Serious Games Taxonomy Shared
Posted by Ben Sawyer on 08-02-19Earlier today Peter Smith & I shared the first version of our Serious Games Taxonomy. This is an effort to develop a much broader and well defined look at the serious games field. Ever since the first time I shared pieces of this earlier last year there have been many requests for this work. We've tried to resist sharing it too much because it was still a work in progress. In fact, it still is.
At this stage however we want to begin sharing the work to increase the feedback we've gotten. So I've posted a PDF of our slides from yesterday's talk at The Serious Games Summit @ GDC. We welcome your feedback at this time and we're excited by the reception to this work.
Our goal at this point is to polish up this work and turn it into a paper for publication. We expect a final version of this work in slide form to be posted later this year. Thankfully the year just got started.
ESA announces Serious Games component to E3
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-10-13As you probably already know E3 has been transformed into a smaller more intimate, by invitation only, conference to foster one on one contact between the press and the games industry. This year's event will take place in July in Santa Monica, California. 1UP.com and most game news industry ran the story of Doug Lowenstien's announcement of more details on the event. We were excited to see that during the event there will be daily luncheons with top executives, and special events like a “Serious Games Showcase”. We here at the Serious Games Initiative think it is a great that opportunity that the ESA is providing for a broad array of media and game industry people to get a chance to learn more about the emerging area of Serious Games.
Games in Education Video
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-10-04
This video is pretty interesting. It includes interviews with Jim Gee, Clark Aldrich, and Henry Jenkins the Keynote for the SGS DC 2006. It is 20 minutes so sit back and enjoy.
Last Chance for Early Registration for SGS DC 2006
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-10-01It’s that time again; time to get registered for the Serious Games Summit. Early registration ends on the 2nd of October. So, stop reading this and get over to www.seriousgamessummit.com and register now, before it is too late. Remember there is always a discount for IGDA members as well so you have the potential of saving $250 dollars off of the regular price. There will be some really interesting new topics explored this year including a talk on melding games with real-world games, the serious side of esports, Jim Gee will be talking about the work he is doing with the MacArthur Foundation, Mia Consalvo will talk about cheating in games, and there is a talk about how EA's content from The Sims will be used to help improve ALICE a programming teaching environment.
You can view all the sessions happening so far at:
https://www.cmpevents.com/GDsg06/a.asp?option=C&V=1
Pres. Wada of Square Enix remarked on Serious Games at CEDEC
Posted by Toru on 06-09-10Yoichi Wada, the president of Square Enix, had a keynote at CEDEC (Computer Entertainment Software Association (CESA) Developers Conference), which is the biggest game developer's conference in Japan. At the keynote speech titled "The future of game industry in Japan", Pres. Wada remarked that the Japanese games industry will have to collaborate with other industries, and serous games will be one of the key areas for this collaboration to occur and they will lead to a breakthrough in the game industry.
VTech expands V.Smile to include Spanish
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-07-11VTech, maker of awesome laptops and other various electronics for people under the age of five, have decided to broaden their horizons to include Spanish offerings. They are creating Spanish versions of their 12 most popular Smartridge educational video games. They not only plan to meet the needs of the over 28 million Spanish speaking people in the United States, but also plan to cater to people wishing to teach Spanish as a second language to their children.
[Thanks Hispanic PR Wire]
Japanese television ad for Cooking Mama
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-07-10
If you’re anything like me you are just dying to play Cooking Mama, soon to be released in the States by Majesco (The people who published the cult classic Psychonauts). The game has you using the DS Stylus to prepare meals with actual ingredients. Will this make you the next cooking sensation, maybe not, but it seems like the most fun you can have this side of an easy bake oven. Check out the Japanese TV ad above.
Update: Turns out that this video is not of "Cooking Mama" it is of "Shaberu! DS Ryouri Navi" a cooking title that is more of a cookbook than a game. For the "Cooking Mama" trailer check this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmqfQZ9Lb8w [Thanks Philip and Toru on catching this]
[Thanks Slashing Games]
Pokemon teach computer skills
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-06-20Kotaku is reporting that the Pokemon will be teaching Japanese children computer skills in Pokemon PC Master. The original source is in Japanese, but a trip to Babel Fish later and we find in the midst of broken English it seems the game will be made up of 10 parts located in a place called P City. Players will be able to gradually learn how to apply soft skill knowledge of IT devices, like keyboard and mouse use. This will be done through mini games such as paint battle and typing battle. All this will be learned for a monthly fee of 1,890 Yen, with the first month being free. Also, all your base are belong to us.
