eGames Presenters Announced

David Wortley
David Wortley (pictured) is Director of the Serious Games Institute (SGI) at Coventry University. He is responsible for the development of the Institute as a brand new self-financing initiative to establish a centre of excellence for the emerging serious games application area. Working with academics, regional development agencies and leading computer games companies, David aims to make the SGI a thought leader and focal point for games based learning, simulation and immersive 3D virtual environments.

Professor Lizbeth Goodman
Professor Lizbeth Goodman joined the University of East London as the new Chair of Creative Technology Innovation in 2005. She is also Founder & Director of the SMARTlab Digital Media Institute & the MAGIC Multimedia & Games Innovation Centre, Gamelab and PLAYroom.

She has also been awarded a Microsoft Community Affairs Senior Research Fellowship for her work on a new series of books on Digital Culture and real people: the Emergenc(i)es series with MIT Press.

New labs, development studios and an expanded Practice-based PhD Programme have just been launched in the Knowledge Dock, UEL, in the Thames Gateway, with major collaborative projects underway, and with major internatioal projects soon to roll out, from a range of digital media disciplines across the spectrum of ‘gaming for non-gamers’. . .

Professor Goodman directs studies for a group of professional new media artists and technology developers from SME, industry and the creative industry sectors. SMARTlab's customised live and online Practice-based PhD programme is noted as one of the world’s largest and most successful cross-disciplinary cohorts of higher level researchers, grounded in community need and creative industry theory and practice.

SMARTlab is an agency for social change, operating a core research unit and two wings, spanning the non-profit and creative industries sectors, with partners and funders in major NGO and Industry companies worldwide.

SMARTlab is the UK base for the MAGICbox Accessible tech programme, and for the Microsoft Clubtech Programme, which Professor Goodman has led in its critical review stages (as the largest project providing game and educational technology tools to over 4.3 million under-privileged young people worldwide).

Lizbeth is also known as a professional performer and presenter, with many years of experience in live and telematic writing, improvisation, performance and direction. She has worked extensively in comedy and theatre and television/convergent media entertainment, and has recently won commissions to create a new style of empowering online and live performance game. As a professional TV presenter for the BBC of many years’ experience, Lizbeth is a much sought after public speaker for keynote lectures and main stage platforms, as well as for broadcasts.

Much of SMARTlab’s work focuses on application of Universal Design methods to the domain of community inclusion and empowerment. As head of the SPIRITLEVEL consortium- a group that has worked across national borders and disciplines to create bio-sensor and live performance experiences for children and adults in need of physical therapy and rehabilitation. One of the first major UK experimental biotech movement projects, premiered at the SMARTclub in 2002, is now known as Flutterfugue, wherein Lizbeth dances with real and animated butterflies (in wheelchairs and in the air) worldwide, to an original responsive score composed by Nick Ryan of BBC Imagineering. New Projects called HOPE (Hospitals Online for Persistent/Pedeatric Environments) and TRUST (a bespoke role play game for children collaborating online, written by Lizbeth) will soon be launched on hospital networks around the world, each linked to a live performance. TRUST is currently funded by NESTA and creating new games and expressive forms for children at the Stephen Hawking School, East London.

Lizbeth was previously Director of the SMARTlab Centre at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design, and before that, founded and led the INMPR at the University of Surrey, following on from eight years leading the BBC Open University's multimedia research teams in Shakespeare, Drama, Gender Studies and Literature. She has worked extensively for the BBC as a researcher, writer and presenter of Learning and Arts/Media Programmes.

She is a regular reviewer/validator for many independent courses and broadcast programmes and for publishers of print and online packages, and for major funding bodies and award panels internationally. She currently chairs the SciArt Committee Awards Panel for the Wellcome Trust, and serves on the steering groups and funding panels of the EC (SaferInternet Plus and Digicult DGs), the Canadian Innovation Fund, et al.

Lizbeth is the author and editor of some 13 books including a range of titles on women and theatre, the arts, representation and creativity. She has also written and produced a wide range of multimedia programmes ranging from educational CD ROMs and video/media packs to more experimental online performance events, including the Extended Body Project.

She has served as the Principal Investigator of the SMARTshell Project (creating innovative tools for synchronous and asynchronous online/integrated performance and learning), and of the Virtual Interactive Puppetry Project, the British Council's Cultural and Media Studies development programmes in North Africa, and the European Commission's RADICAL project (Research Agendas Developed in Creative Arts Labs). She collaborated on the dramaturgical elements of the EC and Telefilm Code Zebra Project in the UK (for which SMARTlab held the European Commission Culture 2002 Award), working with international partners at the BNMI, BBC, V2, UCLA, et al.

She is currently PI of the major InterFACES Project- putting a human face on new technology.
She also holds current major awards to head teams funded by the BBC, Nesta, and Microsoft.

