Serious Games and Virtual Worlds

SERIOUS GAMES ANDVIRTUAL WORLS
João Fernandes

video-games miths
VIDEO-GAMES MYTHS
VIRTUAL WORLDS AND SERIOUS GAMES

video-games miths
CHILDREN ARE THE PRIMARY MARKET FOR VIDEO GAMES
VIRTUAL WORLDS AND SERIOUS GAMES

age distribution
© JOÃO FERNANDES - 2011
SERIOUS GAMES AND VIRTUAL WORLDS

age distribution
37
YEARS
OLD
the age of the average player

ALMOST NO GIRLS PLAY COMPUTER GAMES

gender distribution
© JOÃO FERNANDES – 2011

VIDEO GAME PLAY IS SOCIALLY ISOLATING

video-games social component
Almost 60 percent of frequent gamers play with friends.
33percent play with siblings and 25 percent play with spouses or parents.
A growing number of games are designed for multiple players

VIDEO GAMES MARKET AND INDUSTRY

time playing
© JOÃO FERNANDES – 2011
18
HOURS
Average time spent PER WEEK by gamers playing video-games

best selling
The mario franshining is the most sucessful video game series, selling over 225 million games

video-games market
Video games are now a $20 billion industry in the U.S. and the Entertainment Software Association has over 30 member companies, including Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony and Electronic Arts.
The entertainment software industry is currently one of the best performing sectors of the American economy

video-games conclusion
Video games are not for children.
People spend a lot of their time playing.
People socialize using games.
Video-games are expanding market.

serious-games in 1970
“We are concerned with serious games in the sense that these game have an explicit and carefully thought-out educational purpose and are not intended to be played primarily for amusement”
In Abt, C. (1970). Serious Games. New York: The Viking Press.

serious-games in 2005
“a mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules that uses entertainment to further government or corporate training, education health, public policy and strategic communication objectives”
In Zyda, M. (2005). “From visual simulation to virtual reality to games”. IEEE Computer.

serious-games concept
A serious game is a game designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment.
The "serious" adjective is generally prepended to refer to products used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, religion and politics.

SERIOUS-GAMES HISTORY

ancient games
Fortunetelling with sheep’s bones come from India do Africa around 40.000BC
The earlist know dice were from Iran around 3.000BC

ancient games
Game have always had a serious purpose:
Fortune Telling
Battle planning
Gambling
Game mechanisms began to emerge 5000 years ago
“Serious” is from the perspective of the society
Fortune telling in 3000BC are equivalent to the use of mathematics and science in 2000AC

military games
Naval War College opened in 1884
Developed operational war fighting concepts through research and wargaming.
Wargaming introduced in 1886 by William McCarty-Little

mititary games
6/16/2011
Footer Text
22

first computer wargame 1948
“Air Defense Simulation”
Hosted on the Univac Computer
North American air defence
Naval anti-aircraft guided missiles

WHY THEY USE IT?

SPACE EXPLORATION

ENERGY SECTOR

FLIGHT TRAINING

HEALTH SECTOR

POLITICS

YET THEY ARE NOT THE SOLUTION FOR EVERYTHING!

VIDEO GAMES FOR TRAINING

serious-games in the classroom
New technologies (from television to computers) are always suspect when applied to training and education.
What seems obvious to a later generation was not obvious or accepted when the technology first became available.
What is the cause?
Cultural Fixation
Emotional Resistance
Technical Limitations
Lack of vision

GAMES IN BUSINESS?

ERRORS DON’T KILL PEOPLE BUT THEY COST MONEY

ERRORS AFFECT THE COMPANY'S CREDIBILITY

serious-games in business
A way to simulate different situation in a controlled environment.
Completion of the training and evaluation of human resources.
Adaptation of contents to employees to maximize the outcome.

serious-games in business

VIRTUAL WORLDS

context
Over the last decade there have been three primary learning modalities used for employee development:
Live instructor led, synchronous settings like a classroom or conference room
Electronic, synchronous learning through audio or web conference systems
Electronic, asynchronous, self-paced learning also called e-learning.

Most corporations have heavily invested in both
web conferencing and e-learning systems

virtual worlds advantages
Practice Until Perfect
Add Gaming or Problem Solving
Blend Learning with Social Contexts
Let’s Have Fun
The Millennials Want This Technology

virtual worlds costs

virtual worlds cost

ACTIVE WORLDS - EDUCATIONAL UNIVERSE

active worlds
Activeworlds offers a comprehensive platform for efficiently delivering real-time interactive 3D content over the web.
Activeworlds' 3D content is dynamic, visually compelling and most importantly provides users a richer, more exciting online experience.
http://www.activeworlds.com/

SCILANDS

scilands
The SciLands is a specialised region of Second Life for Science and Technology based organizations
There are over 20 science and technology related organizations in the SciLands, including government agencies, universities and museums.
http://www.scilands.org/

PROTOSHERE

protoshere
ProtoSphereis the market-leading virtual collaboration environment for the high-performance workplace, and the #1 virtual environment for collaborative Product Lifecycle Management in life sciences.
ProtoSphere’s innovative environment has the unique ability to tie together multiple forms of unified communications/collaboration and 3D visualization technologies to foster fast and timely collaborative decision making in the enterprise.

VIRTUAL OFFICE PROJECT

virtual office - context
Project developed in the context of 3D Simulation and Game Programming course in IST
Virtual Office is a prototype virtual world develop for the Portuguese IT companies.
The project requirements were done in partnership with several companies.

virtual office
1 month of development
2 to 3 persons per group
Balance between 3D development and functionalities
Integration with external API like: Gmail, Microsoft…

STUDENTS PRESENTATION

Serious Games and Virtual Worlds

by jjcf on Jun 18, 2011

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Serious Games and Virtual Worlds — Presentation Transcript