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  • 2007 Serious Games Summit GDC: Jane McGonigal On ilovebees, ARGs This latest Serious Games Source feature covers a keynote by alternate reality game creator Jane McGonigal presented during the recent 2007 Serious Games Summit, during which she stated “I design games from the future,” and offered insight into the creation of Halo 2 ARG ilovebees.
  • Serious Game Engine Shootout In the march up to the Serious Games Shootout panel to take place in March during the Serious Games Summit in San Francisco, writer Richard Carey presents a comparative analysis of several prominent engines currently used for developing serious games, as well as quotes from the companies behind the technologies.
  • Playing with Fire: Enemy Dolls In this latest Playing with Fire feature, Powerful Robot Games' Gonzalo Frasca offers his unique insight into the perception of conflict in games, as well as in other media, and notes how looking at events through the eyes of the opposition could lead to better understanding.
IBM Announces Environmental Learning MMO For Kids[02.15.08]

IBM is set to launch a free multiplayer online game, titled PowerUp, which challenges teens to save a fictional planet from ecological disaster. Part of the company's broader educational initiative, the MMO will launch February 16th, 2008.

The game features three missions for solar, water and wind power that must be solved, either by players alone or in groups, before various environmental crises destroy the planet. IBM says it developed the online world to support educators in engaging children on environmental issues, leveraging kids' interest in virtual worlds and games. Interaction between players is restricted to phrase-based avatar chat, IBM says, to ensure safety.

IBM says it took 16 months to develop the online game, with advice from nearly 200 teens in the Connecticut Innovation Academy. IBM's TryScience team from the New York Hall of Science worked with The Tech Museum in San Jose, California and the Bakken Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota on the activities and game content.

The game will be accompanied by classroom lesson plans associated with the topics presented in the online experience, and will also include an interactive module to educate kids on 3D technologies used in virtual world building.

IBM international foundation president Stanley S. Litow said, "Innovation is the key to competitiveness in today's globally integrated economy, but just when we need it to skyrocket, interest in math and science has been declining in the United States. American competitiveness demands more interest in math and science by students. Virtual worlds and 3D are an unexplored resource in education. We asked our best researchers to incorporate the use of this technology into traditional educational curriculum."

By Leigh Alexander
February 15, 2008 07:53:00 AM PT