Serious games articles
Better living through video games?
"Before you assume gadgets and video games fry the minds of the future, consider this: Canadian researchers are finding evidence that the high-speed, multitasking of the young and wireless can help protect their brains from aging. A body of research suggests that playing video games provides benefits similar to bilingualism in exercising the mind".
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“Research into the gamer demographics; it’s not just teen boys!”
Gaming Gets Serious - market, survey data on online gaming - Statistical Data Included
Computer gaming isn't what it used to be. Not long ago, the typical players were scruffy teenage boys shooting at TV screens in their basements. But with the online gaming explosion of recent years, gamers have become a more sophisticated lot, and are now more representative of the general population. More women are participating, and older people as well, many of them professionals. According to Nielsen//NetRatings, 41 percent of people who frequent online game sites like GameSpot, Candystand and Pogo are women, and 43 percent are ages 25 to 49. Meanwhile, Reston, Va.-based com-ScoreNetworks, a firm that measures online game use, confirms players are beginning to resemble the general population...
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British Educational Handbook Encourages Games Use In Schools
A new handbook produced by British educational organization NESTA Futurelab has suggested that teachers should have a detailed and through understanding of computer games to “identify the learning opportunities available and to develop students’ understanding of the game for them to be able to learn from it”.
The handbook tackles the potential role of computer and video games in supporting young peoples’ learning, with suggestions that games of many types can provide powerful learning environments for children.
Futurelab does advise that any entertainment games introduced into schools should be sufficiently challenging and rooted in a firm reality or possess a strong internal structure and logic so that actions taken by the player reveal logical outcomes. The book goes on to suggest that politically- or historically-based strategy games will engage learners by allowing them to explore, manipulate and discuss the factors that have contributed to historical events and to try out alternatives.
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Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames
Increased academic attention to games has led to discussion of the potential of the videogame as a new medium for critical creative expression. Interestingly, it appears that much of the debate surrounding the possible evolution of videogames is founded upon the notion that they might offer the type of “serious” content/experience that is contained within traditional narrative forms such as books or film.
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Computer Gaming to Enhance Computer Science Curriculum
By Simon Carless Gamasutra
Barnett started by laying out the fundamental question - can games help to reinvigorate Computer Science and ensure the future health of the discipline and the technology industry? He noted that he considers the lack of people interested in entering the CS field and the drop-out rate in North America to be a massive problem, but firstly took a step back, and explained why a gigantic company such as Microsoft and its research arm actually cares about the issue.
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Journey to "Serious Games"
We check out some video games where you don't kill everyone in sight. And some where you do.
...Instead, Journey and an emerging generation of "serious games" are meant to be good for you. "Video games get such a bad rap all the time, but there's a great deal of value in the technology," says Deborah Tillett, president of game developer BreakAway Ltd. BreakAway's titles include , the fourth in a historical series whose players build cities and conquer lands.
Such games are taking off because rapidly improving graphics and virtual-reality technology allow developers to replicate almost any environment. Plus, the entertainment-software market is fiercely competitive. With retail space tight, game makers are seeking ways to diversify.
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Educators take serious look at video gaming
By Robert Brumfield, Assistant Editor, eSchool News
Learning to leverage the enormous popularity of video games to help students excel was the core purpose of two events held recently in Washington, D.C. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) Summit on Video Gaming and McKinley High School's "Be the Game" video-gaming summit were meant to demonstrate the pedagogical value of gaming technology, often viewed with skepticism by generations of educators who did not grow up in the digital age. The FAS event focused on the theory behind using video games in the school curriculum, and the McKinley High School summit looked at how to use gaming curricula to engage students and improve their performance.
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Chasing the dream From The Economist Print Edition
As video gaming spreads, the debate about its social impact is intensifying
Is IT a new medium on a par with film and music, a valuable educational tool, a form of harmless fun or a digital menace that turns children into violent zombies? Video gaming is all these things, depending on whom you ask.
Gaming has gone from a minority activity a few years ago to mass entertainment. Video games increasingly resemble films, with photorealistic images, complex plotlines and even famous actors. The next generation of games consoles which will be launched over the next few months by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo will intensify the debate over gaming and its impact on society, as the industry tries to reach out to new customers and its opponents become ever more vocal. Games consoles are the most powerful mass-produced computers in the world and the new machines will offer unprecedented levels of performance.
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Gamers May Be Better Workers
The technology and collaboration in online role-playing games could give corporate America an added boost. Online video games could make us better workers, according to a panel of industry watchers who’ve studied similarities between work and play.
At the Supernova conference in San Francisco on Tuesday night, Byron Reeves, director of the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University, displayed recent research looking at how online multiplayer games engage the player and what these findings mean to the workplace. The collaboration in online role-playing games is very complex and the teamwork that players undertake is something that could work well in corporations, said Mr. Reeves.
