Educational Gaming Commons

This from the Second Life Educator's List Blog, courtesy of Alan Levine:

http://www.sl-educationblog.org/?p=116

The conference is now over. I hope the big green guy got to present!

Read all about it! Fascinating. It's great to see Speilberg involved in gaming, because I believe he is sincere about making games for the family, and he is of course quite creative. He's also smart - there's lots of money to be grubbed here! I'm off to sniff more out about this "secret" gaming project he's working on. I hope they do keep it under wraps until it's ready, however - the world doesn't need more vaporware Spore-hype.

The Center for Teaching and Learning at the University of Minnesota has a nice page on using PPT to create simple drill and practice games.

Well worth checking out! 

This is just too cool!

http://www.handsfree3d.com/

The possibilities here are vast. I can see a mashup between Guitar Hero and Second Life, for example, where you are on (a virtual) stage, jamming with others, or running a marathon, or even playing Quiddich!

While build initially for virtual worlds, this has many applications to gaming. Imagine a WoW raid where you finish dripping with sweat from swinging your sword several hundred times! Fun and exercise at the same time.

If you are building a house, plan for a BIG family room. In the next decade, we'll be duking it out with our family members, moving about, getting in shape, and having fun. Oh, don't forget the extra wiring when you build the room!

Hello All!

I'm still reeling from all the great presentations at the conference I attended Friday and Saturday, "Playing to Win: The Business and Social Frontiers of Videogames".

The sessions were loaded with astute observations and posed an even greater number of interesting questions. I didn't get anywhere near all of them written down, but here are some of the highlights:

Michael Colibraro's (PSU) presentation took a look at how companies view "fan-art" based on their franchises, along with how they might find it useful. Hey, great "fan artists" are out there - the industry may as well find a way to benefit from (and hopefully even reward) some of their efforts!

Matt Kenyon and Ryan Patton (PSU) discussed "Physical Computing and Game Art". For me, the highlight of this one was the observation that Guitar Hero has essentially the same user interface as the old Simon light/tone matching game from 1978. All you need to create a great game is one simple, addictive mechanic. Of course, a presentation as stylish and innovative as the one built by the Guitar Hero team doesn't hurt one bit...

Jen McNamara and Josh Johns (Breakaway Games) stressed that their customers aren't looking for games, but instead for what games offer. I like the idea that "fun" can be a means to an end. I'm especially looking forward to "Pulse!!", a detailed medical simulation Jen demoed for us. They're also working on a game for the International Center for Non-Violent Conflict called "A Force More Powerful". A step toward less violence in the world is certainly a lofty goal for any video game.

It's good to see the potential of the video game industry inspiring so much academic discourse. I'm sure there's plenty more to come!

I unfortunately could not make it to the events this weekend, but two IST student organizations held gaming events in the IST Building.

The IST Game Design Clug held a Super Smash Brothers Brawl tournament Saturday afternoon. The president of the club said they had ~30 people show up to get their game on.

The IST Computer Networking Club (CNC) held a Counter Strike: Source and Team Fortres 2 Tournament in the Cybertorium later in the day. They also had approximately 30 people participate for close to 6 hours of gaming. The network club also designed and implemented a LAN in the cybertorium for the event, which included a stat-tracking server for both games so they could determine a winner at the close of the event. This is a great example of tying educational experiences to gaming.

Does anyone else know of similar groups that exist around Penn State? Here at the EGC we're hoping to get more involved with these student organizations and identify areas we can help grow the community.

Piracy, Trade and Other Policy Impediments to Export Growth

Steven Mitchell, VP, Entertainment Software Association

• ESA represents 95% of US game publishers. 12-13 billion a year sales.
• Game industry growth - 9.5 billion in 2007, 28% increase over 2006.
• 80,000 employees in game industry in US
• Global market - 49 billion by 2011!
• Game exports are important for continued growth.

Who benefits?

•  - local developers
•  - publishers
•  - local industries
•  - related industries - TVs, broadband, etc. For every $1 spent in games, $1 in this area spent locally.

Barriers to Export

•  - piracy. In some places exceeds 80-90%! Why expand into a country with piracy at this level?
•  - excessive tariffs run the price of consoles and games way up
•  - time to delivery a new game. This takes too long. By the time it's available legit, it's old news in the gaming world.
•  - excessive reviews by local govt.
•  - music performance rights. Some places (Canada for example) want a royalty paid for music in games when they are downloaded. This is a major disincentive to e-commerce.

Successful Virtual Teams

Kevin Morgan

PSU, IST

Team performance depends on 2 factors

 - Effective communications

 - Understanding roles and expectations.

Virtual teams - work across space, time, and organizational boundaries to accomplish specific tasks.

Gaming Environments for Teams

 - MMOG, MMORPG

 - First-person Shooters

 - Interactive and Collaborative Environments

Common Elements

 - persistent env.

 - communication tools

 - collaborative & social settings

 - need for coordination and interaction

Social Aspects

 - need to feel valued

 - social engagement

 - commitment to team and product

 - cohesiveness - do we want to work together in the future?

Ran a survey to find out more about all this with 40 guilds.

Findings

 - Strong social connections led to more play time, and more interactions.

 - Guilds are a social community. Norms exist. mentoring exists to help people meet these norms.

 - Players spend a great deal of time with other guild members.

 - Teams success based on communication and clear expectations.

 - Development activities do not equate to success. They may be seen as not fun, and if you are there for fun....

Bridget Blodgett, Bridget

PSU, IST

The social processes and descriptions of mobilization on virtual worlds is under theorized.

Many VWs are experiencing user-mobilized protests. How do protests and technology interact?

Hacktivism - Hacking + activism. Individuals using technologies to bring about a change. A continuation of civil disobedience. Digitally correct hactivism don't resort to harmful tactics (like DOS).

Individuals that use CMC believe there is a virtualized social group. A sense of proximity with others can exist depending on frequency and depth of interactions. It takes longer to do this than it does in F2F situations. New media channels can increase the development of weak ties. Using multiple channels to talk to the same people strengthens ties. (Personal note: Is this like seeing someone at work, plus at home, plus at a social event like a picnic? Do we need multiple situations to become "close" to someone?)

Gerry Santoro

PSU, IST

The Virtuality of Human Reality

• All human reality is virtual.
  
  (Personal note: Castronova in Synthetic Worlds argues the opposite - everything is real, including virtual reality. It's real if it's important to you.)
• Everything you experience is filtered through your brain.
• Plato's Allegory of the cave is an example of this. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plato%27s_allegory_of_the_cave...)
• Cognition involves feeling. Our brains don't separate them. If it feels like a puppy, it's a puppy.