac, a one-of-a-kind, Apple iMac computer handillustrated and signed by a Playnormous artist. Playnormous has already awarded three hand-painted iMacs to deserving teachers and librarians using Playnormous games and curricula in their classrooms.

The museum’s highly acclaimed PowerPlay Exhibit is a three-story adventure that challenges kids to climb walls, race, play dance games and track their heart rate. Kids can learn the science behind health in the PowerScience Lab by talking to Baylor College of Medicine graduate students and playing one of five Playnormous games which teach about fruit and vegetables, portion size, food groups and aerobic activity.

ABOUT PLAYNORMOUS

Playnormous is a subsidiary of Archimage, Inc., a 27-year-old design studio and recipient of over 40 local, national and international awards. Archimage clients include the National Cancer Institute, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Rice University, Baylor College of Medicine, The Walt Disney Company and Nintendo. Playnormous games are created in conjunction with health researchers at the Texas Medical Center and other academic medical institutions.

For more information, contact:

Melanie M. Lazarus MPH

Archimage, Inc.

tel: 713.523.3425

Serious Games Co. Caspian Learning Opens US Office

2010-01-11T12:33:00.003-02:00

Serious Games companies expand their global reach

PRESS RELEASE

Caspian Learning appoint John Higgins as President of US operations and opens first US office

London UK, 11th January 2010

Caspian Learning, award winning developer of Thinking Worlds, a commercially available software platform that enables the rapid development of highly engaging 3D immersive learning simulations and games announced the appointment of John Higgins as President of US Operations today.

Prior to joining Caspian Learning, John served as the global Senior Director of Innovation Deployment for Accenture HR & Learning BPO Services. John has also held senior leadership positions with BearingPoint, KPMG, and IBM.

The appointment marks a positive step for Caspian Learning in the face of industry cutbacks and newly appointed US President John said that “working for Caspian would provide an exciting challenge in a tough climate where opportunities for growth exist for companies that offer innovative and cost-saving products to the marketplace,” and that he was “confident that Caspian’s globally unique technology would set even higher standards in the rapid development of browser based, 3d immersive simulations for training and engagement.”

John’s appointment has facilitated the opening of Caspian’s first US office in Irving, Texas and Caspian’s US operations now include a number of US-based employees whose goal will be to drive the company’s expansion into the new market.

Graeme Duncan, CEO of Caspian Learning, said that “John’s appointment and the establishment of our US headquarters represents our ongoing commitment to continuously deliver immersive, engaging 3d simulations for training and engagement to a growing portfolio of international corporations.”

For more information about Caspian Learning, visit: http://www.caspianlearning.com/

About Caspian Learning

Founded in 2002 by two neuroscientists, Caspian Learning is the developer of the award-winning 3d authoring tool, Thinking Worlds. Caspian’s Thinking Worlds uses globally unique technology that allows instructional designers to create fully immersive 3d simulations at costs previously restricted to 2d development. Thinking Worlds has been utilised in the rapid development of immersive 3d simulations for clients including, QinetiQ, Volvo UK, cBeebies and the European Union.

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Science en Jeu : Serious Games For Science

2010-01-11T10:36:00.002-02:00

Serious Games to play science

Via: Game For Science

GAME FOR SCIENCE is CREO’s science-themed virtual world and Serious Games portal, in French SCIENCE EN JEU, where you can play tons of standalone Serious Games for free.

CREO is a production studio specialized in science, based in Canada. CREO stands for Creativity, Rigorous attention to detail, Excellence and Originality. In addition to publishing their own edutainment products, they provide government and organizations with customized scientific communication services.

GAME FOR SCIENCE is the first virtual world dedicated to science, where you can explore all kinds of virtual islands according to your interest: health, aeronautics, genomics, environment, engineering and more.

You’ll find fun games, interesting facts, and photos and videos – all on a science theme.

A Taste of GAME FOR SCIENCE

In the new game, Forestia, we face the formidable challenge of sustainable forest management: carry out forest inventories, supply mills using multi-functional tree fellers, fight massive forest fires, and protect a section of the forest that contains an exceptional ecosystem.

