Video games are one of today’s most popular forms of entertainment. But what is less obvious is their increasing importance in other areas of society.
At the University of Southern California, researchers are hard at work applying video game technology to areas like education, science and the arts. The video game industry, focused on mesmerizing gamers, is simultaneously driving digital innovation.
Globally, video games brought in more than $30 billion in 2005, a number that is projected to nearly double in 2007. At the center of this electronic boom is the growing synergy between Silicon Valley and Hollywood.
But as our audio-slideshow explores, there may soon be a time when we no longer think of “video games” as just entertainment. New applications, like the virtual world, Second Life, indicate new ways to network, communicate and do business.
Related feature at KCET.org:
- Independent Games: At the periphery of a multi-million dollar enterprise, a group of designers, programmers and activists foreshadow the emergence of an independent movement in the gaming industry.
Institutions, games and sources in this slideshow:
- Interactive Media Division at USC’s School of Cinema-Television
- GamePipe Laboratory at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering
- USC’s Anneberg School for Communication
- America’s Army, a free, online computer game.
- Cloud, a free, online game developed by USC’s Interactive Media Division.
- Tactical Iraqi, a language training program for U.S. soldiers, developed by researchers at USC’s Information Sciences Institute.
- Second Life, a virtual, social network, developed by Linden Lab.
- Neverwinter Nights, an online computer game developed by BioWare Corporation, licensed and re-purposed for USC’s Modern Prometheus project.
- GameSpot, an online news and resource site focused on electronic gaming.
Video games in the press:
- Video Game Brainwaves Used to Fight ADD, National Public Radio reports on how video games can help children and adults with attention deficit disorder. It also profiles a company that develops brainwave sensors.
- Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time, a New York Times article about “serious,” socially conscious video games.
- My Virtual Life, a BusinessWeek, cover story about the virtual economy within Second Life.
- A Dose of Virtual Reality, a BusinessWeek story on how the Virtual Reality Medical Center in San Diego is using video games to help treat Iraq veterans with acute post traumatic stress disorder.
- Dream Machines, a special Wired magazine issue that profiles new, social trends in video games. Guest editor Will Wright, the visionary behind The Sims and Spore, begins the issue with a thought-provoking introduction.
- My Second Life as a Muckraker, in the same Wired issue, Mark Wallace, a contributing writer for the New York Times, reports on his experiences as an “embedded journalist” in Second Life.
- You Play World of Warcraft? You’re Hired! USC professors John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas, look at work versus play in today’s high-tech office.
Additional resources:
- Second Life’s online pool of photos on Yahoo’s Flickr — a fascinating look at an evolving, virtual society.
- Games and Culture, a Journal of Interactive Media (with free, downloadble PDF samples), edited by Douglas Thomas, is the first quarterly of its kind, with essays and papers contributed by academics from around the world.
- Gamasutra is a news and resource site that focuses on the business of making games.
- Emsense and NeuroSky are two companies that develop emotion-sensing, brainwave technology, or hybrid electro-encephalograms.
- Game Developers’ Conference
- E3: the Electronic Entertainment Expo
All images by Thomas Kelley and Marc Phu, unless specified
Some of the images are courtesy of the following:
- (C) Army Game Project for all America’s Army images
- AtariAge
- Blizzard Entertainment, World of Warcraft screenshots gallery
- BioWare Corporation, Neverwinter Nights screenshots gallery
- Tactical Language, Tactical Iraqi gallery
- Douglas Thomas and Modern Prometheus project
- Tracy Fullerton and Cloud project
- The Interactive Media Division at USC’s School of Cinema-Television
- The GamePipe Laboratory at USC’s Viterbi School of Engineering
- Game Developers’ Conference
- Emsense Corporation
- Steve Smith, Visualization Group of Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Linden Lab’s Second Life screenshot gallery
- Particpants and contributors to Second Life’s pool of Flickr images:
- Pathfinder Linden, aka John Lester
- Joannamkay
- Bryan Campen
- Bill Futreal
- Kisa Naumova
- Michael Verdi
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