One of the great things about Orlando is the fact that so many conferences take place here at our Convention Center. Sure, there’s a downside (who likes the traffic or struggling with parking on I-Drive?), but that pales in comparison to seeing the latest and greatest that a variety of industries have to offer. One of the conferences that happens here yearly is the Florida Educators’ Technology Conference (http://www.fetc.org/) which took place just last week from January 21st to the 24th.

The keynote address given by Jim Brazell, President of ventureRAMP.com, was titled “Video Games for Learning and Human Development. For those of you who have been following my blog, you know that this is a topic very near and dear to me—I am convinced that people learn best when they play. (I’m not your typical educator, right?) Mr. Brazell’s presentation told the story of how video games snuck up on us as a culture, coming from pretty straightforward entertainment roots and finding their way into the high-stakes training worlds of the military and health care industries. Now, in addition to play, video games are gaining ground as foundation media for our learning and social interactions in society—they’ve come a long way from the days of Pong and Space Invaders.

It’s clear that as far as video games has come in today’s society, there’s a future that we’ve only begun to understand. Virtual worlds (such as Second Life) started out as game platforms only to find that having a more open-ended structure actually worked as a better model. Video games clearly are no longer about how people play, but they are becoming about how people conduct their lives on a daily basis. Let’s have a dialog about the future: tell me where you think we are headed!

- Hap Aziz

Our students and prospective students are always thoughtful when it comes to their career paths after graduation, and this is especially true in the current uncertain economic environment. News from the video game industry is very good, and as NPD’s (market research group) Anita Frazier states, “Heading into the critical fourth quarter, the U.S. games industry is on solid ground.”

This is a very encouraging data point not just for our game students, but for all of our digital design students in general. The game industry directly employs multimedia developers, web programmers, and graphic artists with the skill sets our students have coming out of our Multimedia Technologies programs. Indirectly, through advertisers, service vendors, retailers, and many other associated businesses, the game industry pulls along with it the types of businesses that have a need for our students. This year, the game industry will hit $22 billion in sales. That’s huge, and our students should be feasting on that pie.

The articles below speak to the trends and provide some data you will find interesting. If you are a current or prospective student, this information should give you some confidence that our game and digital design programs are excellent programs as you consider your futures careers.

http://www.dvhardware.net/article31259.html - “It seems sales of video games and hardware aren't suffering at all from the financial crisis. Data released by indicates sales in the US jumped 18 percent last month and the forecast for the holiday season looks well.”

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2008/11/10/daily115... - “Though the economy is slumping, sales of video games rose in October, according to NPD Group.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUSTRE4AD0MS20081114... – “The videogames industry is set to top $22 billion in 2008, according to NPD.”

http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com/microsoft/archives/153946.asp - “Despite increasing economic anxiety, the video game industry continued to grow during the third quarter.”

- Hap Aziz

One of the questions that often comes up in discussions of game design related to education is "What makes a good educational game?"  I think it can be reasonably argued that there are truly very few examples of good educational games, and that is due to several reasons, some of which I will point out below.

One person that lays out the case well as to why it is difficult to create good educational games is Dr. Seymour Papert of MIT.  In the June, 1998 issue of Game Developer magazine, Dr. Papert presents his take on the state of educational gaming in an article titled "Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning."  A point that he makes is that edutainment software often ends up being a combination of the worst of both the education and entertainment worlds.  Having been both a professional game developer as well as an instructional designer, I very much agree with Dr. Paperts assertions in the article.  Here is a link to the article online.  In addtion to the original article, the link has a response to Dr. Papert written by an instructional designer.  Both pieces are worth reading.

While there are questions and concerns regarding the cost of game development (monetary, time, and technical expertise), there are ways of incorporating game design best practices into curriculum as well as developing games using rapid development tools (as opposed to using lower-level languages--comparatively speaking--such as C++).  Flash is one development option, as is its older and more powerful cousin Director.  Or one could use other development environments such as Runtime Revolution for its rapid application development capabilities.

Most people when talking about computer games usually mean something other than the trivial approach of a Jeopardy game.  Customizable Jeopardy templates are fine for drill and practice, but that does not exemplify compelling and deep gameplay of the type that promotes higher-order learning.  But before we begin to consider our design tool options, we would do well to originate some actual game ideas--apart from the underlying technology.

As is common in the game industry, we should brainstorm first and worry about execution later.  Anyone have any ideas to offer?  Consider games in the genre of the Civilization series of the Age of Empires collection.  Those games have true depth and high production values... can we build similar games primarily for the education market?  That is the $64,000 question.

- Hap Aziz

This year's Game Developers' Conference was held last week in San Francisco.  One of the major themes that ran throughout was the use of computer game techniques and technologies used in real-world scientific applications.  Check out this gallery that shows some of the hot applications.  My particular favorite is the NeuroSky MindSet, a biosensor that lets you use your brainwaves to take action in a three-dimensional environment.  Sounds like the stuff of Science Fiction to me....

- Hap Aziz

The idea of publishing dedicated console games has always called to computer programmers, and I'm no exception. In fact, some of the early computers I programmed on (TI-99/4a, C64, Atari 800XL, and, of course, the Amiga) were very console-like in their support of sprites, bit-planes, screen resolutions, and so on. However, actual dedicated gaming consoles were much more difficult to develop for--that is, without getting into serious home-brew activity. (I remember my first 3DO, and I had no desire to crack that console open.)

Enter the HYDRA Game Development Kit. This hw/sw package allows you to write some pretty sophisticated video games using a C-like language by interfacing the kit to your own PC. You can also write directly to the HYDRA without a PC using a derivative of the BASIC language. That's a quick way to get a taste of console programming!

At the cost of $199, the kit comes with quite a bit, including:

• HYDRA console w/128k EEPROM and a variety of I/O options
• PS/2 Mouse and Mini Keyboard
• Nintendo-compatible gamepad
• USB programming cable
• 128k Re-programmable game card to store your games and applications
• Blank "Experimenter" card to design your own add-on hardware
• Book and CD-ROM of source code to support your coding efforts

Be sure to check out the XGameStation website for more details. Honestly, this looks like quite a neat little package. 

I’d love to find this under the tree on Christmas morning!

- Hap Aziz

Of the next generation video game consoles, Sony's Playstation 3 is regarded to have the most advanced technology, while Microsoft's Xbox 360 has been on the market the longest and has the largest selection of software titles. Yet it is Nintendo's Wii that is currently outselling both its competitors combined, earlier this year posting about twice the sales of the Xbox and nearly four times the sales of the PS3.

There are several contributing factors to explain this (one of them being cost). One of the more distinctive components of the Wii is the console's wireless, motion-sensitive controller: the Wiimote. This controller represents a significant advance in interaction technology, allowing the player to control gameplay through actual physical motion that, in many cases, mimics the real-life activities being simulated. Tennis? Hold and use the Wiimote just as you would a regular tennis racket. Bowling? Swing your arm with the Wiimote with the right finesse to score that strike. But beyond the more obvious play activities, the Wiimote can even be used for surgery simulations, complete with haptic feedback.

The beauty of the Wiimote is that it may be used as an interactive input device for the Second Life virtual world, facilitating the construction of ultra-realistic training simulations for the corporate and higher education marketspaces. Wired Magazine recently published an article entitled "Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator" in which such possibilities are discussed. The article is worth a read for its exploration of combining these technologies. Clearly as we enter the arena of high-stakes training and education, we will need to develop new techniques to serve ever-increasing learner populations with restricted resources. What's not so clear is how we will meet the challenge of delivery.

- Hap Aziz