Among the several islands there is a GAME FOR SCIENCE expansion for you to try: at GENOMIA Island, populated with garden gnomes who happen to be experts in genomics, you can chat with your friends. You'll also find quests, games and information on genomics.

Head in the stars and feet planted on M.A.R.S.! At GAME FOR SCIENCE, we step on Aeronia Island and learn more about space and aeronautics. Better yet, play M.A.R.S. Mars Academy of Research and Science, a game where you’ll learn about an array of careers related to space exploration. You will find the game here. Bon voyage!

Earning Neurons

At GAME FOR SCIENCE you earn neurons every time you complete a task assigned by a game character. Soon you will be able to use the neurons to modify your avatar. You can also collect neurons by using the knowledge detector to find “smart stars” hidden in the games.

Serious Games Institute 2010 Programme

2010-01-09T10:35:00.002-02:00

Serious Games Institute January Newsletter brings us up to date with the programme for 2010, opportunities for funding and collaboration and a review of some of their activities in 2009.

Wednesday January 13th - Second Wednesday Workshop

The Future of Gaming

Novel Human-Computer Interfaces for Education and Health

SGI workshop programme for 2010 begins in style with leading experts discussing and demonstrating what they believe will be a very significant development area over the next few years, and one in which the SGI has been very active.

The development of new interface devices for the games industry, including the Wii controller, balance board and Guitar Hero has made technology more accessible and attractive across all age groups and generations. The commercial success of these new interfaces will open up opportunities to research and develop exciting new serious games applications where these devices can be used to deliver real benefits, especially in the health and education sector.

Next Wednesday at the SGI, the first workshop for 2010 will focus on the use of brainwaves to control serious games applications, including the Neurosky controller shown above, where the SGI has initiated the use of brainwave interface technologies in such areas as anger management and ADHD.

The event will also include live demos of new human-computer devices.

Speakers include: · Ian Glasscock (Games for Life Ltd), · Prof. Kevin Warwick (Reading University), · John Ribbins (Roll 7 Ltd) and · Prof Pamela Kato (University Medical Center, Utrecht, Holland).

Join them next Wednesday for a glimpse of the future of human-computer interfaces for a workshop that will be of particular interest to professionals in the education, health and games development sectors.
__________________________________________________________
Future Events

Click Here to browse the full list of current planned Second Wednesday events for 2010.

The main events planned for January are :

Wednesday, 20th January 2010

Unlocking Creativity and Harnessing Innovative Capability

Innovation Management Workshop
________________________________________________________
Thursday, 28th January 2010

Online Parent Advice Workshop

Interactive interventions for parents

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Future Dates for Your Diary

You may also wish to pencil in the dates of workshops planned for the first quarter of 2010 :

10th February 2010 Intellectual Property Rights Workshop

10th March 2010 Artificial Intelligence in Gaming

14th April 2010 Interactive and Immersive parenting advice
__________________________________________________________
Opportunities for Funding and Collaboration

The Serious Games Institute is very proactive in seeking and developing collaborative projects involving immersive environments such as virtual worlds, serious games and social networks. Since its opening in September 2007 they have successfully collaborated with industry, university and public sector partners on a range of projects that have generated income and business development opportunities both in the UK and overseas.

In 2010 they will continue to explore new avenues, especially in their core areas of interest which include Technology Enhanced Learning, Health, The Environment and Sustainable Development, Smart Spaces ( Integrating physical and virtual environments), Interface technologies, Emergency Planning and Disaster Management, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Virtual Commerce, Collaboration and Networking, Mobile and Wireless, and Relationship Management.

Amongst the immediate funding opportunities for collaboration is the HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation call for proposals with a submission deadline of January 15th :

2010 HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition

All information regarding the 2010 international HASTAC/MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Competition—including detailed category explanations and guidelines, critical deadlines, application materials, etc.—is now available at http://www.dmlcompetition.net/.

The theme of this year's Competition is Reimagining Learning and there are two types of awards: 21st Century Learning Lab Designers and Game Changers.

