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March 8, 2008

Make Games with MS Excel
by: Ilya Vedrashko

I wrote about games build in and for MS Excel earlier, and now Gamasutra runs a very detailed feature showing some of the hidden powers of the office application:

Continue reading "Make Games with MS Excel" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:51 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

March 7, 2008

Serious Games Predict Crowd Behavior in Dense Urban Settings
by: Eliane Alhadeff

Scientists who want to see how a crowd behaves in an emergency can now shout "Fire!" on a city street and watch everyone panic and run thanks to a newly developed computer simulation.

Continue reading "Serious Games Predict Crowd Behavior in Dense Urban Settings" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:54 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

March 2, 2008

Online Gamers Leave American Cars for Imports

by: Scott Goodson

gamers.png

The majority of gamers own American-made cars (24% Ford, 18% Chevrolet). However, 79% are planning to buy an import for their next car (41% Toyota, 41% Honda, 25% Nissan and others).

Continue reading "Online Gamers Leave American Cars for Imports" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:20 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

February 28, 2008

Despicable Use of In-Game Advertising

by: Ilya Vedrashko

Gamespot's Dubious Honors Awards for despicable use of in-game advertising:

2004 (Need for Speed Underground)
2005 (SWAT 4, where the dynamic in-game ads made one of the first appearances)
2006 (Fight Night Round 3, a boxing game with the Burger King's King in it)
2007 (Need for Speed ProStreet):

Continue reading "Despicable Use of In-Game Advertising " »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:10 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

G4H 2008: XRtainment Zone - Beyond Serious Games For Workouts

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Dr. Ernie Medina and his partners launched their first XRtainment Zone in California last year. The mission of XRtainment Zone is to provide families and kids of all ages a fitness club of their own "where working out is all play."

Continue reading "G4H 2008: XRtainment Zone - Beyond Serious Games For Workouts " »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:51 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

February 22, 2008

Serious Games Creating Entertaining Branding Experiences

by: Eliane Alhadeff

In malls, theaters and other spaces, Reactrix creates highly entertaining branding displays that respond to the physical movements of the audience.

The resulting "brand play" makes Reactrix the highest engagement advertising available today and reaches top-market venues with monthly traffic exceeding 100 million.

Continue reading "Serious Games Creating Entertaining Branding Experiences" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:45 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

February 18, 2008

GDC08: Serious Games As Passively Multiplayer Online Games

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Passively Multiplayer Online Games! We're already playing them; especially as we increasingly hang out with other people on the internets. And as the internets move into our pockets, our cities, our cars and our social lives!

Continue reading "GDC08: Serious Games As Passively Multiplayer Online Games" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:05 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

February 16, 2008

Serious Games Challenging Teenagers To Save The Planet

by: Eliane Alhadeff

IBM is launching a free multiplayer online game, PowerUp, challenging teenagers to help save the planet "Helios" from ecological disaster.

The game is part of IBM's TryScience initiative and will be launched at Engineer's Week 2008 opening on February 16 in Washington, D.C. The game, which can be played alone or together, features a planet in near ecological ruin where three exciting missions for solar, wind and water power must be solved before sandstorms, floods or SmogGobs thwart the rescue.

Continue reading "Serious Games Challenging Teenagers To Save The Planet" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:09 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

February 1, 2008

How to Homebrew Wii Games: 73 Tips, Tutorials and Resources
by: Amy S. Quinn (guest blogger)

Certainly you've heard that fully integrated Wii homebrews are in the near future, but did you know that developers are already homebrewing for the Wii? Through the Internet Channel, you can play Flash and Javascript games, and yes, even make your own. So if you've spent all your money on a bidding war to get the Wii and you're out of cash for games, follow this guide to some of the best Wii homebrew resources out there.

Continue reading "How to Homebrew Wii Games: 73 Tips, Tutorials and Resources" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:50 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

Serious Games For Hospitality Training

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Hilton Garden Inn, the award-winning mid-priced hotel brand with locations throughout North America and Europe, this week unveiled Ultimate Team Play - the first interactive training game to be used in the hospitality industry that utilizes game-based technology.