Stottler Henke tools for use in I/ITSEC Challenge
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-06-13
If you are planning to submit a game for the Serious Games Showcase & Challenge, held at this years I/ITSEC, Stottler Henke has a deal for you. You can now use their award winning tools to develop your entry. They are providing a SimVentive, a rapid development environment, and SimBionic, a Game AI middleware. If you are interested in using them follow this link. This is an opportunity to use professional level development tools with no upfront cost. Also, with full disclosure, I am involved in putting the Challenge together.
Serious Games Summit Call for Papers Extended to Today
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-06-07It’s that time again. Time to collect all your research, prototypes, good ideas and finished projects and submit them for public scrutiny (friendly helpful scrutiny) at this year’s Serious Games Summit DC. If you have not made it to a DC summit yet, let me tell you it is worth your time. I personally like the DC summit more than the GDC summit. The atmosphere tends to be much more focused on serious games because the people there are genuinely interested in serious games (Unlike the GDC version which tends to bring out more of the "2 more days off" folks). This almost intimate group fosters the ability to give more in depth and critical presentations than is possible in other venues. So, if you are working on a serious games project and you want to have a receptive and interested audience, submit your abstract by the end of the day today. You can submit your proposals here.
Some of what we do...
Posted by Ben Sawyer on 06-05-23One of the big roles the Initiative has played in building out the serious games field is by obtaining press coverage for the field. Here are three recent articles the Initiative helped bring about...
We've orchestrated some big hits lately...
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2006-05-19-serious-games_x.htm
LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/technology/consumer/gamers/la-he-game15may15,1,1867483.story?coll=la-business-games
SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/05/22/BUG7BIU4EE1.DTL
In some cases we are able to obtain this press just by helping support general journalist inquiries in the field. In a few cases including some of the above this comes about from our pro-active efforts in PR.
PR is critical for an emerging field such as Serious Games because it helps generate feedback to the project in the form of inquiries for involvement. Be it from a potential customer, to a possible collaborator, etc. articles like these draw in more community members who suddenly find a means to produce something they always wanted to do. Often we get emails as a result of stories like these which begin "I always wanted to do this but didn't know there was really a vibrant movement for it..."
Post E3-Thoughts
Posted by Ben Sawyer on 06-05-18Well it's been almost a week since E3. We're finally recovering here. A great event and we thank everyone who came by to visit our booth in Kentia Hall. We hosted about a dozen or so members of the press at our booth and our Games for Health Project had a spectacular conference at USC on Tuesday (for more on this see www.gamesforhealth.org).
So what amazed us serious gamers at E3? In general I think the most amazing thing was the maturity of the quality of games. Everything looked polished and spectacular. This isn't to say everything will be great just that there is less uneveness in the look of most games.
That being said here were the "serious" highlights I saw...
* Crysis from CryTek/EA looked spectacular. As a moddable environment this could be very cool. The game seemed conventional but I'll still proably play it. It's at least a year+ out.
* QuakeWars also seemed spectacular for the same reasons as Crysis. Megatexturing is here for good now. Especially for outdoor environments. I wonder if next-gen team oriented titles like QuakeWars can be used out of the box effectively. There is so much teamwork built into it...
* The Camera attachment and microphone attachment for the PSP. Nothing big to show with it yet but I think it will offer some interesting opportunities. Wonder how easy it will be to hack it via homebrew? I met the Talkman producer from Sony and he's very interested in non-entertainment applications of the technology.
* A card game from Sony that Noah Falstien told me about and Peter Smith got video of (we'll try to post it or find it on YouTube). Basically as you play cards like a Magic the Gathering or a PokeMon the Sony EyeToy camera catches this and then animates a virtual card on screen. It's augmented card game reality. Very cool and innovative.
* In the Singapore booth there was a company showcasing color coded square technology that you can put on objects, people, etc. Take a picture with it with your camera phone and it can be intergrated as a data trigger in your game. Very cool for augmented reality games. People could wear tags denoting their vital signs for a mass casualty sim, objects could become treasures, etc. I'm convinced that augmented reality gaming is one of the next-big-things but the overall infrastructure of mobile devices, data tagging, GPS, WiFi, Edge, and RFID just isn't all pulled together enough.
