GAMES are becoming a serious business. The inaugural Serious Games Conference 2010 – Games for Learning, which took place on 3 and 4 March 2010, showed how games have grown beyond simple entertainment and earned a place in the world of learning.

The event at Suntec Convention Centre saw 125 delegates from the games industry gain wisdom from eminent figures in the serious games sphere, such as Mr Ben Sawyer, co-founder of the Serious Games Initiative – based in Washington DC – which forges links between the electronic games industry and projects involving using games in "serious" areas such as education, training, health, and even public policy.

In his welcome address, Mr Thomas Lim, Senior Director (Special Programs) with the Media Development Authority (MDA), which supported the conference, noted that serious games have until recently been a neglected segment in game development.

However, with greater adoption of game technology and design by governments and the military as well as the corporate world, and demonstrated with applications in training, transportation, logistics, healthcare and research, "there has been a notable increase in the awareness and acknowledgement of its impact, effectiveness and of most importance to game companies - the commercial viability of this domain," he said.

MDA aims to spearhead the creation of a wide range of serious games products with global appeal, after test-bedding them in Singapore. "This serves as a scaleable distribution model, which will enable Singaporean media companies to reach a global audience in the most effective way," said Mr Lim.

To make this vision a reality, MDA will tap into both Singapore’s reputation as an education centre, as well as the pervasive leveraging of media and technology in schools to bring about engaged learning. MDA is also championing the innovative and extensive use of media in other domains such as tourism, the military, healthcare and financial services.

Speaking via videoconferencing, Mr Sawyer warned industry players against being “too blinkered” in their definition of the segment. Most people tend to define serious games based only on what they are doing. In actual fact, it encompasses everything from simple trivia games to virtual reality and simulation, and includes games that are created for entertainment, but which are being put to “serious” use by consumers, like those who use certain games for the Wii for exercise.

While there is a huge potential for serious games, he observed that "getting consumers to see games as a strategic resource is critical to our long-term success".

Mr Mervyn Levin, who spoke on the topic Integrating the Cross Pollination between Serious Games, Social Networks, Virtual Worlds and Games, highlighted the power of immersive technologies to "engage our hearts, minds and wallets", which lends them extra effectiveness as aids in learning and even in healthcare.

He said: "Gaming is a sophisticated set of interactions that have their own reality, as opposed to being just a form of escapism."

He also noted that developing good serious games involves a combination of hard and soft sciences, ranging from storytelling to law, and that it takes synergies in multi-disciplinary fields for the simulation of human behaviour. "We have to get out of our silos quickly in order to be competitive," he advised.

He also noted that developing good serious games involves a combination of hard and soft sciences, ranging from storytelling to law, and that it takes synergies in multi-disciplinary fields for the simulation of human behaviour. "We have to get out of our silos quickly in order to be competitive," he advised.