Complex online role-playing games can enable thousands of players to simultaneously play advanced games, while chatting together and running various communications software. Researchers like Mr. Reeves are looking at how to leverage the collaboration techniques, the technology, and the methods used to engage online players for the working world. The research is referred to as the movement of “serious games”.
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Defending video games
Breeding evil? From The Economist Print Edition
There's no solid evidence that video games are bad for people, and they may be positively good
“IT IS an evil influence on the youth of our country.” A politician condemning video gaming? Actually, a clergyman denouncing rock and roll 50 years ago. But the sentiment could just as easily have been voiced by Hillary Clinton in the past few weeks, as she blamed video games for “a silent epidemic of media desensitisation” and “stealing the innocence of our children”.
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The Serious Games Summit:
How the United Nations Fights Hunger with Food Force. The man behind a fascinating talk at the Serious Games Summit 2005 in Washington DC, Justin Roche is the program manager for the United Nations’ first computer game – Food Force – which was conceived and developed by the World Food Programme – a frontline agency for fighting world hunger.
Roche began his talk by giving the audience a bit of background on the WFP. For instance, it is the world’s largest humanitarian agency, but it also has a tremendous job to accomplish. At any given time, he said, there are more than 800 million people in hunger. The WFP feeds approximately 90 million people each year, 62 million of them children, in 80 countries. They also respond to disaster situations, recently in Pakistan and Guatamala, while continuing ongoing efforts to get food to the hungry.
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Can Serious Games Boost Your Stocks? By Dave Marino-Nachison
Possibly you missed the news that the Serious Games Summit, described by its organizers as an opportunity to "forge links between the traditional videogame industry and program managers for homeland security, state and local governments, military agencies, and educational institutions," kicked off yesterday in Washington, D.C. Even if you didn't pony up for a ticket, however -- well, it was $500, and that's just for the early birds -- the summit's reason for being is nevertheless an interesting one for video game watchers.
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British Educational Handbook Encourages Games Use In Schools
A new handbook produced by British educational organization NESTA Futurelab has suggested that teachers should have a detailed and through understanding of computer games to “identify the learning opportunities available and to develop students’ understanding of the game for them to be able to learn from it”.
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Hazmat: Hotzone - First-Person First Responder Gaming
Tuesday's Serious Games Summit DC lecture, which twinned the academics and developers at Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center with the trainers and firemen of the New York Fire Department, was one of the best-attended of the entire Summit, both because of the high profile of the game being created, and, most likely, because Hazmat: Hotzone is one of the best practical examples so far of a "serious game" that can really make a major training difference.
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Healthcare and Forestry – Half-Life 2: Meet Serious Games Modding
Speaking on the first day of the 2005 Serious Games Summit, Tim Holt, a research assistant at Oregon State University and member of "commercial mod group" Transmodrify discussed the plight of independent development and, in particular, those who want to do games for non-entertainment markets, commenting: “We all want to look like a million bucks, but it costs a million bucks to look like a million bucks.” So what, he asked, is the alternative?
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Inside The Institute for Creative Technologies
Presented on the first day of Serious Games Summit 2005, this fascinating session explained some of the work carried out by the University of Southern California-connected Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT), a university-affiliated research center which is majorly funded by the U.S. Army. It is particularly known in the video game community for having produced the Pandemic co-created Full Spectrum Warrior game for the Xbox, originally made for army training on the go, but then released as a successful THQ-published game, but it also does a great deal of other bleeding-edge research for the Army, DARPA, and other government entities here and abroad on the intersection of entertainment aand technology.
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PIXELearning Featured in article on Gamasutra.com
Proof British Educational Handbook Encourages Games Use In Schoolsnt in Serious Games...
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What's So Serious About Game Design? by Simon Carless
The second half of Monday's keynote at SGS DC was given by Doug Whatley, CEO of BreakAway Games. His address concentrated on some of the practical problems of developing serious games, given his perspective as someone who has worked with a number of different serious games customers from a number of different fields
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Book Excerpt : Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform - Games for Physical and Mental Health by Sande Chen and David Michael
This excerpt from Serious Games: Games That Educate, Train, and Inform takes a look at how to utilize the educational benefits of video games, and how a number of serious games now exist that target healthcare and well-being, like the "exergaming" game, Yourself!Fitness, and the biofeedback game, The Wild Divine Project, which combines breathing techniques and meditation with biofeedback.
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SGS DC 2005 White Paper: Fostering a Culture of Exploration
This Serious Games Summit white paper (in PDF format, click on the title above) is brought to you by the sponsor of our SGS coverage, Virtual Heroes. The paper covers using serious games to spark the exploration of space, suggesting that such games could "...inspire the American public and the next generation of space explorers, scientists and engineers".
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Preparing for the flood
Feds enlist Hunt Valley video-game maker to create training tool for rescue workers...
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The State of Serious Games
With the second annual Serious Games Summit in Washington D.C. [coordinated by the CMP Game Group, as is Gamasutra.com] nearly here, it seems a good time to take stock of ‘the state of serious games...