Continue reading "Serious Games For Hospitality Training" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:38 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 26, 2008

Advergames for iPhone

by: Ilya Vedrashko

Not too many of those. Actually, just one.


Continue reading "Advergames for iPhone " »

Posted by Futurelab at 12:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 19, 2008

Microsoft ESP Leveling The Serious Games Market Playing Field

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Following my recent posts Serious Games Market Enroll Major Players, $9 Bi: Microsoft's Conservative Estimate For The Serious Games Market and Microsoft Shaping The Serious Games Movement Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Market , I thought it was time to go deeper into the Microsoft ESP Commercial Off The Shelf (COTS) platform under a marketability perspective.

Continue reading "Microsoft ESP Leveling The Serious Games Market Playing Field " »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:40 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 17, 2008

MellaniuM: When Reality Feels Like a Serious Game

by: Eliane Alhadeff

The revelation that games could be serious has now become conventional wisdom: "we've gone from games representing life to becoming life".

Continue reading "MellaniuM: When Reality Feels Like a Serious Game " »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:20 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 15, 2008

MySpace Builds Game Portal?
by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business & Games)

Looks like MySpace is working on a gaming portal. The URL for this page is games.myspace.com. This could be a hit if the games are less like the ones you can find on other casual game destinations (Yahoo Games, for example) and more like Facebook app games with a stronger social component to them. Social advergames on MySpace would also be an interesting ad channel.

Continue reading "MySpace Builds Game Portal?" »

Posted by Futurelab at 4:06 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 12, 2008

Serious Games And Blended Learning

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Blended Learning involves the use of multiple learning environments - usually some combination of physical/face-to-face and online/virtual approaches.

In the strictest sense, blended learning is when an instructor combines two methods of delivery of instruction. However, this term most often applies to the use of technology on instruction.

Continue reading "Serious Games And Blended Learning" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:58 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 8, 2008

Serious Games Radically Enhancing Spectator Experience At Public Media Events

by: Eliane Alhadeff

On 30th November Visualise was at the Wales Rally for the first public trial of the enhanced Visualise system.

Continue reading "Serious Games Radically Enhancing Spectator Experience At Public Media Events" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:14 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 5, 2008

The Future Of Serious Games

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Games that provide players with opportunities to learn and understand complex situations or different points of view have emerged as a distinct subset of videogames.

Increasingly, creators are taking the definitions of “play” and “learn” in new directions, often blending the two creatively.

Continue reading "The Future Of Serious Games" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:55 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

January 1, 2008

Converging Toys, Part II
by: C. Sven Johnson

Some time back I wrote a blog entry titled, “Converging Toys, Part I” with the intention of writing a “Part II” shortly after. Needless to say, this follow-up is a long time in coming, but I can’t think of a better time than now, as it comes so soon after Christmas.

Continue reading "Converging Toys, Part II" »

Posted by Futurelab at 2:59 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

December 24, 2007

$9 Bi: Microsoft's Conservative Estimate for the Serious Games Market

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Following my prior post Microsoft Shaping The Serious Games Movement Into A Multi-Billion Dollar Market, where I state that "by no means would Microsoft join either a current $ 150 million dollar market or a to-be $ 1 billion market only in 2011" (as projected by a few sources), BusinessWeek has published an article this week where David Boker, senior director of the Business Development Group at Microsoft's Aces Studio, one of Microsoft's game studios where ESP was developed, says Microsoft conservatively estimates this market at $9 billion.

Continue reading "$9 Bi: Microsoft's Conservative Estimate for the Serious Games Market" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:32 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

December 21, 2007

Mapping The Serious Games Industry Within The UK

by: Eliane Alhadeff  (also see Business&Games)

The West Midlands (UK) region is fast becoming recognized as one of the key EU regions with regard to the development of Serious Games.

Continue reading "Mapping The Serious Games Industry Within The UK " »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:43 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

December 14, 2007

Serious Games As Customer Touchpoints

by: Eliane Alhadeff (also see Business & Games)



By 2010, says Gartner, 20% of global Tier 1 retailers will have some kind of marketing presence in online games and virtual worlds.

