I'm Serious.net

Big News!!

Today is a big day at I'm Serious. Today, I am delighted to introduce you to my business partner, Michael Armentrout.

Michael is a businessman, a money guy. He wears a suit (although he's starting to learn to leave his tie at home). Among other things, he used to manage money for the semi-conductor industry; he leveraged that into a relationship between the industry and higher education that fostered many initiatives and partnerships that continue to fuel the semi-conductor business.

And now Michael has been bitten by the serious games bug. Once again, he's bringing his passion for learning, his interest in technology, and his business acumen together - this time for the benefit of our industry.

Michael will be a regular contributor to this blog. He brings a perspective few of us have, and has much to teach us about how to think about the business of our work. You'll get the idea when you read his inaugural post, "Baseball is a Serious Game."

Welcome, Michael.

I'm serious,
Anne

Could it be?

Is someone at SOE reading this blog? Today, and in the wake of my post about the enormous gap between the number of male game developers and the number of their female counterparts, Sony Online Entertainment has announced a new competitive scholarship aimed at female developers. The competition is part of their new "Gamers in Real Life (G.I.R.L.)" program. The winner will be awarded a $10,000 scholarship to The Art Institutes. Way to go, SOE!

I'm serious,
Anne

You Know You Wanna

We just finished up with the ILS Report webinar. If you were unable to join us, a recording of it is available here. You can also download the report at the eLearning Guild's site. Great stuff in each!

I'm serious,
Anne

Food for Thought

Test my vocabulary and feed the hungry at the same time? I'm in.

Freerice.com is a simple, addictive little game from John Breen, an independent developer in Bloomington, Indiana. All you do is select the proper definition of the word on the screen. Words like "hypocorism" and "clowder" (oy!). Keep answering correctly, and you are rewarded with points, increasing difficulty - and a donation of 20 grains of rice to the poor of Bangladesh.

The visuals in this game are great. Each time a player answers correctly, a wooden bowl receives 20 grains of rice. As a typical American with a full belly, those 20 grains look mighty skimpy. And so one must press on to fill the bowl in order to assuage the guilt derived from having plenty.

Fortunately, there are over half a million players on the site every day. As of this writing, 23,202,482,290 grains of rice have been donated. That's 1,160,124,115 vocabulary words correctly defined. And thousands of Bangladeshis going to sleep tonight with food in their bellies.

Thank you, John.

I'm serious,
Anne

Put On Your Glass Beads, Baby

Conceptuary, a start-up serious game company based in Salt Lake City, has just launched its first game, Glass Bead Network. The game is free for all at this point; a subscription service will be added shortly as an upgrade to the free game. The only technical requirement is a Firefox browser.

Glass Bead Network is a turn-based, strategy game. Players (up to 4) each receive a set of beads which form the players' hands. Each bead represents a concept, e.g., "Pat Metheny", or "honeymoon", or "Lithuania".

The game is played on a shared "board" that looks something like a Chinese checkers board. Each player, in turn, lays a tile on the board so that it touches one or more other tiles. For each "touch" point, the player must explain the linkage between the touching tiles, which can be accepted or rejected by the opponent(s). The object of the game is to be the first to place all one's tiles on the board.

Glass Bead Network is not just good fun, as it challenges each player's knowledge and creativity. Turns can take up to 5 minutes, giving players the chance to inform their play through on-the-fly background research. In fact, it is possible to play customized game by selecting a topic in advance, with players receiving tiles that are particular to that topic.

At this very early stage in the game's life, it is limited by a couple of things. The reservoir of beads is in early production, according to the game's website. So far, I have not seen duplicate beads; those who would like to assist in bead production are encouraged to contact Conceptuary.

At any given time, one is likely to find a couple of dozen people online, making it somewhat challenging to find a game partner. I hope you'll give this one a try, as it's a great example of how technology and games can make for an entertaining and thought-provoking experience. Plus, I'm trying to scare up a good game.

I'm serious,
Anne

White Men Rule

Greetings from San Francisco and the Game Developers Conference. It's rainy and cold here, so staying indoors talking to and learning from some of the best and brightest in our industry is exactly the right thing to be doing.

