Transcript Serious Games

Serious Games - contemporary
state and perspectives
Roumen Nikolov
Sofia University
EDE2009, Sofia, 23-24 November
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Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Nowadays massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are
quickly becoming the form of entertainment and a major mechanism
of socialization not only for the young people but rather – for
everyone;
Thousands of people can participate in a simulated world which
changes as a result of their own actions;
BBC Climate Change, SimCity, Sims Online, Second Life, World of
Warcraft, Civilization; Colonization;
Hemimond Games (BG): Tzar, Celtic Kings, Rising Kingdoms, etc.
Creating communities of players that build relationships, teams,
businesses, economies, and a complete working social structure that
parallels the real world.
Many educational MMOGs are now beginning to emerge and the
future of learning is very much related to video games.
Video Games and Learning
“video games matter because they present players with
simulated worlds: worlds which, if well constructed, are
not just about facts or isolated skills, but embody
particular social practices” …
“thus make it possible for players to participate in valued
communities of practice and as a result develop the ways
of thinking that organize those practices” (Shaffer, Squire,
Halverson, Gee, 2005).
“The virtual worlds of games are powerful, in other words,
because playing games means developing a set of
effective social practices”( Shaffer, Squire, Halverson,
Gee, 2005).
Hemimond Games
http://www.haemimontgames.com/
BBC Climate Change
•gives an understanding of
some of the causes of climate
change;
•gives players an awareness of
some of the policy options
available to governments;
•players must respond to
catastrophic events caused by
climate change as well as
natural and manmade events;
Civilization
The player attempts to build
an empire in competition with
2-6 other civilizations.
Serious Games and Training
According to Gartner, the MMOG technologies strongly impact
corporate training as well. By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active
Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life”,
but not necessarily in Second Life (http://secondlife.com) (Gartner,
2007).
In 2006 Michael and Chen predicted that up to 40% of US companies
would adopt serious gaming technology into their training efforts by
2008 (Michael, Chen, 2006)
E-learning simulations are the fastest growing sector of the e-learning
industry, increasing from $300 million in 2002 to $37 billion by 2011
(WAVE, 2003).
According to The Apply Group, by 2012, between 100 and 135 of the
Global Fortune 500 will have adopted gaming for learning (IBM,
2007).
Second Life
Second Life and Education
European Union to open office in Second Life
Sweden's virtual embassy in Second Life
Doing Business 09 Report/World Bank
IBM INNOV8 2.0
INNOV8: the IBM Business Process
Management (BPM) simulation game
The INNOV8 BPM simulation game brings IT and
business together for process model innovation
Both IT and business professionals understand that
processes are critical to success. They just look at them
from different perspectives.
INNOV8, the IBM Business Process Management (BPM)
simulation game, gives both IT and business players a
better understanding of how effective BPM impacts an
entire business ecosystem.
INNOV8 also demonstrates how a more instrumented,
interconnected and intelligent world supports process
improvements and working smarter to help build a smarter
planet.
INNOV8 (cont)
Inside INNOV8 Online, you will encounter three different game
scenarios:
Smarter Traffic -- Evaluate existing traffic patterns and re-route
traffic based on incoming metrics.
Smarter Customer Service -- Using a call center environment,
players develop more efficient ways to respond to customers.
Smarter Supply Chains -- Evaluate a traditional supply chain
model, balance supply and demand and reduce environmental
impact.
Players quickly see how practical process improvements can help
meet profitability, customer satisfaction and environmental goals
while addressing real problems faced by municipalities and
businesses today. And when they're done playing, they can
compare scores with other players on global scoreboards.
INNOV8 2.0 Academic Edition
Over 1000 schools worldwide have downloaded
the game and more than 100 universities
worldwide have built custom curriculum using our
serious game to help students learn about business
process management and SOA.
Professors registered with IBM's Academic
Initiative can download the game for free;
Innov8 was designed to be delivered in a one hour
learning lab to supplement courses like Business
Process Management, Corporate Strategy, and
Operations and IT Management.
Chief Gaming Officer ?
Chris Melissinos, the Chief Gaming Officer of SUN
Microsystems, states, that by February 2009 there were
more than 1.1 bilion social network users and more than
300 milion virtual world users in the world and video
game market is the fast growing segment of $40B
(Melissonos, 2009);
He is the leader of the Darkstar Project
(http://projectdarkstar.com/), which provides “software
infrastructure that aims to simplify the development and
operation of massively scalable online games, virtual
worlds, and social networking applications”.
Darkstar Project
Darkstar University
To give education customers more choices, Sun Microsystems
and other organizations have created Darkstar University, a
community of academic systems users, designers, and students
working to create open source 3D learning environments for
immersive education.
The idea is to help educational institutions build their own
virtual environments using open source technologies — and
allow those environments to connect to a university's existing
academic and administrative computing systems (SUN, 2007).
Similar game development framework could be used as a
learning environment for a software engineering course at a
university level (Wang, Wu, 2009).
PRIME Serious Game (FP6)
Sergej Varbanov will talk about
PRIME in this session.
Thank you for your attention!
EDE2009, Sofia, 23-24 November
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