Continue reading "Serious Games As Customer Touchpoints" »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:06 AM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

NPD Report 63% of Americans Playing Video Games
by: Karl Long

According to a new NPD Report video games are becoming and increasingly mainstream activity with a reported 63% of Americans playing video games, and 30% of them playing them more than last year. It’s rather amusing in many ways that “video games” essentially got hijacked by teenaged boys (both figuratively and literally) for the last decade (me being one of them). But with innovations in gameplay like the Wii, social games like Guitar Hero, and Rock Band video games are becoming again, just games, encouraging us to play, and play together.

Continue reading "NPD Report 63% of Americans Playing Video Games" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:58 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

December 2, 2007

Venture Capitalist Sees Growing Investment Opportunities in Serious Games

by: Eliane Alhadeff (via Business & Games)

What makes Serious Games attractive to investors

Via: Richard Carey - Digital Media Solutions, Serious Games & Learning Smiluations
 

As anticipated on my prior posts focused on Serious Games Market Size, funding has started to become available from foundations, governmental agencies, non-profits and venture capitalists.

Continue reading "Venture Capitalist Sees Growing Investment Opportunities in Serious Games" »

Posted by Futurelab at 10:49 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 26, 2007

Second Slice: Serious Games Embed Ambitious Marketing
by: Eliane Alhadeff (via Business & Games)

A new Canadian online digital magazine, Second Slice, focuses on issues of marketing in virtual worlds (click here to download)

According to its publisher and VP at One Up Marketing, Mario Parisé. Second Slice is “an attempt to give marketers who are active in virtual worlds a stronger and more unified voice. It all got started when the more mainstream business press decided to go on a Second Life bashing spree, ridiculing marketers and businesses going in-world.”

Continue reading "Second Slice: Serious Games Embed Ambitious Marketing" »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:51 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 23, 2007

Serious Games To Understand Nanothech Available For Download

by: Eliane Alhadeff

Via: NanoMission - 3 Games Modules Available For Download!

Following my prior post Serious Games To Understand Nanotech, PlayGen has made 3 game modules available for download:NanoMedicine, NanoScaling and Nano Imaging.

Continue reading "Serious Games To Understand Nanothech Available For Download" »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:08 PM | | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 21, 2007

Serious Games Pioneering How We Will Learn & Work In The Future

by: Eliane Alhadeff  (via Business & Games)

For most people, video games mean entertainment, like TV or the movies. But their true meaning may be much bigger, impacting every aspect of our world, from education to business, society and culture.

IBM explores how video games may impact every aspect of our world, from education to business, society and culture.

Continue reading "Serious Games Pioneering How We Will Learn & Work In The Future" »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:48 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 18, 2007

Interview with Arlen Ritchie, Moola's CEO

by: Alex Eperjessy (via Business & Games)

They call themselves a hot new advergaming company. Blogger opinions are already split on this, with some calling it a great idea and others arguing that it’s nothing but a fishy scheme. Last week, Moola’s CEO, Arlen Ritchie, gave me a presentation that stretched slightly over one hour. He gave the demo, I asked the questions. The result is below, God help us all.

Continue reading "Interview with Arlen Ritchie, Moola's CEO" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:06 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 13, 2007

Serious Games Bring the Mall to Web Browsers

by: Eliane Alhadeff

A web based virtual shopping mall launched in New Zealand, allows users to navigate a three dimensional space to browse and buy products, bringing what the company says is the same shopping experience as in the real world. http://www.themallplus.com/ is not a portal that redirects consumers to third party websites, instead creating an online virtual shopping mall.

Continue reading "Serious Games Bring the Mall to Web Browsers" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:17 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 9, 2007

Business & Games Blog Out of Beta

by: Alain Thys

It took us a while, yet we finally found an angle from which Business & Games: The Blog could add some value to your daily RSS-fix. From now on, Alex Eperjessy (aka. our guy in Romania)  will provide daily updates on the ways businesses like your own include games and virtual worlds in their marketing, HR and operations. This while our contributing bloggers Ilya, Eliane and C.Sven will continue to give deeper insights on what's really going on in advergaming, serious games and the various virtual realities.

