WP3 : Serious Games in
Applications
Michela Mortara, Bianca Falcidieno, Chiara Catalano
CNR-IMATI Genova
Overview
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Objectives of the WP
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Organization of the WP
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Activities and Time Plan for the First year
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Status of the WP and Deliverable D3.1
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Work in Progress and Plan for the Second year
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Discussion
Objective and strategy
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Providing the basis for gradually increasing the connection
among users and stakeholders through integrative mechanisms
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Analyzing the current practices, gaps and desiderata concerning the
adoption of SGs in various application fields
Identification of
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barriers and facilitators
Methodological and technological open issues
best practices in the
adoption and development of SGs
market perspectives in new, promising application fields
or breakthrough in established ones
Support and stimulate
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knowledge exchanges
Further research, project proposals
Structure of the WP
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Business and management
Engineering and manufacturing
Health and fitness
Security, safety & crisis management
Humanities & Heritage
Personal & social learning & ethics
17 partners
70 MM
(T3.1, CEDEP)
(T3.2, PoliMi)
(T3.3, HWU)
(T3.4, NURC)
(T3.5, CNR)
(T3.6, Inesc-Id)
SIGs Harmoniization & integration
(T3.7 ,CEDEP)
Established six Special Interest Groups, plus an
harmonization and integration task.
Detail of the Activities
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Roadmap for the first year
Activity
responsible
1-SIG Set-up
SIG leaders
2-Identify stakeholders and
titles
SIG leaders
3- Scheme and guidelines for
evaluation
WP leader
4-Assessment and
cataloguing of SGs
SIG leaders
5- ad-hoc meetings,
questionnaires and critical
assessment of the field
SIG leaders
6-Assessment for crossfertilization
T3.7 leader
7-Monitoring potential new
SIGs
T3.7 leader
8-Deliverable preparation
WP leader
PM1
PM2
PM3
PM4
We are here!
PM5
PM6
PM7
PM8
PM9
PM10
PM11
PM12
Detail of the Activities
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
SIG Set-up
Identification of stakeholders and titles
Taxonomy and scheme for classification of SGs
Assessment and cataloguing of SGs
Ad-hoc meetings, questionnaires and critical
assessment of the field
Assessment for cross-fertilization
Individuation of potential new SIGs
Deliverable preparation
7
Deliverable D3.1
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WP3 is expected to deliver one single report due at
PM12 (end of september)
D3.1 will consist of:
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Introduction and description of the WP: objectives,
organization and details of the common activities as presented
in the previous slides
The Field Reports, one for each SIG, by the SIG leaders
The harmonization and cross-fertilization assessment, including
recommendations for new SIGs or new focus for the present
ones, by the T3.7 leader
The plan for the next year of activities.
Field Report Structure
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Organization of the SIG
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SIG leader, active members, interested
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Definition of the field
 Description of the domain and SIG taxonomy classifying the
educational objectives and/or the competencies and skills that
games in the area teach/train.
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SIG motivation
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why the application field is so relevant and promising for SG
development and spread; which is the added value provided by
SGs in the field
Field Report Structure
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Stakeholders in the field
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Customers, Developers, Research institutes
and also
Conferences
 Journals
 Projects
 Other (e.g. blogs, communities)
as indicators for the spread of SGs in the domain.
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Field Report Structure
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Brief state of the art of the methodology and of the
technology relevant to the field
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Describe the potential solutions to any specific design
requirement given by the application: e.g. need for realism, fast
interaction, particular interaction devices…
Field Report Structure
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SGs Case Studies
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This section collects the interesting SGs in the field discovered
so far.
The collection should be as exhaustive and balanced -with
respect to the taxonomy terms- as possible.
It is also the starting point for a catalogue of SGs that will be
continuously updated and will be hosted on the Virtual
Research Environment when ready.
Each game entry is tagged with taxonomy terms and
described by the metadata already defined on the wiki.
