Serious Games Project Asks For Academic Papers

An anonymous reader points out that the Serious Games Project, which is part of the Woodrow Wilson International Center For Scholars at the Smithsonian, has just submitted a call for academic papers. They're interested in discussing problems such as "what public policy and management issues or challenges are most amenable to computer-based gaming techniques?", and there is already a very interesting Chris Crawford-written paper on the site, "Subjectivity And Simulation" (PDF link).

Comments

HTML-conversion of Chris-Crawford PDF

[RobotWisdom]

Google's got it.

Positive Aspects of Gaming

[Ghetto_D]

I'm glad the positive aspects of gaming are finally getting some press. With all the crap the gaming community has had to take from events like Columbine, it's good to see that companies are realizing that games can be very educational and help, rather than hinde, the development of strong communities and teams. Soon , how well we're doing on The Sims Online will be a major factor in job interviews.

Re:Positive Aspects of Gaming

[slappyjack]

> Soon , how well we're doing on The Sims Online
> will be a major factor in job interviews.

Please god I hope not. I don't think I've managed to get one of those little fuckers a decent couch before I get so bored I let them starve to death.

The Sims.

I mean, really.

Fish are cheaper than a copy of The Sims, and less irritating. Want your kids to learn social interaction from The Sims? You're a bad parent.

At the very least learn them some good micromanagment under time constraint with a little Homeworld or maybe some nice Starcraft. Get them ready for President Jenna Bush (coming in 2020!) and HER approval-numbers-boosting war against whatever country full of non-white people hasn't been assimilated by America(R) yet.

The Sims.

Jesus H Christ.

Give your daughter a fucking barbie and put the remaining $25 into a college fund so she can afford a couple extra pencils during her first week of college.

Minsky Talk

[spongebob]

Marvin Minsky gave a talk at GDC 2001 that emphasized the role of AI in games. It was mostly a promo for his book , but he took some time to address how important games were to learning and cited examples. Check the following URL to view the entire keynote. Registation with Gamasutra may be required. rtsp://media.cmpnet.com/gamasutra/minsky.rm

I'm serious

[Anonymous Coward]

Heh now I get it.

No paper, three words:

[Black Parrot]

* What public policy and management issues or challenges are most amenable to computer-based gaming techniques?

Global Thermonuclear War.

* What existing and emerging game technologies (such as multi-user, virtual environments) might be particularly useful when applied to policy or management issues?

Global Thermonuclear War.

* How can we quickly expand the application of computer-based games to a much wider range of key challenges facing our government and other public or private organizations?

Global Thermonuclear War.

* How do we identify and proactively deal with any social, ethical, and/or legal issues that might arise through the application of game-based tools to public policy and management issues?

Global Thermonuclear War.