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This site is under construction.


The Serious Games Initiative (USA)
The Serious Games Initiative is focused on uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector. Part of its overall charter is to help forge productive links between the electronic game industry and projects involving the use of games in education, training, health, and public policy.
Their web site



The Third FuturePlay Conference: Toronto, November 15-17, 2007

From the Futureplay web site:
"Why do people play? How do people play? When do people play? What are they using to play? If these are the kind of questions that burn in your brain day and night, Future Play 2007 might be the place you find some answers."
See the call for papers. Papers are due by June 30.

Key speakers include Espen Aarseth, Frans Mäyrä, Constance Steinkuehler, and Mia Consalvo.

Serious Games Pathfinder

A web definition of a pathfinder is:
"A guide designed to assist the user in researching a particular discipline or topic. It identifies key subject headings related to the topic, important reference books, periodical indexes, journals and other resources available. Sources on the World Wide Web are usually also included."
The best one I know of in this area is the Serious Games Pathfinder, by Katrin Becker at the University of Calgary.

Serious Games Summit DC 2007

The Serious Games Summit DC, the premier Serious Games event, took place last October. It will not run this year (2007). Stay tuned here for further details of an upcoming Serious Games Canada symposium in November.


Commercial displays at SDS-DC in 2006

Canadian Game Studies Association

A symposium was held in Toronto at York University. Check http://contagion.edu.yorku.ca/cgsa/newsevent.php for more info.

While this page is under construction, see the following other related sites:
J.R. Parker Home Page
The IMAGINE Network, a collection of Canadian researchers working on games as a communications medium.
Digital Media Laboratory at the University of Calgary, a center for computer games research in Canada.
The first serious games organization.

Serious Games Workshop and Symposium in Canada, November 2007

There is a move afoot to hold a one day serious games workshop in November. The idea is to have a formational meeting for a Serious Games Canada group that can serve to connect researchers to developers, developers to clients, and students to jobs and graduate programs.

We'll also be having a symposium for general submissions at the same time, and ask that you consider sending in a paper or talk proposal to jparker@ucalgary.ca. See also the web page at http://www.ucalgary.ca/~jparker/seriousgames/summit/.

20-30 key people would meet to form a national group, and existing research and games would be presented and discussed. This could be the startof a serious games conference in Canada, and could also result in the formation of Canadian special interest groups as well (Games for Health, Games for Environment and Sustainability).

Want to attend? Interested in helping? We're at the fundraising stage at the moment, but should be more firm about arrangements in 8 weeks or so. Send mail to jparker@ucalgary.ca for expression of interest, offers of help, etc.

Serious Games Summit GDC

This happened in San Francisco in the week March 5-9.

3 UP/3 DOWN Participants give three positive and three negative things to occur in the serious games domain is the past year. There were 4 panelists, and the summarized items were:

Richard van Eck:
1-up: The multiple perspectives in use
2-up: Acceptance in academia
3-up: Critical mass in K-12 education.
1-down: Little integration of the multiple perspectives in use.
2-down: Bad memes
3-down: Not yet in public education in a meaningful way.
Jesse Schell:
1-up: Academic explosion of interest.
2-up: The Wii!
3-up: Broadband penetration
1-down: No more excuses (for not making it work). 2-down: No how-to guide.
3-down: Gatekeepers still don't get it.
Here he coins the term illuderacy.
Roger Smith:
1-up: Army tooks a serious game (Ambush) to Afganistan.
2-up: MMORG - fusion of real data.
3-up: Valua of art assets being recognized.
1-down: Limits of licences (EG UNREAL engine)
2-Down: IP security policies of various groups are diverse and interfere with install/licenses, etc.
3-down: Too much high powered 3D stuff; it's not always appropriate.
Doug Whatley :
1-down: Too much success/less willing to take chances.
2-down: Serious games need to be sexier. 3-down: Real companies doing serious games, successfully, for a living.
1-up: We are legitimate now. 2: (I was so interested in the convcerstaion that I did not write this down :-() 3-up: Simulation grabs onto the public success of serious games and moves up in public perception.
See more detail in the proceedings later.

The IEEE Computer Society Creates a Task force on Game Technology

In an exciting move, the IEEE-CS now offcially has a game technology arm. A task force is a first step to cteating a echnical commitee, and a TC an offer conferences and print journals. This is a major step by one of the most important computer organizations on the planet. See their preliminary web page for more details.

Terris-Hill: Service Rig Training

Simulynx is Terris-Hill's serious game for training workers for the potentially dangerous work on Albert's oil rigs. Safety is the focus, but the ability to navigate the rig and its controls is very much what the simulation is about.

See a CBC story on this game, and vist the Terris-Hill web site for more details.

Other Canadian Serious Games (a sampler)

Contagion, "Contagion” is a web-based educational game in which players can learn self-care practices and play through ethical considerations in a virtual world on the brink of pandemic. As design-based research, Contagion is a way of theorizing and “playing out” alternative understandings of content in educational (particularly health-based) games."

OceanQuest was intended to show that specific topics in the k-12 curriculum could be taught using computer games, and the the creation of such a game was feasible in a relatively shory period of time. The game was to teach non-specific topics surrounding the ecology of the hydrothermal vents at the ocean floor. As the game design evolved, the details became clearer - the students would attempt to locate specific species in a 3D simulation of the Endeavour area west of Vancouver Island. The students would pilot a submarine through the actual terrain found on the sea floor, and would visit simulated vents. It is a full 3D PC game, and also has an interactive web version (Flash). Self-Esteem Games - Montreal (McGill): "People may be able to change the negative thought patterns that sometimes produce insecurity. We are now examining whether over time, with practice, people can develop positive, beneficial habits of thought to help them become more secure and self-confident on a long term basis -- whether in the context of their working life, their personal relationships, or their overall sense of well being."

Game Bibliography

What we think is one of the world's most comprehensive bibiogrphies on video game related topics is the IEEE (a.k.a Parker/Becker) Bibliography, which can be found at the IEEE-CS Task Force on Game Technologies web site. The earliest reference is from 1892, and there are thousands, organized by year and alphabetically.

Nearest competitor is the Digiplay bibliography, which can be found here.