From October 30 to November 3, eleven Albertans representing a range of Alberta-based companies and institutions attended a trade mission in Washington D.C. This mission was designed to be a mentored program that provides financial and strategic support to selected companies through a range of pre-market, in-market, and post-market activities, including information sessions, briefings, and connector events.
Team Alberta @ the Canadian Embassy in Washington D.C.
The Serious Games Summit/Partners in Learning market access program gave several selected Alberta companies the opportunity to attend the Serious Games Summit and the Partners In Learning Partnering Forum. The program was organized and supported by the Digital Media Association of Alberta, Banff New Media Institute Accelerator Program, Alberta Economic Development, , Canadian Heritage, and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada.
The Serious Games Summit is a gathering of North American and International producers, buyers, and researchers of the Serious Games genres. The Summit features two keynote presentation and two full days of presentations, round table discussions, and panels. The topics range from high-level instructional design strategies to nuts and bolts examples of implemented games.
The Canadian Embassy’s Partnering Forum featured two days of select presentations from a range of businesses and institutions from Washington and surrounding areas. The participants were also provided an opportunity to share their products during an evening wine and cheese event that allowed the Canadian guests to connect directly with the key players in the U.S. market.
Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing a variety of session notes and various other reflections. To start us off, we had the opportunity to conduct an informal and interview with the eleven attendees. We asked five questions and here are some of the responses.
1. What was the most interesting session you went to?
Rob Skeet, Emerge Learning (RS): I think the session on whyville was the most interesting in terms of a simple but brilliant concept, well delivered with a good blend of humour and demonstration.
Kevin McNulty, Terris Hill Productions (KM): Monday's keynote speakers was particularly important because the speakers were from a range of industries and spoke specifically to the kinds of initiatives they were involved in and what they are looking for in serious games. Of special interest to THP was the discussion led by Joe Little from BP.
Daryl Beatty, Accelerator, Banff New Media Institute (DB): The most interesting session was "Implementing Serious Games In The Industry Sector". As I am involved in the serious games initiative from an industry building perspective, sessions such as this provide me with some of the insight I need to help develop and implement industry building strategies.
Darran Edmundson, EDM Studio (DE): The session put on by the makers of "Re-mission", a serious game for young cancer patients. Apparently kids/teens have a tendency to stop taking their follow-up chemotherapy medication once they recover from the initial course of treatment. Re-mission, a first-person shooter, was first-and-foremost designed to be entertaining - but also to teach kids about cancer and encourage them to continue taking meds in a timely fashion. Funded by the non-profit Hopelab, this serious game was developed by the professionals at Realtime Associates. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Re-mission, however, was the (soon to be published) result of clinical trials which showed statistically significant improvement in the longterm health of kids who played the game. The need and value for proper research was a point missed by a lot of other presenters.
Ken Bautista, Hotrocket, Digital Media Association of Alberta (KB): It was definitely the session that featured Eric Zimmerman (Gamelab) and Katie Salen (Parsons School of Design) talking about 'The Game Designer Project'. It's an innovative collaboration between Gamelab and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The project is designed to teach literacy through game design and creation.
2. What was the most important thing you learned?
Greg Ogrodnick, Concepts Interactive (GO): The term “serious games” means many things to many people. The industry is trying to define itself and to become legitimate in what it does.
Owen Brierley, Hotrocket (OB): I learned that while the thinking is important, what everyone in the audience is craving is proof. Here is what we tried, here is what worked, here is what didn’t. A “Game Developers” post-mortem style presentation should be a template that CMP should offer its speakers.
Tom Choi, Science Alberta Foundation (TC): In terms of the Serious Games Summit one of the key things is to present your successes. This automatically gives your project more profile within the community, elevates you as a leader within your area and encourages others working in the same space to seek you out.
Jody Edwards, Emerge Learning (JE): There is a hole in the serious games market which I believe Alberta can fill through building a network of companies whose collaboration can meet the needs of industry.
Michael Magee, University of Calgary (MM): Getting an update on the state of the industry and the kinds of business models that are and aren't working in the serious games space.
3. What is something you would like to see changed for next year?
RS: Less focus on the military. Can you believe it turned into the main
topic of the forum on corporate training?
GO: Fewer slides and more demonstration of what are the actual products that have been created.
OB: I would like to see less “shoe-horning” of non-serious games into the serious games moniker. Let’s delineate new media from e-learning from serious games, they may all involve interactivity and learning, but they are all different. Let’s let the games have their place in the learning life-cycle.
JE: More of a focus on the industry. While Government contracts look lucrative in the long run, I don't really see their relevance for smaller companies who can't afford a presence in Washington. Also industry is where I think that Alberta can make the most impact as the US seems to be ignoring the potential of this market.
4. Who do you want to follow up with?
GO: People who are interested in creating new health care solutions, including instruction and gaming designers along with technologies providers.
OB: I want to continue my conversations with the Alberta team to keep this flame alive and help Alberta become a Serious Games hub.
TC: James Bower, founder of Whyville.net to explore goals, outcomes, synergies and differences between Whyville.net and Wonderville.ca.
MM: Mostly contacts within the provincial government that might have the potential to facilitate the Alberta ecosystem necessary for serious games to thrive as an industry. It became obvious during the presentations that it would be very difficult to match the level of professional product being delivered using the existing talent in the province.
5. What is the one thing Alberta can do to be leader in this space?
KM: Alberta could lead by continuing to support this fledgling industry such as we have seen with funding this mission.
DB: The Accelerator has a tremendous opportunity to act as a facilitator and catalyst supporting the growth of the serious games industry in Alberta. My role as Accelerator Manager gives me the opportunity to play a leadership role in this effort. It is something I very much look forward
to.
MM: In Canada there is still a possibility to be a leader in the serious games space in general. I think that opportunity has been lost in the US. The one thing Alberta could do to be a leader within Canada is to support a research infrastructure that would facilitate innovation in the serious games space and validate the kinds of products that are already being actively generated.
KB: I think Alberta needs to focus on the design and strategy behind using games for learning, training, etc. rather than on building the technologies to make them happen. I think there are too many companies out there that focus on the hows of building games. There are a lot of people out there that can build technology. We need more people focusing on the whys behind building games in the first place. I think then we'll have smarter and more innovative games than what is being created today in both the commercial and non-commercial gaming industry.
