Serious Games

We were working on a new product idea for kids 3 to 7 years old the other day and began envisioning one version built specifically for the iPhone. But is the iPhone a platform that’s viable for children at the younger end of this age range, we wondered?

As this video and others of the same ilk demonstrate, kids *love* the iPhone and even some 2 year olds have no problem finding their way around:

For more videos of kids using the iPhone click here.

The Pew Internet Project released a data memo this morning on Adults and Video Games. Among their main findings:

More than half - 53% - of all American adults play video games of some kind, whether on a computer, on a gaming console, on a cell phone or other handheld device, on a portable gaming device, or online.

Age is the biggest demographic factor in game play by adults. Younger adults are significantly more likely than any other game group to play games, and as age increases game play decreases. Independent of all other factors, younger adults are still more likely to play games.

Among older adults 65+ who play video games, nearly a third play games everyday, a significantly larger percentage than all younger players, of whom about 20% play everyday.

Age is also a factor in determining an individual’s preferred game-playing device. Gaming consoles are the most popular for young adults: 75% of 18-29 year old gamers play on consoles, compared with 68% who use computers, the second most popular device for this age group.

Out of all the gaming devices, computers are the most popular among the total adult gaming population, with 73% of adult gamers using computers to play games, compared with 53% console users, 35% who using cell phones, and 25% using portable gaming devices.

The full text of the  memo is available as a PDF file here:
http://www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Adult_gaming_memo.pdf

Tanya Van Court, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Nickelodeon’s Noggin, ParentsConnect and Nick Jr.com, presents Nick’s new standards-based early childhood learning site, myNOGGIN.

Designed for preschoolers through first graders, myNOGGIN is an educational service that provides the same high quality, Noggin learning experience that children love and parents trust, with an extra bonus: it’s totally personalized!

Guided by national standards in preschool education, myNOGGIN makes the most of the time children spend playing online with a “connected learning” approach. We start with topics and tales that grab children’s interest, mix in favorite characters then use these ingredients to present concepts and skills that help kids learn. Why is this approach so effective? Because combining play with learning encourages children to dig deeper and develop a richer understanding.

For more information visit myNOGGIN.com. For more videos from Dust or Magic visit http://dustormagic.blip.tv.

Debra Lieberman, Ph.D talked about using interactive games to improve health knowledge, skills and behaviors this morning at the eighth annual Dust or Magic conference.

Health Games Research is an $8.25 million national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that is directed by Debra and supports research to enhance the quality and impact of interactive games used to improve health. Game platforms of interest range from game consoles, handheld game devices, arcade machines, Web sites and multiplayer online worlds, to exertion interfaces (dance pads, cameras pointed at players, motion-detecting remote controllers), robots, interactive television, electronic toys, context-sensitive programs or other emerging technologies that are becoming more affordable and accessible.

For more information about Debra’s program visit http://www.healthgamesresearch.org/. For more videos from Dust or Magic visit http://dustormagic.blip.tv.

I confess that I came to loath Algebra class when I was in school, but times change and now kids are studying coordinate systems, irrational numbers (considering the swooning market aren’t all numbers irrational today?), logarithms, linear equations, fractional exponents and polynomials by playing video games.

Though some will always be skeptical that students are learning anything this way, the evidence is mounting that they can and do. The New York Times reports that in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn the eighth-grade math class is sounding like a video arcade, with students vanquishing virtual enemies and learning math in the process:

This fall, New York City is rolling out Dimension M — M stands for math — in 109 middle schools across the five boroughs after trying the game out in two dozen schools, including I.S. 30, last year. Like a modern twist on “Jeopardy!,” the fast-paced video game quizzes students on prealgebra and algebra topics ranging from prime numbers to fractions and complex equations. A correct answer brings 500 or more points, a wrong one as few as 25; the player with the most points wins.

“You have to be at the top of your game,” said Salma Nakhlawi, 13, who has been brushing up on her math skills along with her hand-eye coordination so that she can play the video game Dimension M with her friends. “I used to hate math, but I’ve started to like it. I actually understand it more.”

I’ve reported on Dimension M before, of course, and truth be told have been following Nt Etuks company since the first Serious Games Summit where he demonstrated an early prototype. But while there’s growing anecdotal evidence games are powerful tools for teaching and learning, hard evidence has been hard to come by. That’s about to change. According to THE Journal this week:

There’s a growing movement in academia and industry recognizing the value of this medium as an educational tool both inside and outside the classroom. This week, eight colleges and universities added their inertia to this movement, joining with Microsoft to launch a new alliance to study the benefits of gaming for math and science instruction and STEM equity.

