Coming of age? Serious games market is gaining momentum.

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BALTIMORE -- The "serious games" industry, after years of trial and error, is beginning to capitalize on the lucrative alliance between education and entertainment.

Defining what constitutes a "serious game" is an ongoing debate. But as the market matures and burgeons into other sectors, people are starting to understand the concept of using game technology for non-entertainment purposes, say experts.

"We think the market has matured to the point where now when you talk to people in Boston or California and say serious games, they'll say, 'yeah, I get it,'" says Jerry Heneghan, chief executive officer for Virtual Heroes, a game development company based in North Carolina.

Big defense companies are realizing that they need dedicated teams to chase down projects in which game design might play a role.

"They don't want to look like they're behind the curve," says Ben Sawyer, co-founder of the Serious Games Initiative, a grassroots organization that supports the use of gaming technology in non-traditional sectors. "Now big corporations are saying, 'We have a games group and a virtual worlds group.' Before long, it's going to be pervasive. On the way there, there's going to be a lot of jockeying going on."

Large defense contractors that were once spectators of serious games now are partnering with game developers and in some cases, acquiring gaming companies.

"The fact that they're jumping in--I think that's the ultimate assessment," says Sawyer. "Basically they're saying, 'this is here to stay.'"

The global popularity of virtual communities such as Second Life, and the advent of social networking websites such as Facebook, has added a new dimension to the serious games debate. The excitement surrounding these technologies has created fresh opportunities for the gaming industry, says Doug Whatley, founder and chief executive officer of BreakAway Ltd., a game development company based in Hunt Valley, Md.

"We get calls everyday from around the world, whether it's mining, or accounting, or auditing. Everybody's looking at how to apply gaming to solve their problems," says Whatley.

Online worlds have demonstrated how people can communicate and collaborate in a virtual environment. Those same technologies can be used to help large organizations conduct their business and solve problems, says Heneghan, whose company developed the successful online game, "America's Army."

Agencies have approached Virtual Heroes about creating products similar to "America's Army."

NASA, in particular, wants to generate enthusiasm about space exploration and to recruit its next generation workforce through an online game. Likewise, the Department of Homeland Security wants an online game to train first responders for natural and man-made disasters.

"If we can use distributed interactive technologies, we can have people training to a national standard 24-7, and really embrace a lot of the underserved people in the volunteer wings, like the paramedics," says Heneghan.

The company is creating a game that will train 900,000 emergency medical services personnel in a virtual metropolis named after a victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

First responders will engage in exercises and missions that focus on four areas: chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and explosives detection; triage and pre-hospital treatment; information collection and threat recognition; and information sharing and collaboration.

The multiplayer game will be released in the summer and will be distributed on the Internet, where up to 64 people will be able to play simultaneously.

Another up-and-coming homeland security game is "Ground Truth," which casts players as first responders to a terrorist attack or natural disaster. A team of computer scientists from Sandia National Laboratories and University of Southern California's GamePipe Laboratory has developed a prototype.

Ground Truth provides a virtual environment where players see the effects of their decisions under the constraints of time and resources.

The GamePipe Laboratory, which is part of the USC Viterbi School of Engineering's computer science department, has emerged as a major training ground, with nearly 100 students now pursuing graduate and undergraduate degrees in games specialization, including a large number focusing on serious games, said a Sandia news release.

Visually, Ground Truth looks somewhat like the popular "SimCity" community-building simulation game, with a nameless urban environment at the center of the action.

One of the scenarios involves a chlorine spill, and users are required to move pieces around--much like a chess game--in order to best mitigate the consequences of the incident.

If an accident scene requires a roadblock to divert traffic, for example, a user might choose to send the police to the area. Medical staging might be engaged to treat victims, though users need to keep an eye on any toxic fogs that could affect the success of the operation. A "progress thermometer" in the upper right-hand corner of the computer screen helps them to gauge the success of their moves.

Ground Truth is part of the "real-time strategy" genre of video games and a fitting example of the serious games movement.

There is a myth that the serious games market is dominated by the Defense Department. But military games dominate a much smaller segment of the industry than most people realize, says Sawyer.

Healthcare currently is the fastest growing segment for serious games, he adds.

While the military has led the way in most simulation-based training, it is still seeking improved gaming technology for non-traditional missions. The Pentagon has all sorts of simulations to teach troops how to put bombs on target, but it lacks models to train troops on "softer" factors, such as how to negotiate with city councils to improve the schools.

"They're turning to gaming, not because we've been innovative, but with games like SimCity and some of the historical games ... those are the only places where they can see where anyone has tried modeling society," says Whatley. "Those are the things we always believed that games were the best at, and now we're getting to apply that in important ways."

The House of Representatives in July passed a resolution to make modeling and simulation a vital infrastructure of the country: Having that sort of support and recognition on Capitol Hill will help the industry grow, says Whatley.

One likely area for future growth is healthcare, where medical mistakes cause 100,000 deaths per year. That would require a 747 jet crashing every day to generate that many fatalities, says Whatley.

If the medical industry is forced to evaluate whether it can eliminate those deaths, it will need strong modeling and simulation tools, he says. "There's a feeling that computing power has reached a point where we need to take it to the next level."

Game companies are beginning to diversify their offerings. Some are providing tools to allow customers to make or modify their own games, while others are trying to build systems that will yield multiple products, not just a single game, says Whatley. "We want our customers creating all this great content."

Virtual Heroes is taking a different tactic. "Our position is, people don't come to us for tools. They want stuff that comes out of a box," says Heneghan. "They want a product that will train their people, but they want the ability to tweak and tune scenarios and throw curve balls at the students. We get them most of the way there, out of the box, and then if they want anything extensible, we can do that."

The lack of industry standards is a challenge that many companies are currently circumventing. "They're taking their stovepipe solution and broadening it out. I don't mean that critically. They're trying to solve their own problems," says Sawyer.

Companies want standards and many are thinking about how to tackle the issue. "Unless the government or some of the big firms, such as Microsoft and Cisco and the like, dictate how it's going to go, it's only going to happen in fits and starts," says Sawyer.

Game companies in the entertainment industry are not going to wait for standards if they can get by with a different technology and make a few million on a new game.

"During the next 20 and 30 years, games and simulations and virtual reality, social networking, all of this is going to be dropped into one pot, and we'll start figuring out what works and what doesn't work," says Sawyer.

Additional reporting by Sandra I. Erwin

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