FW: The Serious Games Summit at GDC, Ben Sawyer interview

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

Earlier this season, we had a thread on the application 
of games technology, specifically RPGs, to business 
applications and decision systems.   The following is 
relevant to that thread and indicates that this  
indeed is a 'serious' market for our technologies.   
FYI.

len


From: GDC Update 2004 [mailto:gdcupdate@info.gamanetwork.com]

The Serious Games Summit is a two-day event covering the 
intersection of games, learning, policy, and management. Today,
major corporations, government and military institutions, 
foundations, educators, and non-profits are turning to 
interactive technologies as an approach to problem solving.

The result is a new field where computer and video games are 
applied to "serious" purposes rather than entertainment. This 
represents a growing financial outlet for game developers, where
projects can produce a social return in addition to an economic
one.

The Serious Games Summit agenda is designed to address areas of
concern to: professional developers who want to develop new 
business in this emerging market; educators and gaming advocates
looking at new ways to utilize interactive game technologies; 
and representatives from corporations, the government and 
non-government organizations who are looking to fund and utilize
game projects to advance specific needs.

Attendees of the Serious Games Summit will learn how extensive
the application of games and game technology is and can be 
outside of the traditional use of entertainment. Attendees will
also gain considerable hands-on insight on how to successfully
launch new serious game projects and advance things beyond the
experiments and pioneering endeavors that have taken place so 
far. This includes developers learning how to attack new markets,
and potential users obtaining a much deeper level of understanding
on how to make their projects, past, present, and future much 
more successful.

Ben Sawyer was the producer for The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's
Virtual U project. He is the co-leader of the Serious Games 
Initiative, and works on a number of game-based projects via his 
Portland, ME based firm Digitalmill. His Op-Ed piece, "Gaming Our
Way to Our Better Future," appeared in the June 2003 issue of
Game Developer magazine. Sawyer is also the volunteer producer of
the Serious Games Summit.

Q. What kind of interactivity applications will attendees be 
seeing at the Serious Games Summit? 

Ben Sawyer: I think people will be very surprised at the range 
of applications that have been developed or are in the process.
We've collected a number of products from one on building homes,
to another that helps people overcome phobias. The range of 
budgets, production values, content, and time-to-build is amazing
and I think when developers see the opportunities that have 
happened and will happen they'll find a lot to be excited about.

Right now we're planning on showcasing five or six products 
during a show-and-tell session. More importantly, in between
sessions there will be a lot of laptops open on tables with 
people demonstrating their products and ideas. 

The Summit aims to do four things. First, we're throwing down 
the gauntlet. Games are here and they're capable of making this
non-entertainment segment a true industry. Second, we're going 
to educate developers about how they can become successful 
serious game developers. Third, we're going to educate the 
customers. We're going to show them what games can do, and do
really well, and we're going to show them past efforts that 
successfully solved problems. Finally, we're going to use this
opportunity to not only make the industry healthier, but to make
a better world.

Q. How do these games differ from entertainment products? 

BS: Serious Games have a mission entirely apart from 
entertainment. The motivating factor can be to learn something,
to analyze and explore an idea, to improve a skill, or to get
healthier. This can involve entertainment as well but that's not
the mission. I was once asked, why I was working on a game 
about university management? I said that if more people played 
Virtual U they might become better more enlightened managers. If
in some way this meant that their institutions ran just that 
tiny bit better, a child would get a better education, be it one
that was cheaper, or better run, or more enjoyable. The game was
a means to a more purposeful end.

Serious game titles have needs for different distribution 
schemes, different business models, and different features. 
Sometimes the market also requires lower-specs because many 
potential users aren't running around with Alienware desktops.
So there are unique needs and challenges, which is fun for 
developers who want a change of pace. We'll be covering all of
this at the summit. Developers will get a crash course in a new
business - the serious games business.

Q. Can you describe a scenario where the US government has used
a serious game to solve specific problem? 

BS: Absolutely. I'll describe one short one, and a longer one.
The short one is America's Army. The office in charge of 
developing and promoting America's Army says the total cost is
1/3 of 1% of their total advertising budget and it's by far 
dollar-for-dollar the BEST money they've ever spent. People 
should get a true walk through of the game because until you do
you don't have any idea how well it tells the story of what it 
means to be an Army infrantryman. The game codifies the Army's 
practices and honor principles and, as I've seen when I sat for
a walk through, it really does make it easier for potential 
recruits to sit down and understand what is headed their way.
Today, almost 20% of the Cadets at West Point have played 
America's Army before they got there. That's surely going up 
and I'd suspect on the regular grunt side the story is the same.

The longer story I'd tell is about a new product currently under
development at Breakaway Games which is a well known commercial 
game house based in Hunt Valley, MD. Breakaway is doing a game 
called Incident Commander for the Justice Department, which will
help municipalities and county governments around the country 
simulate virtual incidents like a chlorine gas spill, or a 
school shooting, and they must respond. You can block roads, 
call in EMTs, evacuate areas, call in federal agencies and more.
Think of it as SimCity's disaster mode on steroids. Unlike basic
training, which you can do without a computer, Incident Commander
lets you simulate things that are hard to do in real life. 
Disaster drills are expensive to do and many localities can't 
afford them. 75% of the nations firefighters and EMTs are 
volunteer departments. For the first time, these people, people
we count on daily to keep us safe, will be able to use a product
from a game developer and practice their decision-making response
skills in a game-like environment. I think we'll see an updated
version at the Summit and Doug Whatley, CEO of Breakaway will be
speaking on the design panel.

Q. What is the most interesting/offbeat use of a serious game
application? 

BS: There is a very interesting game I am sworn to secrecy on 
that I hope will be announced at or near the summit. To say a 
little more, I think it has the chance to help change the world
as we know it.

I'm excited about some ideas we recently kicked around with the
New York Fire Department which taught me how close we are to 
being able to take commercial games like Command & Conquer and 
mod them into useful game tools for various needs, be they public
or corporate interest projects. There is an environmental 
detectives game, which is a PDA/Wi-Fi based application being
developed at MIT. 

As for offbeat, I'd say Catch-the-Sperm, which was done to promote
AIDs awareness, was pretty offbeat when I first saw it. The VR 
Phobia center has modified Half-Life where you can go around and
attack giant spiders and they use this to help people who have 
arachnophobia. When you hear about how phobias like this can 
truly create life problems for people, and how a game can change 
that, you realize offbeat to you and I is like a nail-on-the-head
for someone else.

Let me finish with yet another story... Barry Joseph from 
Global Kids told me when he asked a bunch of kids to think of 
some serious games, one kid wanted to do a game about racial 
profiling at airports. That isn't offbeat but it definitely made
me realize that the ideas people have can envelop so many 
diverse perspectives. In a time when people are concerned about
the originality in games, maybe it will be serious projects that
will give us games that strike new chords in our minds and 
hearts.