The past two days have been dedicated to, among other things, the Serious Games Summit. Each day has been filled with presentations about the work being done around the world. Did you know that in Japan there are some 300 (!) commercial serious games on the market? Canadian national, regional and provincial governments are investing heavily in serious games. The West Midlands region of England has recently launched the Serious Games Institute, which includes an incubator of sorts for small SG development houses at the University of Coventry. The French Minister of Culture recently announced the French government's intention to promote certain regions of France as game development centers for the European Community.

And yet, with all this activity, I'm face-to-face with the stark truth that this industry is fueled by young(ish), white men. From my non-scientific observation, women represent less than 15% of conference attendees. Other than a sizable representation from the Asian community, many of whom are here from their homelands, there are very few people of color here. And, as you might expect, the over-50 crowd is quite poorly represented.

This troubles me. Until the designer/developer community reflects the audience/consumer community, serious games will have a hard time hitting their mark. Why? Because a closed system RARELY provides opportunities for true innovation.

More importantly, the effectiveness of a serious game rests in large measure on the development team's ability to penetrate the psyche of the target audience on an individual and collective basis. When the team's demographics do not correspond to those of the audience, a deep understanding of who the audience is and what motivates them becomes far harder to access. This potential disconnect can lead to disenfranchisement of the audience - the kiss of death for learner/player engagement and serious learning.

While this may be a "chicken and egg" problem, the fact is that this situation must change. Employers and team leaders must pay close attention to team demographics even while focusing on team skills. As development teams better reflect the characteristics of the audiences they are trying to touch, buyers will have greater confidence in the team's ability to touch the minds - and hearts - of the learners.

I'm serious,
Anne

The Funny Papers

Yesterday, as if to herald today's opening of Game Developers Conference, the San Francisco Chronicle ran the following comics:

 

As my darling says, "If it's in the Sunday comics, it's already part of popular culture."

I'm serious,
Anne

"...opportunity for All"

I'm starting to get wind of upcoming serious game projects. As I learn of interesting opportunities, I will post them on the new Opportunities page. Today's entries include two US federal contracts being let. New and interesting work is being done all over!

I'm serious,
Anne

Generation G - The Gaming Generation

Richard van Eck has developed one of the best presentations I've seen on why serious games meet the needs of the current generation. He calls this demographic category "Generation G" - the Gaming Generation. I've included both the slides and the audio files on my del.icio.us site - along with some other gems I've found along the way.

I'm serious,
Anne

Mirror and Metaphor

Happy New Year from London, where I’ve just seen the new King Tut exhibit. It’s every bit as enjoyable and impressive as the exhibit that toured the world 30 years ago. One addition (if memory serves) are the games that were found in Tut’s tomb. Apparently, 12 “board” games were placed in the tomb’s innermost chamber with the body so that Tut could have some amusements in the afterlife. As with just about everything shown in the exhibit, these games told stories that were both instructive and served to assist Tut in his dealings with the gods he would encounter. Each game tells a different story. Each has its own board layout with pieces that represent various of the story’s characters. Some of the games are single-player, some are multi-player (hmmmm, that would be Tut and ???????).   

 

As with so many of the great civilizations, difficult concepts were understood through stories in ancient Egypt. Metaphors were most helpful in explaining life’s mysteries. For serious game designers, there are interesting take-aways from this awareness.      

 

Once a serious game designer has completed the analysis work (who is the audience and why are they coming to the game? what is the nature of the content? what is the environment in which the audience will apply the content?), s/he is ready to take on the conceptual and detailed design work. And the very first design question s/he asks is whether the learners will be best served by a game motif that relies on metaphor and story-telling, or is a straight-forward simulation, or mirror, of the real world more likely to yield the desired outcomes?

 

This is not an easy, if-then question. However, general guidelines may prove useful.

 

Where desired performance is critical and exact, particularly when unerring group performance is the goal, mirror worlds are called for - with the “mirror” as finely tuned as possible. I would not be satisfied knowing my surgeon learned anatomy and surgical technique playing Milton Bradley’s “Operation”.

 

By turn, the right metaphor can help elucidate content better than a straight-forward explanation. Metaphors can cement deep-learning, can help break “bad habits” in favor of “good performance”, and can erode stereotypes. Role-playing games such as World of Warcraft have been cited numerous times for their contribution to team-building, for example. Picking the right metaphor can be tricky business; pre-alpha user testing is essential to ensure you are on the right track. Accounting for learning transference is also a must.

 

Whether your game is a mirror or a metaphor, I send you best wishes for 2008 here in the real world!

 

I'm serious,

Anne