While she has been known in the learning and e-learning communities as an expert in mediated and connected learning methods (since her award winning, best selling work with the Open University and BBC in the 1990s), Lizbeth is now known equally as a scholar of new media practices that cut across learning, gaming, performance and social responsibility. Lizbeth is currently completing her own new book, which will kick off her new series for MIT Press on EMERGENC(i)es: new concepts and practices in media, technology and culture.

Dr. Sara de Freitas
Sara has recently taken up a new role as Director of Research at the Serious Games Institute at the University of Coventry where she leads an applied research team working closely with industry. The Institute is the first of its kind in the UK and it is envisaged that it will play a leading role in future developments of game-based learning. Formerly Sara worked as Lab Manager, Project Manager on development programmes and Senior Research Fellow at the London Knowledge Lab. The Lab is a collaborative venture between Birkbeck College and the Institute of Education, University of London focusing upon technology assisted learning. Sara continues to hold a visiting senior research fellowship at the Lab.

Sara also works with the UK Joint Information Systems Committee e-Learning Development Programme in the Innovation strand, exploring the applications and developments of innovative technologies upon post-16 learning. Sara’s recent report Learning in Immersive Worlds reviews the uses of game-based learning and presents a set of case studies of practice. Sara is also working with TruSim (Blitz Games), the Vega Group PLC and the Universities of Birmingham and Sheffield on a £2 million UK Department of Trade and Industry co-funded Serious Games research and development project which will develop highly immersive learning games to solve business training needs.

In 2003 Sara founded the UK Lab Group, which brings the research and development community together to create stronger links between industrial and academic research through supporting collaborative programmes and for showcasing innovative R&D solutions for the knowledge economy. Sara publishes in the areas of: pedagogy and e-learning; change management and strategy development for implementing e-learning systems and educational games and electronic simulations for supporting post-16 training and learning. Sara also works as a consultant through her recently established partnership company: Innovatech llp.

Relevant links:
The JISC Innovation Strand: www.jisc.ac.uk/
The Lab Group: http://www.labgroup.org.uk/
The London Knowledge Lab: http://www.lkl.ac.uk/
The MyPlan project: www.lkl.ac.uk/research/myplan/
The Serious Games project: http://www.lkl.ac.uk/graphics/projectsheets/sg.pdf
Learning in Immersive worlds report:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning_innovation/eli_outcomes.html
The Serious Games Institute: http://www.seriousgames.org.uk/

Mike Gogan
Mike Gogan is one of the world’s leading creators of virtual reality and 3D multimedia content in the Cultural Heritage sector. He has delivered inspiring virtual reality and multimedia interactive products to some of the most iconic heritage sites in the UK and beyond. Indeed, he and his team at Blitz Games are leading the way in exploring the application of serious games technology in the heritage and culture space.

Dick Davies
Dick Davies is the Executive Producer at Ambient Performance where he manages the design, development and deployment of private virtual worlds for collaborative serious gaming in a range of domains. Ambient are the European service partners for the Forterra OLIVE virtual world platform, the worlds leading private virtual world developer.

Professor Robert J. Stone
Professor Bob Stone holds a Chair in Interactive Multimedia Systems within the School of Engineering at the University of Birmingham, where he also directs the Human Interface Technologies (HIT) Team and is Head of the Applied Computing Research Centre. He is also an Academician of the Russian Higher Education Academy of Sciences and a Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Integrated Systems Design at the University of Plymouth. A Chartered Psychologist and Fellow of the Ergonomics Society, Bob joined academia in 2003, after a long and successful career in defence, robotics and Virtual Reality (VR). After 9 years of ergonomics research at British Aerospace in Bristol, where he specialised in military human factors and remotely operated systems (conducting applied research for the Department of Energy, the nuclear industry and the European Space Agency), Bob was involved in the launch of the UK’s National Advanced Robotics Research Centre (NARRC), funded by the Department of Trade & Industry. Having been one of the first Europeans to experience the NASA VIEW VR system in 1987, he established the UK’s first industrial VR team at the NARRC and, over a number of years undertook numerous consultancy and research projects for commercial and government clients, enabling the group to be launched as VR Solutions Ltd in the mid-1990s. As well as projects in the engineering, aerospace, defence and medical sectors, Bob’s team also pioneered early developments in Virtual Heritage, notably Virtual Stonehenge (1996), complete with the world’s first virtual sunrise! This and other cultural heritage projects supported Bob and colleagues from the US and Japan to launch the international Virtual Systems & Multi-Media organisation (VSMM) in 1995 and virtualheritage.net in 1997, the oldest and largest repository of documents, news and information relating to heritage and technology. Bob is also a Trustee of the US Institute for the Visualization of History (www.vizin.org). Today, as well as his academic positions, Bob’s work has received numerous awards, most recently the 2006/2007 Ergonomics Society’s Sir Frederic Bartlett Award, the highest award given by that Society to an individual. A founding member of the UK’s Serious Games Alliance and the UK Government’s Simulation & Synthetic Environments National Advisory Committee (SSENAC), Bob lectures across the world on the subject of VR, serious games and human factors.

