Here’s a refreshing Australian news piece slanted toward the positive aspects of gaming. An article running in ABC Southern Queensland offers an interview with Dr. Penny de Byl in the Department of Mathematics and Computing over at the University of Southern Queensland. Here is the most intriguing quote of many:
“There is a field called ’serious games’. Serious games have come from the ‘edutainment’ genre that used to be around. They’re serious games for training military personnel, mathematics applications, emergency wards in hospitals. If you can think of a domain, there will be a serious game out there for it. What they do is they bring the authentic environment to the students…Games inherently teach. Whenever you pick up a game you will learn something new, because you will learn how to control it. People learn better when they’re interacting with things. You can’t help but learn from games. Because kids are so engaged in games, if we can put serious content into them, in the correct way, they’re learning without trying.”
So academically, games are good fodder for research. The article then examines the social aspects of gaming. Now that doctors, lawyers, and other professionals are such ardent gamers, does this leisure activity gain the same social stature as, say, golf? It certainly offers possibilities for higher numbers of contacts while socializing than do many RL activities. “[Y]ou could still play golf, but you can’t play golf with thirty of your mates at the same time,” one interviewee pointed out.
On a related note, the Associated Press ran an article recently on the merging of social networking with online gaming.
Social and gaming networks, once considered polar opposites, are cross-pollenating [sic] as online interactions replace prime-time TV and other, more traditional media experiences. Games like “Kaneva” are attracting players that games like “Super Mario Brothers” never did … Game developers say there’s money for both sides in this convergence.
Kartrider and Kaneva offer opportunities to socialize while playing. Facebook has Scrabulous and MySpace plans a game channel soon. Could we see redefinitions of MMOs and MMORPGs as we know them?
MySpace and Facebook are massively multiplayer games in disguise, says Gabe Zichermann, who is developing “rmbr,” which he says will make a video game out of tagging and sharing digital photos … “They’re going to be able to monetize their users at the same level (as the games do),” Jessica Tams, managing director of the Casual Games Association, said of the social network sites. “That’s a lot of money.”
Christopher Sherman, executive director of Virtual Worlds Management, and Joshua Smyth over at Syracuse also get nice quotes.
So, stay a while, slay a while, and by the way … here’s my card.
References:
Associated Press. (2007, November 22). Online video games meet social networking tools and find they have a lot in common. [Online.] Retrieved November 22, 2007 from: http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/23/america/
NA-FEA-A-E-TEC-US-Social-Games-Online.php
Is it OK for adults to play video games? (2007, November 22). ABC Southern Queensland. [Online]. Available: http://www.abc.net.au/southqld/stories/s2098500.htm?backyard
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