Study: MMORPGs Critical in Developing Tomorrow's Business Leaders

One of the neat things about educational videogames is the vast multitude of angles the research can take. Whether it is military/industrial applications, classroom adaptations, or medical appropriations, videogames can be used and studied in a wide variety of educational settings. Matthew Kirdahy has a nice article over at Sify.com on how playing MMORPGs can lead to enhanced business skills. Kirdahy gives a nod to another article appearing in the May issue of Harvard Business Review that marks the culmination of considerable research on the topic.

The article’s authors, Byron Reeves (Stanford University), Thomas W. Malone (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Tony O’Driscoll (North Carolina State), found that leadership in online games offers a sneak preview of tomorrow’s business world. In fact, they said these games exhibit leadership abilities crucial to the future of business.

Here is the key paragraph from the HBR article regarding the sometimes serendipitous but always interesting findings:

A number of our conclusions about the future of business leadership were unanticipated. For one, individuals you’d never expect to identify—and who’d never expect to be identified—as “high potentials” for real-world management training end up taking on significant leadership roles in games. Even more provocative was our finding that successful leadership in online games has less to do with the attributes of individual leaders than with the game environment, as created by the developer and enhanced by the gamers themselves. Furthermore, some characteristics of that environment—for example, immediate compensation for successful completion of a project with nonmonetary incentives, such as points for commitment and game performance—represent more than mere foreshadowing of how leadership might evolve.

Fortunately, of the article’s authors, Dr. O’Driscoll (now at Duke) has blogged extensively about the research behind the paper. You can find his most recent entry regarding what resulted in the HBR product here. A thorough write-up, with lots of links to articles, podcasts and work leading up to the findings can be found here.

Harvard Business School is no stranger to publishing research on video gaming and business applications. Beck and Wade published Got Game way back in 2004.

References:
Beck, J. C., & Wade, M. (2004). Got game: How the gamer generation is reshaping business forever. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kirdahy, M. (2008). How online videogames can help groom biz leaders. [Online]. Available: http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14721468

Reeves, B., Malone, T. W., & O’Driscoll, T. (2008, May). Leadership’s online labs. Harvard Business Review. [Online]. Available: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp;jsessionid=
3FGSKMZGNNJNSAKRGWDR5VQBKE0YIISW?ml_action=get-article&
articleID=R0805C&ml_page=1&ml_subscriber=true

One (Video Game) Controller to Rule Them All: Game Technology Invades the Military

Military reporters were buzzing this week about the new Universal Control System (UCS) from defense contractor Raytheon. The device is designed to control unmanned aerial vehicles (AEVs), and borrows liberally from videogame technologies.

Mark Scott from BusinessWeek reports from England:

On display at the biennial Farnborough Air Show in Britain, this next-generation ground control system for the likes of General Atomics’ Predator UAV has more in common with the Sony (SNE) PlayStation 3 than with the Northrop Grumman (NOC) F-14 Tomcat made famous by the classic 1980s movie Top Gun.

David Hambling over at Wired notes a variety of videogame technologies are finding their way into military applications.

- A Wii-mote controller is used for bomb disposal robots

- X-box contollers are used for piloting drones and robots

- The world’s fastest computer, to be used for nuclear simulations, is made using chips originally designed for gaming systems

- DARPA is developing technologies for ground forces from gaming chips that include radar, mapping, and tracking of enemy forces in real time while a soldier is in combat

References:
Hambline, D. (2008, July 19). Game controllers driving drones, nukes. [Online]. Retrieved July 20, 2008 from http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/07/wargames.html

Scott, M. (2008, July 16). Raytheon taps video games to pilot drones. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Retrieved July 20, 2008 from http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2008/
gb20080716_470794.htm

BusinessWeek’s Top 50 Videogame Innovations

Ernest W. Adams from DesignersNotebook.com, writing over at BusinessWeek, has an article on the top 50 videogame innovations. He explores everything from the first known examples of exploring and storytelling in games, to first person perspectives, to multiplayer dungeons. The article serves as a nice resource for gaming researchers, and provides plenty of good reading as well.

In other BusinessWeek news, the newest version of SimCity will offer global warming as a management variable.

References:
Adams, E. (2007, November 5). 50 greatest game innovations. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/
content/nov2007/id2007115_528484.htm

Gaming Industry Looks for Positive Side

David Perry of GameConsultants.com has a nice article in the current issue of BusinessWeek focusing on beneficial aspects of commercial games. Rather than dwell on purely academic benefits, Perry delves into the topic of how popular video games positively impact the audience. The first example he uses to illustrate this point is what a six year old girl learned about trebuchets from playing a video game.

Perry brings up Gee’s first book on the subject, then spends more time discussing Rusel DeMaria’s new book Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games. DeMaria’s much heralded five learning powers of games (motivation, immersion, identification, interactivity, and choice) comprise much of the remainder of the article. Joining in his conversation concerning these matters (via e-mail, apparently), were Chris Taylor, CEO of Gas Powered Games, and Bing Gordon, Chief Creative Office of Electronic Arts.