Field Report Structure
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Stakeholder survey (analysis of questionnaires)
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Identification
Current Situation and Practices, focussing on:
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Technical aspects on the game side: Design, Operationalisation &
Testing, Business Model
Technical aspects on the learning side: Usability, Effectiveness, Evaluation
Facilitators for Adoption of SGs in the field
Barriers for Adoption of SGs in the field
Best/worst practices
Needs and Desiderata of Stakeholders, focussing on
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needs which have been already addressed
issues still overlooked
Field Report Structure
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Insights gained (Synthesis of questionnaires)
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Identify present trends and promising future
developments in the field focussing on:
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Needs which can be solved by integration/defragmentation
actions
Open issues still not addressed by research: important for the
roadmap, for seed project ideas, joint papers and future project
proposals
Guidelines for the adoption of SGs
Guidelines for the design/development of a good SG
Field Report Structure
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SIG Specific Actions
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Defragmentation Actions
Integration Actions
Dissemination Actions
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Bibliography (relevant papers and any other material)
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Next: the Field Reports
SIGs
SIG3.1
Business and Management
Angelo Marco Luccini
CEDEP
Scope of SIG3.1: the taxonomy
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Use of the taxonomy elaborated by EC project OpenScout (ECP
2008 EDU 428016)
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In order to address the fragmentation provided by the different
categorisations of Business and Management,
Provision of a fully comprehensive list of concepts reflecting the areas of
interest broken down into sets of relevant competences.
It has been revised by INSEAD Business School and CEDEP executive
education centre.
Slightly adapted by integrating the concepts that have been already
introduced in Business education such as Collaboration and Crisis
Management
NB: In business environments often SG is a term hardly accepted,
because of the gaming aspect (often associated to “fun” as a
purpose itself). The common term used is Simulation.
Overview of SGs in the domain
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Advergames & Brand-games vs. Educational games
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Advergames & Brand-games Neuromarketing
Many business and management games are addressing the
mainstreams of world economy and serve the HE
programmes held in Business Schools, corporate
universities and academic institutions (e.g. marketing sims,
finance sims)
Emerging social aspect  learning communities
However, there is room for
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new emerging subjects (e.g. Ethics, CSR, Blue Ocean Strategy,
Humanitarianism) and for the ones that have just started to be
addressed (e.g. Crisis Mgmt at strategic & tactical level rather
than operational one)
And for fully online deployment
Insights gained (ideally from the analysis of
questionnaires)
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Gaps and Desiderata of the stakeholders as emerge from the
last section of the questionnaires
 Questionnaires data are still missing
 “Actionability” is a must! Put the learning into practice
 More and more room for fully online deployment (i.e.
briefing, game session and debriefing are run online
only)
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Online facilitation + remote & diverse
Bandwidth and tech issues (e.g. scalability)
Social aspect  before, during and, most of all, afterwards
However, still F2F is the most common deployment
setting and Blended solutions seem to be more
acceptable (e.g. web + F2F/web + F2F)
Present trends and promising future
developments
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Guidelines for the adoption of SGs (from the identification of
Barriers and Facilitators for the adoption of SGs in the field)
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Still hard to make the SG name digestible, despite at least the
concept of Smallworld has started to become familiar to
corporate organisations and education
Important for addressing organisations learning communities /
CoP (social aspect)
To make users understand that SGs do not necessarily bring to
sense of accomplishment and instant gratification for achieving
mission goals. Often failure is the most likely outcome.
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Insights and lessons learnt from frustration
Present trends and promising future
developments
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Open issues still not addressed by research: important for the
roadmap, for seed project ideas, joint papers and future
project proposals
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Post Games Learning Community (PGLC):
Seed Project that applies not only to Business & Management
domain but to all application fields,
Ethics,
CSR (sustainable development, human capital, civil society,
cultural heritage, carbon footprint),
Humanitarianism,
eDemocracy & eGov & we-Gov (participative govmnt.)
BOS (creating new markets),
Present trends and promising future
developments
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Guidelines for the design/development of a good SG (from the
identification of Best/worst practices)
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Moving from procedural games where goals are fixed and steps
to achieve them are univocally set (the actual traditional
Simulations) towards games where there is room for divergent
thinking, alternative paths and solutions exploration and even
fuzzy and / or ever changing goals where typically optimal
solutions may even not exist but just a set of good ones.