Continue reading "Business & Games Blog Out of Beta" »

Posted by Futurelab at 1:17 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 6, 2007

Call for Interest: It's Time European Brands Got Serious about Virtual Worlds

by: Alain Thys

 

sleeping-avatar.jpg

In America, brands experiment in Second Life and There, hang out on Laguna Beach or even set up their own not-so-little universe. Korea has Cyworld  and China is building one of the most ambitious virtual worlds on the planet (or should I call it an e-commerce enabled mass-customisation system with virtual world storefront ?) 

 

And meanwhile, Europe sleeps.

Continue reading "Call for Interest: It's Time European Brands Got Serious about Virtual Worlds" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:56 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

November 2, 2007

Screenshots: Kinset 3D Shopping Browser
by: Ilya Vedrashko

Kinset is a new company that builds virtual 3D storefronts for online and multi-channel retailers. The storefronts can be viewed with a special browser that comes in a rather small download. One of the potential applications for the service is a virtual environment that can be used to test real-world store layouts, and this video shows how these storefronts are generated and populated with merchandise.

Continue reading " Screenshots: Kinset 3D Shopping Browser" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:03 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 29, 2007

IAB defines types of game advertising
by: Alain Thys (via Business & Games)

Now marketers have finally caught on to this interactive thing and seem to be ever more shy of places to put their new found digital 2008 budgets, gaming finally seems to be hitting the radar as well.  An excellent time to seize the day, the guys at IAB must have thought as they just released the first of a series of papers to establish some standards in the chaotic world of advergaming (or was it gamevertising?).

Continue reading "IAB defines types of game advertising" »

Posted by Futurelab at 7:52 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 24, 2007

Guinness has hidden an ad online

by: Karl Long

Guinness has added a little twist to its latest advertising campaign and have hidden it online somewhere for someone to find. In good old ARG (alternate reality game) tradition they have started this game off with a couple of clues, in this case a fictional Mayor called Juan Ramon has put a video on youtube and created a pdf letter to share.

Continue reading "Guinness has hidden an ad online" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:20 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 19, 2007

Sony's Virtual World Brand-Friendly

by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business & Games)

A couple of announcements indicating that Sony's upcoming PlayStationHome (site, wiki) virtual world will have plenty of ad inventory:

Continue reading "Sony's Virtual World Brand-Friendly " »

Posted by Futurelab at 8:19 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 17, 2007

Greener SimCity Virtual World as Channel to Influence Real World Behaviors

by: David Wigder

Electronic Arts (EA)’s SimCity, the popular simulation game that challenges users to build and run a metropolis, is set to release its latest version in mid-November - SimCity Societies - and is generating a lot of buzz in the process. 

Continue reading "Greener SimCity Virtual World as Channel to Influence Real World Behaviors" »

Posted by Futurelab at 11:05 AM | | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 14, 2007

Serious Games Set In Your Favorite Google Earth Locations

by: Eliane Alhadeff (via Business & Games)

Architectural Wonders Allowing Anyone to Create a Working Virtual World. Virtual-worlds platform developer Multiverse Network is set to announce a partnership Tuesday that will allow anyone to create a new online interactive 3D environment with just about any model from Google's online repository of 3D models, its 3D Warehouse, as well as terrain from Google Earth. 

Continue reading "Serious Games Set In Your Favorite Google Earth Locations" »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:10 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 13, 2007

OnRez Second Life Viewer: Serious Games Embrace New Way To Watch Entertainment

by: Eliane Alhadeff (see: Business & Games)

On the October 24 episode of CBS' hit drama CSI: NY, the crime procedural will feature a murder investigation that meanders into the virtual world of Second Life. Gary Sinise's detective will track a real-life killer all the way into the popular world of Second Life.

Continue reading "OnRez Second Life Viewer: Serious Games Embrace New Way To Watch Entertainment " »

Posted by Futurelab at 9:43 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)  • Email this article to a friend

October 12, 2007

Video: Toyota in World of Warcraft

by: Ilya Vedrashko (via Business &am