The History and Future of Serious Games

August 22, 2007
Ben Sawyer | founder, Digitalmill and co-founder, Serious Games Initiative

Computer games and videogames have morphed from a cottage business into a global media and software industry. While there have been pockets of derivative activity related to game technology, only in the last few years has there been a real movement toward expanding this industry in new and exciting ways. Today the general use of games and game technologies for purposes beyond entertainment is collectively referred to as “serious games”.

The Serious Games Initiative was formed in 2002 and since its inception has been among a number of critical efforts to expose the commercial, independent and academic world to the innovations and ideas of the gaming community. In this talk we will explore the total gamut of the serious games field and how its technologies are being applied to problems in healthcare, productivity, visualization, education and training. Next we will discuss the current state of the field as it relates to research and what kind of infrastructure is needed to take full advantage of the interdisciplinary use of games, and also consider the growing virtuous cycles and relationships between serious games and commercial entertainment games.

Speaker Details

Ben Sawyer got his first taste of serious games when he was drafted to work on Virtual U (www.virtual-u.org), a Sloan Foundation effort to build a game-based simulation of university management. That project, and collaboration with the Woodrow International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., let to the co-founding of the Serious Games Initiative (www.seriousgames.org). Since it’s founding the Serious Games Initiative has been the critical grassroots organization responsible for creating both the ideas and network that support the use of games beyond entertainment. Ben also co founded the Games for Health Project (www.gamesforhealth.org) which focuses specifically on the use of game technologies to improve healthcare. Ben’s company, Digitalmill has designed or advised on over a dozen serious games projects on topics including science, consumer products, defense and corporate training. When he isn’t working on serious games or playing his favorite entertainment titles, Ben spends most of his time exploring his home state of Maine with his family.