The consortium, dubbed the “Games for Learning Institute,” is being led by New York University and includes Columbia University, City University of New York (CUNY), Dartmouth College, Parsons, Polytechnic Institute of New York University, Rochester Institute of Technology, and Teachers College. These members are matching an investment from Microsoft Research of $1.5 million to provide a total of $3 million in funding for the effort.

Adding to this tide, my colleague Lee Wilson of Headway Strategies is writing a white paper on the power of video games to teach, and we have a proposal pending for a panel to discuss the latest research findings at the 2009 Game Developers Conference’s Serious Games Summit in March.

Soon, when your kids ask for help with their Algebra 101 homework and your eyes glaze over, you’ll be able to tell them with confidence “go play a video game.” How cool is that?

Narrative story telling has been part of the the human experience since we told tales of the days hunt around the fire, about what it was like to “be there” when this or that event happened. From that oral tradition, we learned to write them in pictures, then glyphs, and a succession of written languages and media from stone to paper, to the celuloid that captured Peter Sellers’ performance as Chance in Hal Ashby’s Being There, to the electrons (all recycled, I assure you) that are making this blog post possible.

As PJ Haarsma’s Orbis, Scholastic’s Rick Riordan (39 Clues) and so many game designers before them have learned, video games are a narrative form too. But how are they different, what makes them unique, how can we leverage those unique strategies for entertainment, learning, propaganda… or to motivate students? The NY Times reports today that authors and libraries are starting to use video games to lure new readers:

When PJ Haarsma wrote his first book, a science fiction novel for pre-teenagers, he didn’t think just about how to describe Orbis, the planetary system where the story takes place. He also thought about how it should look and feel in a video game. [...] The online game that Mr. Haarsma designed not only extends the fictional world of the novel, it also allows readers to play in it. At the same time, Mr. Haarsma very calculatedly gave gamers who might not otherwise pick up a book a clear incentive to read: one way that players advance is by answering questions with information from the novel. Story continues here…

And in July, game designer Steve Gaynor pondered similar questions in a thoughtful essay on his blog Fullbright:

In my estimation every medium has its primary strength. Literature excels at exploring the internal (psychological, subjective) aspects of a character’s personal experiences and memories. Film excels at conveying narrative via a precisely authored sequence of meaningful moments in time. And video games excel at fostering the experience of being in a particular place via direct inhabitation of an autonomous agent.

Video games are able to render a place and put the player into it. The meaning of the experience arises from what’s contained within the bounds of the gameworld, and the range of possible interactions the player may perform there– the nouns and the verbs. Just like in real life, where we are and what we can do dictates our present, and our possible futures. Video games provide an alternative to both the where and the what of existence, resulting in simulated alternate life experiences.

It’s a powerful thing, to be able to visit another place, to drive the drama onscreen yourself– not to receive a personal account of someone else’s experiences, or observe events as a detached spectator. A modern video game level is a navigable construction of three-dimensional geometry, populated with art and interactivity to convincingly lend it an identity as a believable, inhabitable, living place. At their best, video games transmit to the player the experience of actually being there. Post continues here…

I think that’s the crux of what sets games apart: “Video games are able to render a place and put the player into it [and] transmit to the player the experience of actually being there.”

True, a written story does that too, but in a well designed video game the player seemingly controls the world, progressing through the game’s levels (chapters) according to the strategies, tactics and myriad descret decisions made along the way. In that way the story becomes the players own, and particularly for today’s digital natives, more personal and meaningful and impactful than listening or reading alone.

Better late than never - and just in time for the presedential election - the state of Florida is getting serious about math. New York serious game company Tabula Digita (New York Serious Game Developer Raises $6M) announced the sale of their supplemental pre-algebra and algebra DimensionM video game to 24 middle schools in Broward County, Florida, the nations sixth largest public school system.

Students naturally like to learn through games, and the three-dimensional, virtual world format is deeply engaging. It’s a high impact, motivating learning tool that greatly assists when teaching a complex subject like algebra,” said Jeanine Gendron, Ed.D., director for the district’s department of instructional technology. “That subject is especially challenging during the middle school years, and quite often children become turned off because they view it as difficult. But from observing students using this program, we know that Tabula Digita is going to have a profound positive effect on the attention of our middle school learners.