Aligned with National Lab Day as part of the White House's Educate to Innovate Initiative, the 21st Century Learning Lab Designer awards will range from $30,000-$200,000. Awards will be made for learning environments and digital media-based experiences that allow young people to grapple with social challenges through activities based on the social nature, contexts, and ideas of science, technology, engineering and math. Digital media of any type (social networks, games, virtual worlds, mobile devices or others) may be used.

The Game Changers category—undertaken in cooperation with Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) and Electronic Arts (EA), Entertainment Software Association, and the Information Technology Industry Council—will award amounts ranging from $5,000-$50,000 for creative levels designed with either LittleBigPlanet™ or Spore™ Galactic Adventures that offer young people engaging game play experiences and that incorporate and leverage principles of science, technology, engineering and math for learning.

Each category will include several Best in Class awards selected by expert judges, as well as a People’s Choice Award selected by the general public. The online application system will open on January 15 and will include three rounds of submissions, with public comment at each stage.
__________________________________________________________
Collaborations in 2010

2010 sees a range of developments in SGI collaboration with partners in the UK and across the globe including Oman where the SGI is working with West Midlands based developers to support the use of immersive technologies that will both help Oman to incubate local start-up companies in immersive technologies and promote the rich cultural heritage of their country.

Projects include the visualization of the UNESCO Heritage site, the Bahla Fort in partnership with The Virtual Experience Company, a Second Life data visualisation and collaboration applications in partnership with Daden Ltd and The Walk in Web, and an advanced visualisation of the new KOM 4 building on the science park in partnership with Alex Jevremovic.

SGI will also be working with Alex Jevremovic on a new project to create a virtual version of the Far Gosford Street development in Coventry to be used initially for consultation and planning.

SGI is collaborating with John Andrews on the development of the next generation of e-commerce applications and supporting Digital Presence in the launch and ongoing development of their Virtual Farmers Market.

Internationally SGI is working with Professor Chung-Won Cho and the Seoul National University of Technology to develop a programme of events and activities to develop the use of serious games and virtual worlds for science museum and health applications.

In Malaysia SGI will be working with UNIMAS in Sarawak and with SEAMEO in Penang to develop and promote the use of serious games for technology enhanced learning.

In South East Europe SGI is involved in the LUDUS project and will be helping promote the development of serious games and immersive technologies in Bulgaria, Slovenia and Romania.

In Italy, one of SGI most important collaborative partners is Milan based i-maginary led by Lucia Pannese with whom the SGI is working on the e-Vita project using serious games to develop inter-generational understanding of recent European history.

In Canada SGI will continue to work with Manitoba to support their use and development of immersive technologies.

In France SGI is working with several partners in Paris and the Valenciennes region to explore collaborative projects.

In Russia SGI will once again be supporting the Moscow e-Learn Expo event in June with opportunities for UK and international partners to both present and exhibit and Russia's most prestigious learning technology event.

Also in June, SGI will be supporting the Digital Earth initiative and the next ISDE summit in Nessebar, Bulgaria

They continue to work with UK based SHASPA Research Ltd to develop smart spaces applications that have already had commercial success in Singapore.

Closer to home, SGI will continue to collaborate with the Herbert Gallery in Coventry on the use of smart spaces for museum applications.

Nicola Whitton: Serious Gaming Innovations Of The Decade

2010-01-01T10:39:00.001-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Nicola Whitton from play think learn has just published a post with some thoughts about how gaming has changed in the past ten years, and how these advances in gaming could inform learning.

Here are the op Five gaming innovations of the past ten years (in no particular order), according to Nicola:
1.Interaction - the range of ways in which players can now interact with games using touch, voice, motion, balance boards, bongos, microphones, pens, steering wheels, musical instruments (to name but a few) is changing the ways in which games are designed and increasing the accessibility of games far beyond the traditional gamer market.

While the majority of these methods are limited to consoles or dedicated handheld devices, it can’t be long before such peripherals are more widely and cheaply available, and we can start to think more widely about how different types of interactive technology could be used in learning.

2.Casual Games - sites such as shockwave and bigfishgames have helped bring games to non-traditional gamers and make them more widely acceptable.