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Here’s something no parent wants to read: Video games can make you smarter. Not that you should let your kids spend six hours in front of a computer or Xbox playing virtual warriors, but when video games use real-life scenarios, include constant feedback and ratings, and meld with an overall training regimen that includes book study and live experience, they make for a wiser and more adaptable individual and team player.
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On the television screen you see a militaristic scenario being played out by seven young people. Each player is connected to the others via an online connection, a headset, and a microphone. One player, after getting obliterated behind a protective barrier, says, “Who in the world are we playing against?” One by one, the other players are eliminated. Another player exclaims, “Man, these guys are good!”
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Computer games can motivate young people to learn says new research
Computer and video games can motivate children and young people to learn, according to a new report from Ultralab and the Learning and Skills Development Agency. The report, based on a review of research literature, provides plenty of evidence to show that the alleged 'addictive' nature of computer games and simulations can be utilized to help learners to work towards educational goals. Ultralab is a specialist education technology research unit based at Anglia Polytechnic University. Although it is often suggested that computer games are bad for children because they have a negative impact on academic performance as they consume valuable homework time, the report, an in-depth study of all the available research evidence, uncovered positive as well as negative messages about computer games.
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The Latest in Learning: Video Games
Seattle's Clearwater School is by no means conventional - it rarely has teacher-led classes, instead giving students control over their own learning. But even the most free-thinking parents raise their eyebrows at one feature of the Lake City private academy: the video-game console. Kids can play fight games such as "Super Smash Bros. Melee," in which gangs of cartoon characters pummel one another. Or use computers to pose online as urban crimefighters in "City of Heroes," or as questing adventurers in "World of WarCraft." Video games are not a break from school. They're an integral part of it.
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The Making of an X Box Warrior and
The War Room
Articles by the The New York Times and Wired Magazines respectively, which investigate the US Army's use of computer game technology and approaches to provide military training...
Can Grand Theft Auto Inspire Professors?
Educators say the virtual worlds of video games help students think more broadly. (The Chronicle of Higher Education).
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What is Simulation Enhanced Learning?
Management simulations have been around for a long time, but they have not taken full advantage of what we know about how adults learn. Simulation Enhanced Learning (SEL) "supercharges" the learning experience by making it real and relevant to the participant. The simulated business environment exposes participants to strategic challenges.
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2020 Report [PDF, 85 pages]
A collection of essays on the future of education, many of which feature games technologies and/or approaches. Includes input from Microsoft, Harvard, Carnegie Mellon and many more respected sources.
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The Lives Behind the Numbers On the Screen
Illustrating the Social Consequences of Economic Change By Telling Stories On the Web.
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Kids use PlayStation for high-tech homework
For several years now, students in some elementary and middle schools have been able to say that honestly. Instead of just workbooks, paper and pencil, they do some of their math and language assignments on a Sony PlayStation. (CNN)
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Game-based eLearning gets real
"Trainers, facilitators, eLearning designers, and others engaged in knowledge development could take a lesson from the computer games industry. Gaming shows us that long, traditionally tedious, and difficult tasks can be engaging and fun when they're part of a good story".
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Ten mistakes made by a Edu games designer
An article by R. Garry Shirts on the Simulation Training Systems web site.
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10 secrets of effective simulation
An article by R. Garry Shirts on the Simulation Training Systems web site.
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How can computer games offer deep learning and still be fun? Leyland, B (1996)
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International forum for the study of simulation/gaming methodology (ISAGA)
For over 30 years, Simulation & Gaming has served as a leading international forum for the study and discussion of simulation/gaming methodology used in education, training, consultation, and research. This quarterly journal examines the methodologies and explores their application to real-world problems and situations.
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Games to be tested in classrooms
The use of computer games in education is going to be tested out in four secondary schools in the UK. The project aims to find ways in which school teachers can include video games in their teaching.
It will also be trying to help game developers learn about potential educational uses for their products. The year-long project is being backed by the games giant Electronic Arts (EA) and lottery-funded education organisation Futurelab. Of the four schools taking part in the trial, three are part of the UK education system and one is a German school in London. There are plans to extend the scheme across Europe using these schools as a model.
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Games find home in the classroom
Video games could soon be transplanted from their natural habitat to the more academic atmosphere of the classroom. With violent titles continuing to top the charts, gaming and learning have not always sat well together but the tide could be beginning to turn.
Recent research by the London Institute of Education concluded that games have a valid place in the classroom. "Games teach life skills such as decision making, problem solving," said Martin Owen, at Futurelab.
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Games help you 'learn and play'
'God games' in which players must control virtual people and societies could be educational, says research. A US researcher has suggested that games such as The Sims could be a good way to teach languages.
Ravi Purushotma believes that the world of The Sims can do a better job of teaching vocabulary and grammar than traditional methods. The inherent fun of game playing could help to make learning languages much less of a chore, said Mr Purushotma.
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