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Boosting creativity + engagement of knowledge
workers
Game follow up: sustaining the learning
community (social aspect) with social / WEB2.0
tools and games
Specific activities done in the first year
and/or planned in the second year
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specific actions or achievements in the first year (e.g. joint
papers, presentations)
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Presentations of GaLA aims and perspectives in the network of
CEDEP / INSEAD
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FIAT already expressed interest in being part of the Advisory Board
Specific activities done in the first year
and/or planned in the second year
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Specific needs for the second year (e.g. enlarge or narrow
down the field scope to particularly promising sub-fields)
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Exploring emerging subjects in business matters that may be
interrelated with other domains (e.g. Ethics, Sustainability, CSR,
humanitarian aid) or that promise to be next to come (e.g.
eDemocracy, eGov and participative government – we-gov) or
that maybe have not been fully addressed yet (e.g. innovation in
NPD, creativity)
Social aspect (PGLC but not only)
Just in case…
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If there is still time you can finish with a short demo or a quick
review of a SGs you find particularly interesting, commenting
why.
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Game to be identified among the ones collected so far
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
SIG3.2
Engineering and Manufacturing
Borzoo Pourabdollahian
Politecnico di Milano
Borzoo.pourabdollahian@mail.polimi.it
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Contents
1. Activities
2. Stakeholders
3. Taxonomy
4. Increasing the general awarenees of serious game
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Activities
❶ Studying literature review
❷ Defining taxonomy and stakeholders
❸ Carrying out field research
❹ Increasing the general awareness of serious games
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Stakeholders
Customers
Decision makers
Users
Suppliers
Designers
Buyers
Learners
Vendors
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Taxonomy
Engineering and Manufacturing environment can be considered as 3 main
concepts. For designing Serious games the relation between them have to be
considered carefully.
Approach
Application
Function
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Approaches
Various modern and well-known concepts are defined in this area which can
be trained to people by serious games and simulations
 Product design
 Sustainable Manufacturing
 Supply Chain Management
 New Product Development
 Lean Manufacturing
 Just in time manufacturing
 Service operation Management
 Mass customization
 Agile manufacturing
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Functions
According to organization structure, people in different departments need
specific and particular skills
 Operation Unit
 Purchasing Unit
 Logistic Unit
 ICT Unit
 R&D Unit
Applications
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Manufacturing systems are divided into different sections and industries that
understanding how people can improve their competency in each
application by serious game is a must.
 Metal & Mining
 High Tech
 Telecommunication
 Forest Products
 Pharmaceutical & Medical Products
 Energy
 Electronics & Semiconductor
 Food & Beverage
 Automative
 Aerospace
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Approach
Function
Sustainable
Manufacturing
Supply Chain
Management
Operation
Unit
Logistic Unit
ICT Unit
Maintenance
Unit
……
key learning
indicators in each cell
have to be identified
exactly
Lean
Manufacturing
Mass
customization
……
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Increasing the general awarenees of serious game
❶ Increasing the awareness of SGs between students at engineering schools
❷ Holding workshops for stakeholder
❸ Attracting audiences by presenting real evidences
3rd GaLA meeting
19-21 September 2011
BIBA - Bremen
Thank you for your
attention
SIG3.3 Health and Fitness
SIG Leader: Alasdair Thin (HWU)
SIG Deputy Leader: Giusy Fiucci (ORT)
Scope of the SIG: the taxonomy
Overview of SGs in the domain
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VERY DIVERSE field
Wide Range of Different Applications
Large Number of SGs in Field
Very Limited Evidence Base
Only 1 specialised journal
Only few specialised conferences
Stakeholders
Insights gained
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Many current funders of SGs are in fact game publishers and yet most do not realise it.
Individuals on design/technical side are far too caught up
in the technology and grossly under-estimate the
importance of the human behavioural aspects in
influencing outcomes
Individuals on health/fitness side are often ignorant about
games, sceptical and even hostile.
