The Serious Games Summit grows up and debuts its own conference.

The Serious Games Summit, which in the past was tucked away into a corner of the Game Development Conference (GDC) in San Jose, is now on its own. Its recent inaugural event, in Washington, D.C. (not far from the Pentagon), was bursting at the seams — every presentation was SRO, and a great many people had to be turned away because of lack of space. Clearly, a lot of people are taking games very seriously.

Hundreds of people crowded into the conference rooms to hear presentations on GBL (Game Based Learning) for military, medicine, homeland security, universities (both for education and research), NASA, businesses and many other applications. The scene was surreal, with a strange admixture of professors in suits and uniformed officers in the foyer next to younger types in T-shirts whooping it up as they fired electronic guns at moving targets in game demonstration setups, and sober vendor booths obviously used to catering only to government clients sharing the air with more casual Hollywood-type suppliers such as Avid, Alienbrain, Softimage and ATI.

It should come as no surprise that games can have serious purposes — they are as old as man himself, or even older (the next time you visit a zoo, watch the baby monkeys or wolf cubs tussling and tumbling in their games to learn about their life paths and how to get chow). Games form a relatively inexpensive means to train many military missions compared with live exercises, saving the wear and tear on actual tanks, Hummers, aircraft and other vehicles, while reducing the very high dangers of in-the-field training for soldiers. They can also be used pervasively, during the “free time” in a soldier’s life, as a more productive use of his time than meditating at great length on heat, social conditions and sand fleas. This type of game is to be distinguished from military simulators — million-dollar replicas of actual fighting systems that have been around for decades (the first simulator was developed by Link for the Army Air Corps in the 1920s).

The U.S. Army, a major sponsor of the Serious Game Summit, produces America’s Army, one of the most popular online games today. Credit: U.S. Army.

Simulators can have some of the aspects of games, including good 3D CGI-based virtual environments, realistic weaponry, rules and procedures, objectives, conflict and the ability to improve, but usually pay little attention to motivating the player, and lack many of the most dramatic elements of gameplay, such as a compelling backstory, ongoing online communities of players with cultures, traditions and artifacts, player roles and character development, and the ability to quickly introduce player feedback into the game (a good summary of successful game elements can be found in Game Design Workshop, by Fullerton and Swain).

A major sponsor of the Serious Games Summit was the U.S. Army, which is greatly increasing the scope of its America’s Army game. Originally meant as a PR and recruiting tool, the game is now being expanded to becoming a platform for other Army missions such as experimenting with tactics and testing new equipment. America’s Army is one of the five most popular online games in the world, with more than four million players signing up in the last two years. It provides an interesting case study to see how a “serious” game gets developed — and some of the challenges that come along the way.