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Showing posts from October, 2007

Ben Sawyer Debunks Ten Myths About Serious Games

Via: The Escapist Magazine Ben Sawyer, co-founder of Digitalmill , also co-founder of the Serious Games Initiative, and the Games for Health Project, has just published a superb article via The Escapist: Ten Myths About Serious Games. As he states upfront, "The serious games field is rife with misconceptions because it encompasses so much. To help spread the truth about Serious Games, let's debunk 10 of the biggest myths about the genre." The article covers most of the topics that have been object of ample debate around the Serious Games segment and deserves a thorough reading.  Amongst others, it challenges two most notorious myths: "Serious Games are for Learning and Training" and "Serious Games Aren't Fun". Go for it!

Serious Games - Are We Really A Community And The Chaos Theory

As I finished reading Kevin Corti's opinion piece 'Serious Games - Are We Really A Community?', where Kevin thoroughly discusses the nature of the "Serious Games" movement and the deep divisions amongst the various sub-sections, I immediately empathized with its essence. It reminded me I had experienced something quite similar a couple of years ago, when restructuring a global company and 'creating' new markets. At that point, my personal coach, one of the 'best and brightest' from the Chicago Stock Exchange, came up with the following: The Chaos Theory fully applies to major step changes, where discontinuity prevails. In the beginning all you've got are fractals, without any bonding. Therefore, at the very early stages, inclusiveness can make your incipient community gain critical mass and visibility (e.g for the SG movement c ould imply welcoming Flash, Unreal, etc. as opposed to “but it is only developed in Flash”). At thi

Serious Games Of Canada Constituency

~ Via: Ethical Games Bog - Serious Games in Canada Serious Games arrive at Montreal International Game Summit Alliance NumériQC, the business network for Quebec’s new media and interactive digital content industry, has announced that the first annual Serious Games Canada symposium will be held in Montreal in conjunction with the 4yh Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS), on November 27 and 28, 2007, at the Palais des Congrès. Canada is well-positioned to become an important hub for the development of Serious Games. As such, MIGS is this year convening more than twenty speakers, mostly from Canada, to give high-level presentations on the subject. The speakers will share expertise on subjects as varied as ethics and negotiation games, Project Moonwalk—an educational simulation of the Apollo Moon Missions, interactive math activities and game ethology, a methodology for design analysis based on game behaviour. Concurrently, there will be a workshop designed to organize

Serious Games Sizeable Market, Virtual Worlds Sizeable Investment

Via:  Virtual Worlds News  - $1 Billion Invested in Virtual Worlds in the Last Year The Numerator – Gross Revenues In my prior posts  Serious Games, Serious Money: A Sizeable Market  and  Serious Games: A Sizeable Market - Update , I addressed how the video game industry was finding more business outside the entertainment sector. At that point, my best estimate for the "Serious Games" segment was based on three major market drivers: 1) the emergent supply chain for professional training, with a number of corporations taking the first steps and commissioning Serious Games development 2) more and more Healthcare providers embracing software simulations 3) the fact that Serious Games are gaining solid traction in Europe   . In my view, these three combined market drivers could bring the overall figure for the Serious Games market close to $ 2 billion in 2008. Note: With regards to the running costs of development I would strongly recommend further reading Julian