Facilitators
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Rising Cost of Healthcare
Widespread adoption
smart-phones
Barriers
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Broad scepticism of video
games
High demands for the
demonstration of efficacy
Addressed
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Sufficient evidence to
support POTENTIAL of
SGs in field
Overlooked
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Unequivocal evidence of
effectiveness
Sustainable business
models
Specific activities done in the first year
and/or planned in the second year
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1° Year
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Lab Visit (HWU – Univ Graz)
Lab Visit (HWU – Univ Southern California)
Started Work on Behavioural Model
2° Year
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Establish Business Models
Determine Value Chains
Prioritise Focus Areas
Continue Work on Behavioural Model
SIG3.4
Michel Leonard
NURC
Scope of the SIG: the taxonomy
Overviewof SGs in the domain
SG
Insightsgained (ideallyfrom the
analysisofquestionnaires)
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Fields were questions are not welcomed.
Interoperability
Data exchange (HLA ?)
Faster, Better and cheaper
Multi-cultural aspects.
present trends and promising future
developments
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Success Stories – Direct correlation with the game
In average, still very simple Vs the production time
Data fusion/Game intelligence is an issues
Problems related to psychological
More and more technologies and tools are becoming available
(Game Industry)
TTX HPTT2
(La Spezia, Dec 05-09)
Serious Game on Harbor Security (20+ participants in
battlefield SG)
- 11 simulators with consoles
- 6 Autonomous Agents (AI)
- 75 Simulated traffic ships
- 24 scenarios (3 days)
- Real-time data (traffic, radar, data fusion)
- Multi-cultural (police, navy, politics, researchers)
SIG3.5: Humanities and Heritage
Michela Mortara, CNR-IMATI Genova
Scope of the SIG: the taxonomy
FORMAL EDUCATION
 HUMAN SCIENCES
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History
Geography
Languages
Literature
Art
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Social Sciences
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Performing Arts (dance, music, …)
Visual Arts (painting, sculpting, …)
Law
Philosophy
Politics
NATURAL SCIENCES
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Astronomy
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Medicine & Pharmacy
Mathematics
Computer Science
INFORMAL AND MULTIDISCIPLINARY
EDUCATION
 Cultural Awareness
 Historical Reconstruction
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Awareness about a culture of the past
Reconstruction of a specific historical event
Heritage Awareness
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Cultural Heritage
Architectural / Natural Heritage
Overview of SGs in the domain
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Several conferences as well as journals focus on digital
heritage, which list among the topics of interest games.
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Nonetheless, no specific journal or conference is devoted
explicitly to serious games for (humanities and) heritage.
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Some EU projects focus on serious games for a specific
sub-topic of humanities and heritage (i.e. TiE, 80days)
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Many deal with digital heritage (e-vita,V-MUST, 3DCOFORM)
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Many blogs and communities on the topic, i.e. playthepast
and newsgames.
Insights gained
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The learning achieved with SGs is perceived at its initial stage:
a methodology to assess the real learning gain is crucial
The fun is perceived of secondary importance for teachers and
trainers but less fun implies loss of interest
The most important point is the game to be adaptive to the
learner’s level
The essential aspect to determine engagement is the plot
The main barrier is FUNDING
The trend is towards as natural as possible interactions (e.g.
gesture recognition)
There is skeptiscism with regards to BCI, and no clear ideas
about how to effectively exploit feedback.
Needs which can be solved by
integration/defragmentation actions:
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Raise awareness about:
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The learnign effectiveness of games
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Efficient management of multimodal and multidensional
content and media
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New interaction paradigms(BCI, gesture recognition, etc.)
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Show the potential of VR-setups, powerwalls, etc. for heritage
exibitions
Create new interdisciplinary curricula
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new professionals with computing, art and psycho-pedagogical
expertises are needed.
Open issues
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Deriving a formal methodology for assessing the educational
effectiveness of games and other aspects like socialization
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Streamline the production process to reduce the amount of user
intervention
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Tools for quicker content creation and storyboard management
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Smarter management of multimedia content within the game
For a (seed) project:
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How to effectively exploit data logging?