Perry concludes on a positive note, predicting a strong possibility of future efforts from the major gaming studios that will result in, “games that promote positive values, or that teach or inspire players.” Here’s hoping Perry’s prognostications come true.

References

Perry, D. (2007, August 13). Video games entertain and educate. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/aug2007/
id20070813_874107.htm

One Avatar for All Virtual Worlds

We use one web browser to surf all the sites on the web. Why can’t we have one avatar and use it to visit all the 3D worlds online? Such is the thinking of the Web 3D Consortium, Second Life parent Linden Lab, Google, IBM, and others, according to a recent article in BusinessWeek.

Another work in progress highlighted by article author Aili McConnon is that of The Multiverse Network, a product of Netscape alumni. Make a world using Multiverse tools, and any Multiverse avatar can traverse it. McConnon notes that abilities to traverse seamlessly between multiple 3D worlds owned by disparate companies is likely a decade away, give or take a year or two. But, progress is being made. Envision this day in the not too distant future: your avatar leaves class from the university and stops by the online mall to try on the latest fashions. Could happen.

References

McConnon, A. (2007, August 13). Just ahead: The web as a virtual world. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_33/b4046064.htm

Warcraft Comic Book Helps SAT Scores

… At least, that’s the idea. Elizabeth Woyke over at BusinessWeek reports that the Washington Post’s test prep company Kaplan has released a series of comic books designed to help buttress the vocabulary of young test-takers. The manga, or Japanese-style comic books so popular these days, are chock full of key words found on the SAT, PSAT, and ACT tests. Each word is used in context within the comic books, highlighted, and defined. Thus, future test takers can read a thrilling comic book and hopefully increase their vocabulary for the test.

Woyke reports that popular themes among youngsters provided the story and settings for the comic books:

Los Angeles publisher TOKYOPOP provided all the manga: a sci-fi fantasy, a medieval epic based on the hit video game Warcraft, and a swords-and-sorcery tale. To beef up the books’ SAT quotient, the companies upgraded some of the dialogue. But all the original art and story lines are preserved, says TOKYOPOP CEO Stu Levy.

The comic books may also appeal to English language learners.

A NanoMission for Tomorrow’s Scientists

Here is an article in BusinessWeek about British company PlayGen, a game studio developing science-oriented serious video games that are designed to inspire inquiry in young players.

The shortage of engineers and mathematicians starts long before students pick their college course load. “The next generation of scientists need to be inspired before they go to university,” says PlayGen Managing Director Kam Memarzia, an architect by training who started designing computer games for fun when he was just 12 years old. PlayGen’s goal is to create games that hold their own against popular crash-and-burn console titles, using the video game medium to engage junior high and high school students in real-life scientific scenarios.

The company has teamed up with partners to develop NanoMission, a series of 3-D games that instructs players in nanotechnology. NanoScale teaches about size.

The second, called NanoImaging, sponsored by FEI (FEIC), a U.S. company that makes nanotech tools, centers on a story about an environmental disaster that is affecting the world’s freshwater lakes and is threatening drinking water … A third game, about NanoMedicine, sponsored by the Wellcome Trust, an organization that supports health-related projects, illustrates how nanomedicine is developing new ways of delivering anti-cancer drugs.

Also be sure and take a look at the slideshow, titled Games to Excite Future Scientists, for several screenshots in the NanoMission series. The NanoMission games can be downloaded from http://www.nanomission.org/

Through sponsorship, we aim to make the PC version of the game, including a ‘teachers’ version which contains lesson plans and online support, available at no or minimal cost to schools and colleges throughout the globe with the initial emphasis focused on US and UK.

References

Schenker, J. L. (2007, July 11). PlayGen’s NanoMission. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available: http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2007/
gb20070710_244045.htm

Game Design & Business Lit

If you’ve read more than one or two of my posts, you might have noticed several references to The Wall Street Journal. Okay, I admit a predilection for business literature, despite the fact my field is education. And, business journalism is increasingly cognizant of the role video games are playing in the corporate world. I suspect that when Beck and Wade’s Got Game? was released by Harvard Business School, this trend accelerated.

So, I point readers to a great article in BusinessWeek by Eric-Jon Rossel Waugh. He beautifully summarizes the criticisms anti-gamers level at the industry, then explores the psychological components of game design. I don’t necessarily agree with all of his conclusions, but this article is well worth a look.

References

Beck, J. C. & Wade, M. (2004). Got game? How the gamer generation is reshaping business forever. Boston: Harvard University Press.

Waugh, E. J.R. (2007, June 22). The pathology of game design. BusinessWeek. [Online]. Available:

http://www.businessweek.com/print/innovate/content/jun2007/id20070622_722453.htm