iMiC (Innovative Movement Therapy
in Childhood)
ZHdK Serious and Applied Games
Research: needs-based game worlds modularly adapted to different therapy
systems
Marcel Urech from Netzwoche, a Swiss trade magazine for the
ICT industry and the official publication for Simsa (the Swiss Interactive
Media and Software Association), posted earlier this week an extensive titled Serious Games - That's What Makes Learning
Fun.
Marcel Urech describes
how Swiss corporate decision makers are slowly but surely realizing the
potential of Serious Games, which are becoming increasingly popular. “Still, it
is not easy for Swiss game studios to survive in the industry because their
production costs a lot of time and money,” he adds.
Developers have told
the Netzwoche editors how they can survive in the market.
Here are the highlights:
Serious Games, or
"Serious & Applied Games" as the Zurich University of the Arts
(ZHdK) calls the discipline,
deals with the function and effect of games in a cultural or scientific
context. "Serious & Applied Games are particularly effective if they
deliver a satisfying gaming experience," says Ulrich Götz, who heads the
department at ZHdK.
The worldwide
five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for Game-based Learning products
is a robust 37.1% and revenues will more than quadruple by 2023, according to the
new market report The
2018-2023 Global Game-based Learning Market by Metaari (in the article, Urech
refers to Allied Market Research - 19% AAGR by 2023). “So it is not surprising
that the Federal Council also became aware of Serious Games,” says Urech.
“The report by the
Federal Council shows the growing interest in games,” says also Attila
Szantner, CEO and founder of the company MMOS based in Monthey, Switzerland.
MMOS, a Swiss start-up founded in 2014, has developed
a platform that connects research data and video games, offering players the
opportunity to contribute to proteomics or exoplanet research while being fully
immersed in their favorite video game.
In March 2016, the
first implementation of this concept, Project Discovery, was
released in the massively multiplayer online game EVE Online, in collaboration
with the Human Protein Atlas research program: in just few months, more than 10
million classifications of protein locations have been recorded by tens of
thousands of gamers.
“Linking real science
with existing video games is actually the opposite of gamification,” says Szantner.
"We could call it Seriousification if you need a cumbersome term for
it," he jokes.
Image credit: uFin The Challenge by
Koboldgames
A futuristic thriller for employees
in banking and finance
Switzerland is not a
pioneer country, but it is catching up fast. Above all, the pharmaceutical
industry, energy and electricity companies, media companies and universities
would be interested in Serious Games.
Please find the extensive
article in full at https://www.netzwoche.ch/storys/2018-07-04/serious-games-so-macht-lernen-spass