50 Books For Everyone In the Game Industry

Next-Gen has compiled a list of the 50 books from which everyone in the game industry could learn something. Our list covers game design theory to histories of games companies to sociological texts to novels. Compiled by game designer and author Ernest Adams.

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Serious Games Portal Site

U.S. Army Prepares For Iraq Deployment With Language Training Game

Serious educational game developer Alelo has announced that its Tactical Iraqi Language & Culture Training System will soon be utilized by the U.S. Army's 73rd Airborne Brigade and other units of the Army’s Southern European Task Force (Airborne) in preparation for deployment in Iraq.

The serious game, which was originally developed by the University of Southern California, teaches not only what to say in Iraqi Arabic, but also how to speak the language as well through lessons that focus on relevant skills, everyday situations and tasks. In addition, the software also covers cultural awareness topics such as Iraq’s non-verbal gestures and norms of politeness and etiquette.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Getting Serious About Digital Games in Learning

Thousands of users complete your online training...hundreds come back multiple times for the same subject matter... many use your computer-based learning for hours longer than you had ever dreamed. Is this just a corporate learning professional's fantasy, or is someone playing games with your mind?

Actually, the answer to both questions is "yes." Modern "serious games" are making these scenarios happen in corporate learning settings worldwide. As an arguably powerful new item in the learning toolbox, serious games warrant an in-depth look. In this article, we'll review what serious games are, why they work, their value to corporations and where they work best. We'll also give you some tips on how to get started with serious games, and resources to help you along the way.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Army Games for Good

Computer games are being adopted by dozens of different industries to conduct training, information visualization, data analysis, education and exploration. In addition to many civilian examples of Games for Good (G4G), the U.S. military has created some very interesting and useful games focused on medical training and cultural education.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Game Branches Out Into Real Combat Training

When the Army launched its PC-based video game, America’s Army, three and a half years ago, the service’s intention was to connect with young people, encourage teamwork and promote its core values. But now the action game is morphing beyond its original mission, becoming the platform for numerous other military and government training simulations.

“Before we even launched the public game, we knew from development that this type of technology was pretty powerful for training, especially small units—small infantry teams, special forces teams,” said Christopher Chambers, deputy director for America’s Army, in an interview with National Defense.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Maritime Security Creates New Market for User-friendly Simulation Software

HUNT VALLEY, Md. — Agencies in charge of port security, such as the Coast Guard, are target customers for a new video-gaming technology that allows individuals to create simulations and rehearse complex missions on desktop computers.

A developer of military simulations, BreakAway Ltd., recently introduced a software package that could allow government customers to custom design their own games to meet their specific training needs.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Games Are Gaining Ground, But How Far Can They Go?

When it became clear that insurgents would interfere with reconstruction efforts in Iraq, Pentagon technophiles thought it would be a good idea to develop a videogame to help guide soldiers through the messy business of rebuilding war-ravaged communities. Thus came "Stability Operations Winning the Peace," modeled loosely on the commercial games "Tropico" and "Sim City." Players assume the role of local military commanders of a stability operation, and are exposed to the political, military, economic, social and intelligence levers they can pull in a particular situation, while they learn the consequences of their actions.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Exergaming Goes Mainstream

While exergaming has been alive in the commercial consciousness as a hot new video game field for some time, the recent crossing of such ventures into the mainstream medical world indicates that exergaming itself may be on the threshold of a new and dramatic step into the average household. Although some independent exergaming systems have been present on the commercial market, sales have been sluggish, as such commercial ventures fall into a gap between medicine and entertainment.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Konami Brings DDR To All NexGym Fitness Centers

Konami has announced a partnership with the child focused exercise facility NexGym, which emphasizes exercise through “high-energy fitness activities,” which will see its popular rhythm game Dance Dance Revolution installed at all current and future NexGym locations.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Serious Games Podcast - LTGR Ep. #18

Susan and Dan tackle a big topic: games. They survey different kinds of games, discuss how games function in learning contexts, cite games that are currently making news in education, share several resources, and interview a LearningTimes member immersed in an interesting game-based approach to learning.

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Serious Games Portal Site

More video games, fewer books at schools?

Of all of the proposals aimed at improving America's failing schools, there's one idea kids will really like: More video games and fewer books.

At least a number of educators hope so, arguing that children would get more excited about school and that video games can present real-life problems to solve.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Computer game to boost key skills

Modified computer games aimed at disaffected learners could help win the war against poor basic skills.