Games that are easy to learn, split into bite-sized pieces, and simple to pick-up and put-down have made gaming something that can be fitted around other activities. Genres such as time management, matching games and hidden object are popular, and I think there are lessons to be learned here in terms of narrative design, sustained motivation and the chunking of activities to fit in with other real-world tasks.

3.Mobile, location-sensitive and Augmented Reality Games - while the use of GPS and handheld technologies is already keenly discussed withing the educational technology community, Nicola thinks this is an area of games that hasn’t yet been fully exploited.

The potential for real-time multi-player gaming in ‘virtual’ spaces in the real world has yet to be really explored, along with the educational opportunities this affords. For example, she can image a ‘real-life’ crime scene investigation with multiple locations, characters, props and players working together to collect and analyse evidence and clues. Once the technology gets there these types of game will be limited only be the imaginations and organizational abilities of the designers and players.

4.Alternate Reality Games - Nicola feels that the combination of gaming characteristics and lo-fi environment in ARGs are ideally suited to learning - if we can get over the hurdle of getting learners to be engaged enough to participate in the first place.

While she believes that there is still a great deal of untapped potential in this gaming form, designers need to be pragmatic in terms of the educational context (e.g. being realistic about what will motivate students) and we still have a lot to learn before we get it right.

5.Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games - Although she knows that these aren’t technically an innovation of the last decade, it is the appearance of games such as World of Warcraft that have brought this genre to prominence.

The ability of games like this to support collaborative learning, mentoring and group working has been well established. The artifacts and communities that support the game in the wider online space offer insights into online social interaction and group dynamics. While she wouldn’t suggest that we start to teach in these massive gaming worlds, there is still a lot that we can learn from them in terms of designing group activities and interactions.

KTM Advance: Serious Games For Corporate Training

2009-12-28T12:42:00.000-02:00

Serious Games development bridging cultural gaps

Via: KTM Advance

PRESS RELEASE

(SkyNewswire.com) – Based on complex educational scenarios, including realistic simulations and decision trees, KTM Advance’s training products (e-Learning, Serious Games, Blended Learning) are benchmarks for creativity and high quality 2D and 3D graphics.

KTM Advance also offers pre-production advice and assistance and Knowledge Management consultancy; particularly focusing on implementation issues such as distribution methods, change management and learner motivation. KTM Advance’s intensive collaboration with all actors involved in their customers’ projects are a key factor in the continued success of their programs.

KTM Advance has recently focused on the Serious Games Market.

Valerie Boudier, Knowledge Manager at KTM Advance says: "Serious Games are training programs that require for their developments very contrasted professional protagonists: when the professionals of education express their needs in terms of “pedagogical objectives”, “cognitive abilities” and “storyboards”, the game designers think in terms of “pitches”, “huds” “game play loops” and “triggers”….

KTM Advance’s team focuses on this cultural “gap”: filling it up requires a knowledge management approach as an intermediary stage. This approach conducts to the elaboration of a cognitive model that will provide the essential clues for the game designer to build up his game project."

KTM Advance's products are efficient and innovative training tools which are changing the complexion of the Serious Games market.

STARBANK the Game For BNP PARIBAS- A Serious Game To Learn How To Be A Banker

STARBANK the Game is a Serious Game designed for BNP PARIBAS, which aims at training new hires. It is a fully interactive builder/management strategy-type game, featuring engaging gameplay & an innovative pedagogical scenario.

The game was developed around a complex financial engine in concert with BNP Paribas. There are in-game missions designed to introduce the player to the structure of the BNP Paribas Group & demonstrate the interaction and interdependence of the Group's services & activities through the gameplay.

The player's goal is to build the bank of the future (2505) on a distant planet, progressing through 5 levels. To successfully complete these missions, the player will have to invest in and develop a full range of banking structures, activities & services while dealing with unforeseen market events.

To help the player decide on the wisest course of action, he can access to a control panel where he can see his cash flow, the profitability of his investments, the risks involved with his developments, and stock market fluctuations, all in "real" time.

