Article Summary Of:

Zyda, M. (Sept. 2005).  From Visual Simulation to Virtual Reality to Games.  IEEE Computer. Vol. 38 (9), pp. 25 - 32.  http://micro189.lib3.hawaii.edu:2079/iel5/2/32339/01510565.pdf?tp=&arnumber=1510565&isnumber=32339

Primary Topic(s) Addressed:  Serious Games; Immersion; Affective games

Secondary Topic(s) Addressed:  Virtual Reality; Games; Simulations

How this might be used on my dissertation:

good serious games defn.

picture below shows model of game design, then adds serious game design aspect

Potential topic: using affective measures to raise immersion

Questions Raised (potential topic for me):

author states a potential topic:  how we can research human emotion in gaming (evoke visceral responses) - very useful for the military / homeland security

Summary of Paper:

Around 1997, the gaming field encroached on the territory / domain of virtual reality- today VR is highly influenced by gaming

the word 'game' means different things to different people- there's a generation gap of those who grew up in the 80's or later (grew up with games their whole lives) versus those of earlier times (digital natives)

'video game' means a game played against / with a computer- some sort of mental challenge, involves amusement, recreation, winning a stake

'serious game' means "a mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules, that uses entertainment to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy and strategic communication objectives." (p. 26)

Inner box:  Game model stated by CCO of Electronic Arts
Outside box:  Addition to Serious Games as stated by author:  adding pedagogy makes games serious

MMOGs:  Author says we need to develop 'semantically interoperable' MMOGs that can download appropriate visualization and interaction code, so that others can gain access to the virtual world and interact with other online players

This highlights a major problem with games- very little of the work / code is reusable / extensible

Author says that human emotion must be better researched and added into games (evoke visceral responses) - this is a potential dissertation topic

immersion is very important- provides a sense of presence
- uses affective learning, computer graphics / sound / haptics, and advanced user interfaces

Terms / Definitions defined:

1. 'serious game' means "a mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules, that uses entertainment to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy and strategic communication objectives." (p. 26)
2. haptics:  takes games into the tactile realm

Good Quotes:

see paper (circled)

"Leveraging technology from the visual simulation and virtual reality communities, serious games provide a delivery system for organizational video game instruction and training." (p. 25)

'serious game' means "a mental contest, played with a computer in accordance with specific rules, that uses entertainment to further government or corporate training, education, health, public policy and strategic communication objectives." (p. 26)

"MMOGs pose the fundamental research question of how to develop dynamically extensible and semantically interoperable software architectures.  This functionality requires building game or simulation clients than can connect to a running MMOG, download the appropriate code for display and interaction, then operate with other online players." (p. 28)

"Ultimately, a video game may not only make us cry, it may be aware that we are crying and respond appropriately." (p. 30)