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No child’s play
By Megan Elliott
- Dec 22, 2006
The Straits Times
IMAGINE a world where you are tackling a global health epidemic; negotiating peace between Palestine and Israel; growing your own enterprise into a multinational corporation; or exploring the laws of physics. Computer games can play a role here.
The computer games industry is no longer solely the domain of interactive entertainment or “shoot-em-ups”. They now exist for science, health, defence, education, and social change and over 40 per cent of gamers are women. These games are part of corporate offices, classrooms in schools, doctor’s clinics and factories. Sometimes loosely grouped under the label “serious games”, game-based learning is a rapidly developing phenomenon with many industry applications.
Business, governments and educators across the board are realising that computer game technologies have the potential of providing fully personalised, responsive and enjoyable learning experiences which can assist learners’ creativity and innovation, develop strategic and collaborative skills, and allow for hypothesis testing as well as direct and immediate feedback.
And while the market for entertainment games is relatively mature, education, training, pedagogical, and serious game-based learning is growing at six times the rate of the conventional video games industry.
Mr Noah Falstein, a board member of the Serious Games Summit in the United States, says: “I think it is inevitable that computer games with purposes beyond entertainment will some day grow to rival and eclipse the current entertainment-only game market, perhaps even within the next 10 years.
“All that is needed is for game-based applications to grab just 1 or 2 per cent of the multi-trillion dollar global education and training market. With more and more people growing up immersed in video games, interactive training is second nature and more efficient than many traditional educational methods.”
Careers in the computer games industry
Designers: game designers, level designers, writers, educators, researchers
Producers: producers, project managers, game testers
Programmers: game engine programmers, special effects programmers, artificial
intelligence programmers, multiplayer networking programmers
Sound composers: composers, sound designers, sound engineers
Artists: 3D model builders, 2D conceptual artists, 2D texture artists, 3D character builders, animators, art directors, art technicians
Executives: business development, finance, sales, distributors, marketing, communications,
human resources, research |
Singapore is well placed to be a world leader in this area and is already at the forefront as a result of the extensive investment and support given by a range of government agencies. They include the Media Development Authority, the InfoComm Development Authority, the National Research Foundation and the Ministry of Education.
Some industry sectors that use games-based learning are:
- Corporate — to maximise employee and management training, develop customer service and leadership skills, and identify the critical needs of a corporation’s workforce.
- Education — to motivate, teach and immerse students of all ages, and to use games as a learning tool to develop successful projects.
- Emergency services — simulation training can put those charged with first response in an emergency directly on the scene, forcing them to make quick decisions and testing their assumptions and responses in a safe, virtual environment.
- Healthcare — to improve medical knowledge or increase self-awareness of a healthy lifestyle.
- Military — to enhance training using advanced simulation technology, implement complex problem-solving approaches, strategies and leadership, and to identify risks, benefits, costs, outcomes and rewards of alterative strategies.
- Science — to translate science into game projects and incorporate gaming into scientific processes.
Singapore offers world-class learning opportunities for people interested in pursuing a career in developing computer games for purposes other than sheer entertainment. Universities, polytechnics, and private professional and educational institutions all provide courses in the cross-disciplinary skills needed to become a computer games professional.
Article contributed by Megan Elliott, director, X Media Lab. E-mail megan@xmedialab.com or visit www.xmedialab.com.
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