As the player learns from his successes and mistakes, he is also indirectly absorbing the logic of the Group's structure and values, and his immersion in the game will strengthen his theoretical knowledge of the banking system.

Since the launch of the training program on March 09, Starbank the Game counts more than 95,000 connections and 20,011 players.

MOONSHIELD the Game - A Serious Game To Consolidate Thales Brand Recognition And Enhance Its Visibility As A Possible Employer

MOONSHIELD is a management strategy game in which the player pictures himself into the near future, where he or she will have to use Thales technologies to defend the Earth from deadly meteorites that could destroy all civilization.

The challenge: you take the command of a lunar base and will have to think quickly and use everything at your disposal to save the blue planet! As commander of MOONSHIELD, you can call on all the scientific resources of the Thales group to help you make the best decisions.

Figures: Results in terms of traffic and statistics went beyond Thales early expectations. The game's main goal - to develop Thales brand recognition abroad – has been fully reached as 70 per cent of the connected people live out of France. After a year, there were 200,000 connections including 120,000 different players. In addition to that, more than 80,000 people moved to Thales recruitment website via Moonshield the game.

According to Jean-Louis ONNIS, Recruitment and Mobility Program Director, Thales:

"Value for money for an investment such as Moonshield is really interesting. After the whole media fall out (Internet, press, TV interviews, social networks), we almost reached 100% profitability."

BLOSSOM FLOWER for MEA-I & Hewlett Packard - Learning Game To Help Micro-Entrepreneurs To Develop A Smart Use Of Technologies

BLOSSOM FLOWER is a management and role playing game (RPG) that helps micro-entrepreneurs to develop a smart use of technologies and focus on improving business management. They also can assess their weaknesses and strengths with regard to the new information technologies and acquire skills to use the relevant technology in a set of contexts.

The player’s mission is to manage and develop a flower business in a bad situation through the smart use of technologies: he needs to improve the turnover, the clients’ satisfaction and the manager’s well-being. To achieve this mission, the player runs the plantation, the office, interacts with the clients in the market place, and gets training, hardware, software and advice in the resource centre. The more the business grows, the more new situations occur, and the more skills the user develops.

About KTM Advance

In 1995 Pierre Breese, Industrial Property consultant and Jean-François Rapp an expert in Knowledge Management, created Advance, with the goal of helping companies develop and leverage their knowledge capital.

Over the next eight years the company became known as a benchmark for quality, obtaining strategic budgets in Knowledge Management Consultancy and Knowledge Collection and Capitalization, PSA Peugeot-Citroën being one notable example.

In 2003-2004, two e-learning heavyweights with a combined annual turnover of 5.7MF, merged with Advance:

• In 2003 the team of KTM System joined with Advance. They brought with them a wealth of expertise in creating and developing custom e-learning solutions for professional skills-oriented training.

• At the beginning of 2004 Millenium, a French leader in creating, developing, and accompanying specific Information Systems training came on board.

These mergers enabled the new company to build on the natural synergy developed over an almost constant 8-year partnership, and unite with a common objective: better respond to the demands of the market and the challenge of helping our clients develop their human capital. The result was KTM ADVANCE.

The availability of KTM Advance’s team and the capacity to understand quickly the complexity of the customers activities are our main factors of success. KTM Advance works for large multinational clients whose levels of exigency are very high.

The company is expanding its expertise abroad and has just opened a new office in London, UK which will ensure a closer contact with existing and potential customers.

KTM Advance will also participate at the Learning Technologies exhibition, Olympia 2, 27-28 January 2010 (Stand 30) and hold a conference on Serious Games.

The following links to read more about:

Serious Games and KTM Advance’s generic kits that make Serious Games more accessible: http://www.ktm-advance.com/viewArticle.php?id=88

Serious Game Starbank : http://starbankthegame.bnpparibas.com/?lang=en

Serious Game Moonshield: http://www.moonshield.com/

Serious Game Blossom Flower: http://www.ktm-advance.com/viewProject.php?id=108

New Research: (Serious) Games Raise Kids IQ

2009-12-21T13:42:00.001-02:00

Serious Games challenging us to play a better education

Via: Richard Carey > Digital Media - UC Berkely Study: Gameplay Shown to Raise Kids IQ

Richard Carey reports on his latest post the study conducted by Dr. Silvia Bunge, a neuroscientist at UC Berkley, concluding that some video games help enhance kids' reasoning and processing skills. Findings even yielded that some games helped in raising kids' IQ points.