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BCI in action
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SG as a creative tool e.g. for film editing, small production at home
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Integrate with Health & Fitness – virtual tourism + fitness workout
Guidelines for the design/development of a
good SG
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For cultural exhibitions
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cope with space and time issue
Representation (accuracy, believability), experience
(storytelling, empathy), interaction (importance of HCI and
HW)
Virtual tourism: geo-referencing for compatibility with
GIS
Procedural modeling and semantic content generation
Adaptation of game flows and mechanics to the user
profile integrating an e-Learning Engine (as in 80days)
Small games for on-line fruition, simple but brilliant ideas
Specific activities done in the first year
and/or planned in the second year
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Joint publication accepted at the 12th International
Symposium on Virtual Reality, Archaeology and Cultural
Heritage VAST2011:
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M. Mortara, F. Bellotti, R. Berta, C. E. Catalano, G. Fiucci, M.
Houry-Panchetti, P. Petridis “Serious Games for Cultural
Heritage: the GaLA Activities”
(Project Paper)
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A longer version is planned for
submission to a journal.
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New insights for this SIG:
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Science and technology (institutional)
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Graphic design and digital art.
SIG3.6
Personal and Social Learning &
Ethics
GAIPS / INESC-ID
Scope of the SIG: the taxonomy
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Soft Skills: SG which relate to individual's Soft Skills
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Social Awareness: SG which promote collective recognition of
social relevant issues, as a first step towards their resolution
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E.g. Social Responsibility, Health, Environment…
Ethic Games: SG that allow the user to address ethical
problems, and acquire knowledge and skills directly related
with it
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Personal (e.g. Strategic Thinking, Creativity Problem Solving)
Social (e.g. Empathy, Team Work, Conflict Management)
Ethic games provide elements of thought that help the user to
address and rationalize over ethical issues.
A total of 30 sub-categories were identified and formulated
Overview of SGs in the domain
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Soft Skills - big overlap with other SIGs tells us this is a well
established field
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Social Awareness – extremely established with a lot of
examples to prune through
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Ex: TeamUp
Ex: Darfur is Dying, Elude
Ethics - still emerging
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Ex: Cooking Mama: Mama Kills Animals
Games Reviewed
Ethics
Soft Skills
Social
Awareness
2
4
15
Insights gained
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Very few examples of SG corresponding to our Ethics
categorization
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Advert games are an extremely emergent application field
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Applied Ethics
But only show one side of the issue
Many games target young people
Contacts with stakeholders still undergoing with the
gathering of more data
Trends and promising future developments
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Social Awareness SGs are well disseminated in media
Ethics SG focusing on dilemma solving appear to be still in
a build up phase
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Few games for some groups of stakeholders (e.g. adults
and professionals)
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Despite of the large spread of advert games with biased
perspectives over problems with ethical dimensions
Some exceptions (e.g.Virtual-U) promise new opportunities
Some relevant topics
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Cross-culture
Globalization
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Global Economics
Back to the WP…
Next year of Activities
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The activities of monitoring SGs in the application fields
and surveying the stakeholders through questionnaires
and ad-hoc meetings will continue throught the whole
duration of the project to find the hot topics in terms of
market opportunities, open research issues, best
practices, guidelines, etc. (integrating the preliminary
results of the first year).
Next year cooperation with other WPs will became fully
operative
Networking and dissemination activities will gain more
and more importance from the next year on (e.g.
presentations, joint papers, liaisons with other projects)
Strategy to achieve the goals
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Each SIG will organize a workshop.
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Participants will be the SIG members, a few invited experts and
representatives from WP4; representatives of TCs are
welcome.
Suggested duration: two days.
Date: as soon as possible and anyway in the first half of the
year.
The workshop will feature:
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The presentation and critical review of a number of games for each
participant; identification of best practices; decision about which
games to submit to each TC (SIG/TC members).
Discussion about the open problems in the field and business
opportunities (with WP4)
Definition of at least one seed project for each SIG.
Strategy to achieve the goals
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The output of the workshop will feed the roadmap and
hopefully will start seed projects and new project
proposals.
Propose a panel session at the VS-Games conference
2012 (in November in Genova, organized by DIBE) to
disseminate the SIG results so far and collect the
audience feedback.
Discussion
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Agree on the activities for the second year and detail the
relations with the other WPs in order to devise a
schedule for the activities
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Find out two reviewers not involved in WP3 from:

MAN, ATOS, UCM, COVUNI, TU-Delft,TUT,
BIBA,NTNU,AAU,CYNTELIX,ETH,ESADE, TUG,