Serious Games Summit DC 2005 Blogging (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)

Here’s my schedule for the first day of the Serious Games Summit, which starts in a few minutes here in Arlington, Va., a suburb of Washington D.C. I do enjoy the mixture of commercial, government, educational and indie content, but the biggest draw is probably the dollars at stake to be extracted from government agencies for military training. I’ll check out the booths of course, but the government/military/business angle is not why I’m here.

Signs That I’m Not at a Humanities Conference

1. Demonstrating the seriousness of the situation: Whatley mentioned that one of his EULA (end-user license agreements) includes the warning “death and dismemberment are not our fault.”
   

2. When I asked a question about simulation, Whatley’s response began with, “If I shoot a bullet at you…”
   

3. The word “pedgagogy” appears in one of the presentations, not simply to be dismissed as pedestrian and non-theoretical, but in the speech bubble of the beach bully kicking sand in the face of a scrawny little game designer, in a remix of the classic comic book advertisement for body-building snake oil.
   

4. To be continued??

Last year there was a T-shirt. This year? A plastic bag with a program, a promotional CD from Anark (one of the sponsors) and a few other fliers. (I overheard one of the conference organizers say that nobody offered to sponsor the t-shirts. Shame.)

I certainly hope there are muffins or cookies somewhere around here. [Update: There are.]

Keynote: Peter Perla and Doug Whatley

“What’s So Serious about Game Design? The Art or the Science?”

Tim Holt

“Healthcare and Forestry — Half-Life 2: Meet Serious Games Modding”

I’m conflicted… I’m interested in both of these topics, and may bail out of the first one to visit the second.

Dolly Joseph and Mable Kinzie

“Boys [sic] and Girls [sic] Game Play Preferences: Survey Results”

Lauren Davis

“Inside our Hidden Agenda: Using Contests to Generate New Ideas for Games in Education” (Never got to this. I’ve actually blogged about the Hidden Agenda effort before, and I would have loved to hear how the project is doing, but Joseph’s presentation held my attention.)

Michael Gibson

“Creating Life Experience Through Dramatic Simulations”

Sharon Sloane

“Exploring Game-Based Instructional Methodologies that Reach the Cognitive and Affective Learning Domains”

Ian Bogost

“Project Management: Avoiding Mistakes… If I Only Knew Then What I Know Now”

Well, it looks like the exhibit hall is supposed to be open now.

Update, 01 Nov: See my liveblogging from day 2