A 'Serious' Direction for Video Games

Oct. 28, 2005 &#151 -- In this week's "Cybershake," we take a look at how video games are being developed for more than just fun and entertainment. Plus, we note how some scientists are hoping to literally grow a new source of power.

The $9.9 billion video game business may be all based on the idea of entertainment for the masses. But for hundreds of game developers, hardware makers, researchers, scientists and others, the technologies and theories behind all the fun and games can be serious stuff.

On Oct. 31, the Serious Games Summit gets under way in Washington D.C. Its sole focus: To bring together the computer gaming industry with other experts from various fields for more than just a good time.

"'Serious gaming' is the idea of using [video] gaming technology, gaming theory and those kinds of things to understand complex dynamic processes," says Dr. David Warner, a neuroscientist and one of the principle founders of MindTel, LLC, a technology company in Syracuse, N.Y.

For example, powerful computer hardware and software have been used for years to help train pilots and other operators of complex machines. And as graphical capabilities continue to expand, such simulations have expanded to other areas -- virtual worlds where soldiers can learn how to fight in urban surroundings, or doctors can practice difficult surgical procedures.

But according to Warner, for serious gaming to really take off, developers will have to look beyond current technology -- a point he'll try to stress in his keynote address at the summit.

"From a progress point of view, we really don't stand much further than where we were [in] 1992 or 1993," he says. "There really aren't that many new interface modalities… [and] if you look at the mouse, the human body has so much more capacity to dynamically interact with information."

People learn best, says Warner, when all their senses are engaged and providing their brains with "input."

"If I'm standing in a crowd… I'm not just using my eyes for information. I'm feeling the environment, I'm sensing things, I'm hearing things, I'm smelling things," he says. "We're actually trying to use the body as the interface to the mind."

Warner says that if simulation designers and computer hardware makers could make that leap beyond today's "flinch and twitch" interfaces, there would be "a thousand-fold increase in the capacity for humans to interact with information systems."

"It's the evolutionary step so humans become more connected to the digital environment," he says.