Fore more visit the DimensionM web site and Serious Games Source.

You hear the words “teens” and “games” in the same sentence all the time, but seldom with the word “civics” included. Continuing their series of outstanding, unbiased reports on American Culture, the PEW Internet and American Life project released Teens, Games and Civics this week. In the first national survey of it’s kind, PEW found that nearly all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games:

Video gaming is pervasive in the lives of American teens — young teens and older teens, girls and boys, and teens from across the socioeconomic spectrum. Opportunities for gaming are everywhere, and teens play video games frequently. When asked, half of all teens reported playing a video game “yesterday.” Those who play daily typically play for an hour or more.

Fully 97% of teens ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games. Additionally:

• 50% of teens played games “yesterday.”
• 86% of teens play on a console like the Xbox, PlayStation, or Wii.
• 73% play games on a desktop or a laptop computer.
• 60% use a portable gaming device like a Sony PlayStation Portable, a Nintendo DS, or a Game Boy.
• 48% use a cell phone or handheld organizer to play games.

Game playing is ubiquitous among Americans teenagers. Fully 99% of boys and 94% of girls report playing video games. Younger teen boys are the most likely to play games, followed by younger girls and older boys. Older girls are the least “enthusiastic” players of video games, though more than half of them play. Some 65% of daily gamers are male; 35% are female.

Read the highlights here or download a PDF of the full report.

I began playing World of Warcraft when I was a suit for Pearson. Though I worked my way up to a L20-something Paladin, the daily 4 hours as a commuter and on the phone, and 10 hours at the computer and on the phone killed my interest in grinding higher. Still, WoW was compelling and deep, and I acknowledge was my gateway drug to playing and working with the new - and next - generation of MMORPGs and virtual worlds.

From the beginning I saw beyond games’ entertainment value to their high potential to be used as teaching and learning simulations. That led me to the first several Serious Game Summits that were held in Crystal City, MD just across from the Pentagon. From the spook-to-wonk ratio of attendees there, it was clear the military-industrial complex was on to the potential of games to train, too. In a Presidential season with both sides all puffed up about their ability to defend the country, the constitution and the borders, Wired reports today that:

American military and intelligence communities are increasingly worried that would-be bin Ladens might gather in a virtual world, to plan a real-life attack. But the spies haven’t given many details, about how it might be done. Now, a Pentagon researcher has laid out how such a terror plot might unfold. The planning ground is World of Warcraft. The main target of this possibly nuclear strike: the White House.

There’s been no public proof to date of terrorists hatching plots in virtual worlds. But online spaces like World of Warcraft are making some spooks, generals and Congressmen extremely nervous. They imagine terrorists rehearsing attacks in these worlds, just like the U.S. military trains with commercial shoot-em-up games. They worry that the massively multiplayer games make it incredibly easy to gather plotters from around the world. But, mostly, virtual worlds are nerve-wracking to spies because they’re so hard to monitor. The accounts are pseudonymous. The access is global. The jargon is thick. And most of the spy agencies’ employees aren’t exactly level-70 shamans. Continues here >>>

At first I rolled my eyes thinking here’s more fodder for the haters to bash all video games. But all that palaver about terrorists training in WoW got me to wondering: which Presidential or VP candidate can see WoW’s nefarious underworld better from their home state: Obama-Biden or McBush-Impalin?

More importantly does saying you can see something — Russia, polar bears thriving in the melt, or World of Warcraft — mean you understand its subtleties and nuance, or is that only maya, the dangerous illusion?

Playing video games “teaches skills that transfer to classroom, surgical procedures, scientific thinking…” according to the American Psychological Association, meeting in Boston this week. In a press release aggregating the results of several recent studies, the APA reports “Certain types of video games can have beneficial effects, improving gamers’ dexterity as well as their ability to problem-solve – attributes that have proven useful not only to students but to surgeons.”

The studies cited include “Four dimensions of Video Game Effects,” William Stone, BS, and Douglas A. Gentile, PhD, Iowa State University; “Games, Stealth Assessment and Learning,” Valerie Shute, PhD, Florida State University; “Informal Scientific Reasoning in Online Game Forums,” Constance Steinkuehler, PhD, and Sean C. Duncan, MA, University of Wisconsin at Madison; “Children’s Problem Solving During Video Game Play,” Fran C. Blumberg, PhD and Sabrina S. Ismailer, BA, Fordham University. For more visit the APA website.