* A next-gen RTS from Relic (makers of Homeworld among other great games) that seemed pretty sweet. Squad based action. We need more RTS interfaces to play with...
* NeverWinter Nights II looked cool but I needed to play with it more to see how great they've advanced the modding tools and conversation editor.
* Sonica Spanish in the UK pavillion. This is a dance pad game where you learn spanish using a dance mat. PC based with Flash being the game engine. Pad games in flash and language training. I have heard good things about the product but had missed them at GDC Europe. We're hoping to get them over to the U.S. this fall for SGS.
* JesterTek was also at the show. They go back a long way in the camera-based game system world. The EyeToy before there was an EyeToy. Good to see them and we had some good conversations about how much they're being used in the PT world.
Beyond that I have to review the literature I picked up at the show, and go back through more notes. So more post-E3 thoughts soon.
Super Columbine Massacre RPG
Posted by Ben Sawyer on 06-05-06So a long time ago I got a email from someone who said they were working on a social commentary game about the Columbine Massacre. They wanted us to know it was being worked on and they wanted to do something "serious". Imagine at the time not knowing anything more. Needless to say while not being dismissive of it - I left the call as it was. "Thanks for writing and let us know when it comes out" and for the most part it was more "ah yeah - sure thing..." as no one in their right mind would be involved with that knowing anything more then I was told.
Now perhaps it's not the same group, or perhaps it is but this week Super Columbine Massacre RPG debuted. Google it for the link... and Water Cooler Games and other blogs have some good posts on this.
There will be lots of debate on whether this is a subject that should be off limits for a game. What a piece of luck for the developers it comes out the same time we're having the same debate as a nation about Flight 93. What makes the debate about Flight 93 so much more serious is because Flight 93 is a serious movie and seriously well done - don't ask me, I've chosen not to see it for my own personal reasons but I've read and seen the reviews and the point they're making is that this is a great film.
Thankfully for Super Columbine Massacre RPG they've also made a serious work. I've not played it (and probably won't because I don't have the time for now) but I've spent the last day reading on it and it seems flaws and all to be accepted by people who think carefully to be a pretty serious attempt at commentary related to the incident. Like Flight 93 this is good because if we're going to do games about subjects that are tough and questionable we can't make bad games and frankly at this point all we can do is try because unlike film we don't have a lot to build on in gaming yet. Escape from Woomera, Eye Witness, and a few others do exist but for 2006 it may very well by this game which gets dissected the most and despite all the good, bad, and ugly of this project it will be this larger discussion that very well could be its legacy.
I'm not going to pass judgement on whether this game should have been made. Depending on the prism I view it through the answers are yes and no. But I will absolutely applaud the developers for one thing outright - they apparantly didn't make this blindly or to trivialize anything. That's the essence of serious when your goal is to make a game like this. That's why this game deserves to be properly discussed and not dismissed. Flight 93 got the EXACT same treatment. So should this.
Majesco cooks up some DS love
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-05-05
Majesco has announced they are going to bring the odd little cooking title Cooking Mama to DS’s all over America. Cooking Mama is a unique title sometimes referred to as a cooking simulation. Apparently you cook some very Japanese food and the recipes are real. Could this be the perfect way to teach cooking to America’s youth, or will the neglect to change the recipes to more American friendly fair? I guess we will have to wait and see, but this could be one of the coolest little games to come around in awhile. Also, Majesco could really use the hit with their recent good, but poorly selling games like Psychonauts (Which if you have not played you should go buy right now). Considering the success of similar off the wall Japanese imports with serious slants, like Phoenix Wright and Trauma Center, Majesco might have finally found the hit they have been looking for.
Maiden Love Revolution
Posted by Peter Smith on 06-05-05
NEC International has developed the next supper smash hit for young women in Japan, Maiden Love Revolution. Taking its name from Dance Dance, and its art styling from Rub Rabbits, young girls and perverts can play as a supermodel gone fat. In the game players have to manage their diet and exercise programs. I am a bit confused on the game play, but the end result is you get acceptable enough to actually get a boy friend, and not just any boyfriend an anime style feminine male lead style boyfriend. I can barely hold in my excitement. If you’re as excited as I am, you can buy it here. If you want to know more you can read about it here or here.