Computer science teachers at West Nottinghamshire College were struggling to get their teenage students into literacy and numeracy classes.

So they took apart Atari's popular computer game Neverwinter Nights and rebuilt it with educational challenges the player must meet to progress.

Success rates in key skills at the Mansfield college has trebled to 94%.

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http://nwn.bioware.com/builders/
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Serious Games Portal Site

Charity joins virtual reality world

A children's charity has taken up residence in a virtual reality site to encourage teenagers to report bullying and seek help.

The NSPCC are setting up an outpost of the helpline ChildLine at the popular teenage community site, Habbo.co.uk, in a two-month stay.

NSPCC hope that ChildLine will boost its visibility and encourage young people to talk about issues that are bothering them.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Open source SimCity in the works for OLPC's XO

Development is underway to create an open source version of the original SimCity for One Laptop Per Child's XO computer -- a.k.a. the $100 laptop.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Today's Homework: Make Good Games

MIT professor Henry Jenkins is the accidental hero of video gamers. As the longtime head of MIT's groundbreaking Comparative Media Studies department, Jenkins is a well-spoken, passionate advocate of the benefits of new media and popular culture. In a world where video games are excoriated by authority figures who say they rot our children's brains, Jenkins is their highest-profile defender.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Games get serious

Beating cancer is hardly a game. But a Palo Alto nonprofit group is betting that by turning the struggle into a video game, young patients will be motivated and educated to fight the disease.

HopeLab, which works with young chronically ill patients, is already seeing encouraging results from Re-Mission, which it released last month. The shooter game allows a player to fight cancer cells, help administer chemotherapy and attack infections.

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Serious Games Portal Site

War Games, Serious Games: "Learning How to Learn" in a Net-Centric World

The military has teamed with video game designers such as Zombie to develop dynamic, interactive games that are used to train, instruct, and even recruit. What is often overlooked is that they are extremely powerful tools for understanding learning and knowledge in the new network-centric world. The games focus on "learning how to learn" in the civilian world as well as the military / wargame world.

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Serious Games Portal Site

MSU kicks video games up a degree

No doubt more than a few agitated parents have accused their college-age children of studying more PlayStation than history in this era of video game mania. Now, Michigan State University students really can ditch history and get a degree in gaming.

MSU will launch a master's degree in "serious" game design in the fall. Building on the school's undergrad video game design specialization started in 2005, the master's program claims to the first in the nation to focus on serious games -- those for education, training or presenting a message -- rather than purely entertainment.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Serious games in space: Working with NASA

Small developer shares the story of its out-of-the-world space game and its experience collaborating with NASA during development. A report from the Serious Games Summit in DC.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Amputees' phantom limbs return in virtual reality

Scientists are helping amputees to experience their lost limbs once again. Using 3D computer graphics and a virtual reality headset, the lost limb can be 'restored'. What might at first sound like a tasteless Lawnmower Man sequel is claimed to be an extremely promising therapy for patients struggling to come to terms with amputation.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Thinking Worlds - Children Develop Their Own 3D Games

When a pupil develops a game in Thinking Worlds, Caspian’s gameauthoring engine, they engage in metacognition – thinking about their own learning and how a learner playing their game would respond and interpret information. Through Thinking Worlds, Caspian aims to encourage and promote meta-cognition in children; empower children to create resources for other children; enable teachers to create resources for children and investigate the motivating factors associated with games-based learning.

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Serious Games Portal Site

Small industry, big plans

On the face of it, "Re-Mission" looks like any other video game. In it, you play Roxxi, a comely “nanobot” with a sassy haircut and a bad-ass cache of weapons.

But the enemies you fight in "Re-Mission" aren’t enemies in the traditional game sense. They’re leukemia cells and bacteria, mouth sores and mucous sludge. And Roxxi’s impressive ammo collection doesn’t contain guns or grenades, but chemo rockets, bacto blasters and pain med applicators. In this game, you fight cancer.

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Serious Games Portal Site

GDC: Square Enix Shows Its Serious Side

Kicking off the Serious Games Summit, members of Square Enix's newly established serious games unit discussed why the company decided to get into the space and gave an exclusive look at its serious DS game intended to teach the joy of game development.

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Serious Games Portal Site

First Post

my first serious games blog post !
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Serious Games Portal Site