Dr. Silvia Bunge, a neuroscientist at UC Berkeley, has long been interested in understanding the development of children’s intelligence. She’s been measuring kids’ intelligence and scanning their brains for several years in order to understand what exactly makes some brains function better than others. This has given her unique insight into the mental processes kids are capable of, and how to test for it. Last year, Bunge and her graduate students decided to see if they could train up, or sharpen, children’s minds. Their study might sound remarkably simple, but the results have been flat-out astonishing.

Dr. Bunge and her team went to an Oakland elementary school, where its history of low state test scores made them a suitable place to conduct the study. The kids' IQ averaged at 90, while their brain speed was measured to be at the 27th percentile. Background-wise, their parents were mostly high school dropouts. These are the kind of demographics that their objective seeks to address.

They selected games that required specific mental functions since they'd be giving a mental workout, if you may, for exercising forethought, planning, comparisons, and logical integration. Among the games selected were Rush Hour and Qwirkle. For the Nintendo DS, Picross and Big Brain Academy were put to the test.

Twice a week, the kids played the games for an hour and fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes the kids moved to a new table, to make sure their brains always had something new to figure out. (The neuroscientists thought it was important the sessions remained fun.)

After eight weeks, they ran some tests, and found that the kids' reasoning scores improved by 32% - in terms of IQ, that would be a sizable 13-point IQ gain. Typically, a year of school raises a child's IQ by 12 points on average - Bunge and her team were able to beat that with gaming sessions that total only 20 hours.

The study is reported by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman in their Newsweek blog NurtureShock, under the post New Research: $13 Christmas gifts = 13 point gain in kids’ IQ.

Here is the full article!

New Research: $13 Christmas gifts = 13 point gain in kids’ IQ
Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Shoppers, you might want to redo your gift list after you read this.

Dr. Silvia Bunge, a neuroscientist at UC Berkeley, has long been interested in understanding the development of children’s intelligence. She’s been measuring kids’ intelligence and scanning their brains for several years in order to understand what exactly makes some brains function better than others. This has given her unique insight into the mental processes kids are capable of, and how to test for it. Last year, Bunge and her graduate students decided to see if they could train up, or sharpen, children’s minds. Their study might sound remarkably simple, but the results have been flat-out astonishing.

First, they went looking for off-the-shelf board games, card games, and video games that demanded distinct mental functions. One group of these games was chosen because they’d give children’s reasoning ability a workout – these games require forethought, planning, comparisons and logical integration. The games chosen were card games like SET, the traffic-jam puzzle Rush Hour, and Qwirkle, a cross between Dominos and Scrabble. For the Nintendo DS, they chose Picross and Big Brain Academy. There were also two games for the computer – one called Azada, another called Chocolate Fix.

Bunge’s team brought the games to an elementary school in Oakland with historically low state test scores. The researchers asked some second, third and fourth graders to stay after school to play. The kids’ IQ averaged a 90, and their brain speed (a subtest of intelligence) ranked them at only the 27th percentile. The children’s parents, on average, were high-school dropouts. These were the kids every education policy hopes to target, and every thought leader has an opinion on how to improve.

Twice a week, the kids played the games for an hour and fifteen minutes. Every fifteen minutes the kids moved to a new table, to make sure their brains always had something new to figure out. (The neuroscientists thought it was important the sessions remained fun.)

After just eight weeks – twenty total hours of game playing – Bunge’s team retested the children’s intelligence. They were specifically interested in the kids’ reasoning ability. According to the classic theories of intelligence, reasoning ability is considered both the core element of intelligence and also the hardest to change. Allyson Mackey, Bunge’s graduate student who supervised the study, thought she might see gains of 3 to 6 points, at most.