EDE2009, Sofia, November1 Serious Games - contemporary state and perspectives Roumen Nikolov Sofia University

Nowadays massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are quickly becoming the form of entertainment and a major mechanism of socialization not only for the young people but rather – for everyone; Thousands of people can participate in a simulated world which changes as a result of their own actions; BBC Climate Change, SimCity, Sims Online, Second Life, World of Warcraft, Civilization; Colonization; Hemimond Games (BG): Tzar, Celtic Kings, Rising Kingdoms, etc. Creating communities of players that build relationships, teams, businesses, economies, and a complete working social structure that parallels the real world. Many educational MMOGs are now beginning to emerge and the future of learning is very much related to video games. Massively Multiplayer Online Games

Video Games and Learning “video games matter because they present players with simulated worlds: worlds which, if well constructed, are not just about facts or isolated skills, but embody particular social practices” … “thus make it possible for players to participate in valued communities of practice and as a result develop the ways of thinking that organize those practices” (Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, Gee, 2005). “The virtual worlds of games are powerful, in other words, because playing games means developing a set of effective social practices”( Shaffer, Squire, Halverson, Gee, 2005).

Hemimond Games

BBC Climate Change gives an understanding of some of the causes of climate change; gives players an awareness of some of the policy options available to governments; players must respond to catastrophic events caused by climate change as well as natural and manmade events;

Civilization The player attempts to build an empire in competition with 2-6 other civilizations.

Serious Games and Training According to Gartner, the MMOG technologies strongly impact corporate training as well. By the end of 2011, 80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 enterprises) will have a “second life”, but not necessarily in Second Life ( (Gartner, 2007). In 2006 Michael and Chen predicted that up to 40% of US companies would adopt serious gaming technology into their training efforts by 2008 (Michael, Chen, 2006) E-learning simulations are the fastest growing sector of the e-learning industry, increasing from $300 million in 2002 to $37 billion by 2011 (WAVE, 2003). According to The Apply Group, by 2012, between 100 and 135 of the Global Fortune 500 will have adopted gaming for learning (IBM, 2007).

Second Life

Second Life and Education

European Union to open office in Second Life

Sweden's virtual embassy in Second Life

Doing Business 09 Report/World Bank

IBM INNOV8 2.0

INNOV8: the IBM Business Process Management (BPM) simulation game The INNOV8 BPM simulation game brings IT and business together for process model innovation Both IT and business professionals understand that processes are critical to success. They just look at them from different perspectives. INNOV8, the IBM Business Process Management (BPM) simulation game, gives both IT and business players a better understanding of how effective BPM impacts an entire business ecosystem. INNOV8 also demonstrates how a more instrumented, interconnected and intelligent world supports process improvements and working smarter to help build a smarter planet.

INNOV8 (cont) Inside INNOV8 Online, you will encounter three different game scenarios: Smarter Traffic -- Evaluate existing traffic patterns and re-route traffic based on incoming metrics. Smarter Customer Service -- Using a call center environment, players develop more efficient ways to respond to customers. Smarter Supply Chains -- Evaluate a traditional supply chain model, balance supply and demand and reduce environmental impact. Players quickly see how practical process improvements can help meet profitability, customer satisfaction and environmental goals while addressing real problems faced by municipalities and businesses today. And when they're done playing, they can compare scores with other players on global scoreboards.

INNOV8 2.0 Academic Edition Over 1000 schools worldwide have downloaded the game and more than 100 universities worldwide have built custom curriculum using our serious game to help students learn about business process management and SOA. Professors registered with IBM's Academic Initiative can download the game for free; Innov8 was designed to be delivered in a one hour learning lab to supplement courses like Business Process Management, Corporate Strategy, and Operations and IT Management.

Chief Gaming Officer ? Chris Melissinos, the Chief Gaming Officer of SUN Microsystems, states, that by February 2009 there were more than 1.1 bilion social network users and more than 300 milion virtual world users in the world and video game market is the fast growing segment of $40B (Melissonos, 2009); He is the leader of the Darkstar Project ( which provides “software infrastructure that aims to simplify the development and operation of massively scalable online games, virtual worlds, and social networking applications”.

Darkstar Project

Darkstar University To give education customers more choices, Sun Microsystems and other organizations have created Darkstar University, a community of academic systems users, designers, and students working to create open source 3D learning environments for immersive education. The idea is to help educational institutions build their own virtual environments using open source technologies — and allow those environments to connect to a university's existing academic and administrative computing systems (SUN, 2007). Similar game development framework could be used as a learning environment for a software engineering course at a university level (Wang, Wu, 2009).

PRIME Serious Game (FP6)

EDE2009, Sofia, November21 Sergej Varbanov will talk about PRIME in this session. Thank you for your attention!