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Serious Challenges and Serious Issues Developing Serious Games

Presented by:

Randy Brown

Chief Technology Officer

December 7, 2007

What is a Serious Game?

• “Serious Games” involve pedagogy: activities that educate or instruct, thereby imparting knowledge or skill to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy, and strategic communication objectives

• “Serious Games” operate where computer games intersect with the needs of education, training and simulation

• Michigan State University now offers an MA in Serious Games• “Brain Age”/”Brain Age 2” (Nintendo DS) - Health• “Darfur is Dying” - Persuasion• “Dance Dance Revolution” (Playstation) – Exergaming (WV)• “America’s Army” – Recruiting/Outreach• “3DiTeams” – Duke University's Human Simulation and Patient

Safety Center and Virtual Heroes – Healthcare Team Coordination

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Serious Games: ConvergenceConferences/Sites:

– NC Advanced Learning Technology Association (ncalta.org)

– Game Developers Conference/Serious Games Summit

– I/ITSEC (Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation, and Education Conf.)

– Games For Health, Games For Change

– Serious Games Source site (seriousgamessource.org)

– Med Sim Conference, Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference

– Society for Applied Learning Technology (SALT) Conference

• Government agencies investing in Game technologies• Ubiquitous hardware platforms now have sufficient capability to

present interactive, immersive, engaging Virtual Reality content• Game engines have sufficient functionality and generality to support

content beyond entertainment/gaming for Education and Training• Target populations now familiar with PC/Game technologies

Challenges

• Interactive entertainment games are a hit-driven biz Example: Halo 3, 3 years, $30M dev cost, 300 employees

• Heavy customization, instructional design and game dev skills needed for custom serious games solutions

• Many serious games are specialty, boutique solutions• Many serious games clients begin funding at SBIR level• Many target deployment locations have trailing-edge tech• Demographics of decision-makers still does not match

that of end-users in relation to gaming familiarity: YET• “Edutainment” and “Gaming” sometimes Kryptonite

2007 Self-Paced E-Learning: $13.6 Billion5-year annual growth rate: 22%

2006 Real-Time Collaboration-Based Learning: $2.6 Billion5-year annual growth rate: almost 35%

Real-time Collaboration-based Learning is fastest growing learning technology in US

Markets

Education & Training Development Issues• Single-player or Multi-player/Team Training?• Physical proximity or Distance Learning (DL)?• Instructor-led or Self-directed/paced?• Stand-alone training content or connected to a Learning

Management System (LMS) (Blackboard, Saba, etc)?• Validation of results required? Proctors/Classroom• Continuing Education/CME Credits?• SCORM compliance/conformance?• Distributed Interactive Simulation/High Level Architecture

(DIS/HLA) compliance for Government deliverables?• Back-end Infrastructure requirements?• Download requirements? Bandwidth requirements?

Serious Games: Many Masters

• Education Community (Validation, Accreditation)• Entertainment (Fidelity, Interactivity, Engagement)• Modeling and Simulation Community (Accuracy)• Current Technology Platforms (Deployability)• HCI (Usability, Accessibility, Section 508, COPPA)• Commercial World (Stability, Appeal, Cost Savings) • Continuum of Training (Put round peg in round hole)

Serious Games: Archetypes of Gameplay• Guided Tour• Scavenger Hunt• Conceptual Orienteering • Operational Application• Role Play • Critical Incident • Co-Creation• Group Forum • Breakout Sessions • Social Networking

From “Escaping Flatland” by Karl Kapp and Tony O’Driscoll

Serious Games: Requirements Gathering• Almost by definition, need to work with Subject Matter

Experts (SMEs) to define learning/training content versus simply creating gameplay out of thin air

• Game designers must work with Instructional designers• Developers must effectively become SME’s themselves• Challenges:

– Access to SME’s– Access to environments– Access to equipment– Finding SME’s fully knowledgeable in training content– Creating Serious Game without simply creating a simulation

Healthcare Issues: Training & Real-Time Physiology

EmSense Biometric Integration – Serious Tracking

• “Raw” vectors– Oxygenation/BVP– Heart Rate– Blink Rate– Head motion– Frontal-lobe EEG

• “Virtual” vectors– Mental Response– Physical Response– Engagement– Frustration/Resignation– “Stealth”, “In the Zone”, “Zen”

States

Serious Opportunities

Discussion?

Randy Brown

randy@virtualheroes.com

919.459.2522

Virtual Heroes, Inc.

4601 Creekstone Drive, Suite 160

Durham, North Carolina

http://www.virtualheroes.com