Joystiq

South Korea serious about serious games, invests $64 million

Alexander Sliwinski — Thu, 21 May 2009 03:00:00 EST

The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism and Starcraft (okay, we made that last one up) plans to invest ₩80 billion ($64 million) in serious games. The Korea IT Times reports that the ministry is trying to grow the market to ₩500 billion ($400 million) by 2012. Minister Yu In-chon notes that the serious games market is at an early stage and is an "emerging blue ocean." Oh, look who's jumping on the hot topic business bandwagon.

The "Blue Ocean Strategy" is a concept where a company sets up shop in an unknown space, rather than compete in a cluttered market. For gamers, obvious examples of applied Blue Ocean Strategy would be Nintendo's entire marketing of the Wii, and developers who jumped on the iPhone app store. Currently, Korea has no specific serious games projects announced, but likely applications are based in the medical, educational and military fields.

[Via GI.biz]

South Korea serious about serious games, invests $64 million originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 21 May 2009 03:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: It's a Gamer's Life

Ross Miller — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:30:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Online, Polls

We wanted to take this space to highlight Tim Buckley's seven-part It's a Gamer's Life comic. We were genuinely surprised by how touched we were, even if the text stuck to a very cliché A-B-C-B poetic format. It's a serious webcomic, but it's game-related.

We wish more people out there would enjoy gaming comics that took a more serious tone, but they are few and far between and the few times we've thrown them into the wrapup polls, we've seen more than a few complaints about the lack of humor. Webcomics don't have to be funny to be poignant, but we digress. Start at the beginning and read through the seven-part strip.

Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomics, be sure to vote for your favorite! (Polling after the break.)

Solid Smash Bros.
Fun with Forge
Left behind (pre-spoiler)
Blast from the past
"Falcon ..."
Call a timeout
Red ring of death
A narrative in Crisis
Pigs in Space

Continue reading Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: It's a Gamer's Life

Weekly Webcomic Wrapup: It's a Gamer's Life originally appeared on Joystiq on Sun, 03 Feb 2008 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Re-Mission devs HopeLab cause serious Ruckus

Jason Dobson — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:30:00 EST

Filed under: Exergaming, Business

DDR and the Wii have done a good job getting kids (and adults) off the couch and moving. Now HopeLab, a prominent contributer to the growing 'serious games' movement and developer of the surprisingly fun third-person cancer awareness shooter Re-Mission, has announced Ruckus Nation, a new online competition looking to award more than $300,000 for game-related product ideas designed to increase physical activity in children and young adults, with one one grand prize brainstorm netting the submitter a cool $75,000.

HopeLab will develop and test one or more of these ideas, turning successful prototypes into broadly distributed serious gaming products. Individuals and teams of up to six people can register at the Ruckus Nation website until October 15, with registration limited to 1,000 teams who then have until November 20 to submit their ideas online. Semifinalists will be announced in February, with winners being called out the following month in March. Maybe we've finally found an outlet to pitch our idea for a For Your Eyes Only cross country ski trainer/FPS using the Wii Zapper and balance board.

Re-Mission devs HopeLab cause serious Ruckus originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 01 Oct 2007 16:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Companies looking to make work more like games

Kyle Orland — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:22:00 EST

Filed under: Business, Casual

Wish you could play games at work? You know, without having to sneak around? Soon you might be able to. Entrepreneur.com has a short report on the growing number of companies and government agencies that are making their work interfaces more like games.

The article doesn't go into much detail, but organizations from IBM to Microsoft and even the military are looking to integrating games into their work processes. The move comes partly because an increasing part of the workforce are growing up with "neuropathways ... being formed around game logic," according to John Beck, co-author of The Kids Are Alright.

It's fine in concept, but we're skeptical that any game can make the drudgery of cubicle life more enjoyable. Regardless, playing games at work will bring a new meaning to the term daily grind. *rim shot*

Companies looking to make work more like games originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 27 Jul 2007 15:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Slate: Serious games are seriously boring

Kyle Orland — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:28:00 EST

Filed under: PC, Casual

For all the bluster about serious games being the wave of the future, most examples of the form thus far are missing that key element of ... what's the word ... oh yeah, fun! Slate takes a withering look at the state of the serious games industry by asking the simple question: "Can a game still be called a game if it isn't any fun?"

It's a good question, and one that doesn't reflect kindly on many of the serious games out there. The author is especially derisive of training games that mirror the repetitive, mindless nature of the workplace -- games that are "less alluring to people who love games and more alluring to people who don't. Your boss, for example."

The author suggests that developers who want to make learning fun should focus on the fun first and the learning second. We couldn't agree more. We learned more about urban planning from SimCity than we ever learned about arithmetic from Math Blaster -- mainly because we kept playing SimCity long after Math Blaster got donated to the secondhand store. In other words: you can lead a player to an educational game, but you can't make them play. They have to want to do that.

Slate: Serious games are seriously boring originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 27 Jun 2007 13:28:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Game aims to help kids cope with divorce

Kyle Orland — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:20:00 EST

Filed under: Culture, Adventure, Casual

When parents are going through a divorce, children usually want to focus on something else -- anything else -- rather than watching the painful process of a marriage breaking apart. They might even want to focus on Earthquake in Zipland, a simple adventure game designed by a team of psychologists to help nine to 12 year olds deal with the complex emotions surrounding a crumbling marriage.

We can appreciate the desire to help children through interactive entertainment, but the ham-handed allegory the game presents sounds like it could use some work. As the game's web site puts it, Zipland is "a small paradise island comprised of two parts held together by a zipper, which represents the marriage of the parents (the King and Queen). Suddenly an earthquake rips the island into two, leaving the king and the queen on separate islands. Moose, the hero, sets out on a quest to build a new zipper and try to re-combine the two islands so that life can go on as before (which of course he can't)." Talk about depressing.

We doubt that most children want or need to be reminded of the harsh reality of divorce through a game. These children would probably be served just as well by any engaging game that provides a distracting escape from the real world. It takes time to come to terms with the painful circumstances surrounding a parental divorce, and forcing them to confront these circumstances through a game might do as much harm as good.

Game aims to help kids cope with divorce originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NPR talks "Games for Change" conference

Christopher Grant — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:25:00 EST

Filed under: Culture

NPR's Marketplace introduced the segment saying, "They're often accused of wasting your time or promoting violence but a conference in New York City this week wants games to be known for something more." The ongoing Games For Change conference is part of the larger Serious Games initiative, but is focused specifically on using games to encourage social change.

NPR profiled three of the games on display at the conference, including:

Peace Maker - "a one-player game in which the player can choose to take the role of either the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President. The player must react to in-game events, from diplomatic negotiations to military attacks, and interact with eight other political leaders and social groups in order to establish a stable resolution to the conflict before his or her term in office ends."
A Force More Powerful - "simulates nonviolent struggles to win freedom and secure human rights against dictators, occupiers, colonizers, and corrupt regimes, as well as campaigns for political and human rights for minorities and women. The game models real-world experience, allowing players to devise strategies, apply tactics and see the results."
Darfur is Dying - MTV's "narrative-based simulation where the user, from the perspective of a displaced Darfurian, negotiates forces that threaten the survival of his or her refugee camp. It offers a faint glimpse of what it's like for the more than 2.5 million who have been internally displaced by the crisis in Sudan.

A far cry from the hysteria-prone coverage the mainstream media typically adheres to and great exposure for a group of gamers working to not only foster social change, but to evolve the educational potential for video games. Follow coverage of the conference by monitoring the 06-G4C del.icio.us tag.

NPR talks "Games for Change" conference originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 28 Jun 2006 13:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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