Jude Ower
Jude Ower, is founder and owner of Digital 2.0, a Serious Games consultancy. Jude has over 6 years experience within the Serious Games market working at all stages of development from research, creating a solution for an issue, requirements gathering, game design, project management, testing and deployment. Current projects include; development of an internal game for the companies first large global corporate Oil and Gas client, development of a Creative Industries game with PIXELearning and New Media Partner, project management of a European wide project for PIXELearning, management of a Second Life island to support and grow the Digital Media industry in the UK and a publicly funded project with the Serious Games Industry to grow and support the Serious Games and Interactive Digital Media industry.

Paul Turner
Paul Turner is the Managing Director of The Walk In Web Ltd, Second Life content creators. Paul feels that Virtual Worlds are the new Internet and believes that an increasing number of businesses and other organisations will find ways of exploiting this exciting new technology. ‘Those businesses that failed to recognise the potential of the World Wide Web ten years ago found themselves regretting it as others moved in and took the initiative. Those who ignore virtual worlds will do so at their peril’

Kevin Corti
Kevin Corti is CEO, PIXELearning and has been working in the technology-based learning space for over a decade as an entrepreneur and in a Plc environment. In 2002 he co-founded PIXELearning which specialises in applying games and simulations for business education and corporate training. PIXELearning has since turned over close to US$3 million, has several blue chip clients, including KPMG, Coca Cola, 3M and a major US retail banking chain and has developed LearningBeans® an immersive learning simulation engine. The company is now in the process of raising significant investment in order to expand its custom development services and off-the-shelf products and to further expand operations into key international markets.

Alex Jevremovic
Alex Jevremovic is an artist and designer from Coventry, UK. He has been involved in art and design all his life but has also spent time working as an engineer, teacher and a lecturer.

Alex is now Director of his own small company; Concepts, Design & Virtualisation, which specialises in transferring real world locations, people and artefacts into virtual worlds for a variety of applications including serious games, culture, heritage and history.

He is currently developing a major project which involves totally recreating Coventry city centre using advanced computer modelling techniques in conjunction with the original architectural drawings with the aims of producing a city template to which any number of simulations can be applied including disaster management and emergency planning.

Aside from the work in virtual worlds Alex has enjoyed a varied career in which has included exhibiting artwork at the Venice Biennale, and producing visual effects for the BBC.

eGames Second Life Workshop

This half day workshop organised and run by the Serious Games Institute’s Second Life Science City team will provide practical hands-on experience of the development of virtual environments in Second Life for commercial applications and will include:

1). Registration and avatar creation
2). Orientation and navigation in virtual worlds
3). Exploration of relevant examples of best practice virtual sites
4). Virtual meetings and seminars
5). Virtual commerce – buying and selling goods and services
6). Customisation of avatars and basic construction tools

The workshop will link to remote experts with Second Life and will allow delegates working in small groups to gain hands-on experience from experienced developers. Delegates who are new to Second Life will go away with their own personalised avatar and an understanding of how to get the most from the environment.

eGames Massive Hit

According to Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) and organizer of the annual eGames conference: Electronic games are quickly finding their way into the oil industry, tourism, heritage and culture, defense, banking, healthcare, education and corporate training. It was more than evident from the seven conference panels that the potential market for games is expanding rapidly. Indeed, small and large projects in the "serious games" field are growing and savvy developers are using such new opportunities to smooth their cash flow, increase their R&D capabilities and find new customers for existing IP that might otherwise have laid dormant, added Al Maskari.

Al Maskari announced that KOM will sign a serious gaming MoU with Coventry University's Serious Gaming Institute before year end and that ties are also being developed between the Rusayl-based technology park and De Montfort University's Department of Imaging and Communication Design.

Abdullah Al Jufaili, Director, The Knowledge Mine business incubator program commented: "We're delighted to have had so many prestigious partners on board – Oman Mobile, Ericsson, Sun, Oman Economic Review, Java, MECIT, Infocomm Group, TIGA and ANGILS. Over the two-days we had speakers from Canada, UAE, Britain, Singapore, Oman and Sweden, their support helped build the event's international significance and proved invaluable in delivering an exceptional experience for delegates."

The conference challenged the preconceptions that electronic games are aimed purely at the teen market. "Today, gaming isn’t just about entertainment and children it’s about education and training. It’s about using games to help people learn about managing money, preparing emergency services to deal with natural disasters, training air force pilots, guiding geologists on digging oil wells, through to helping surgeons rehearse complicated medical procedures," said Al Maskari.

Susie Houh of Ericsson - a lead sponsor of eGames 2006 - said: “eGames is probably the most important event in the Gulf's electronic games calendar and we were delighted to be part of this year's event. eGames is both entertaining and informative and what we particularly liked was the focus on the future of mobile and serious gaming and how we, as an ICT industry, can shape that future.”

Peter Anderssson, Ericsson's Country Manager, said: “The presence of top flight Ericsson speakers (Andreas Johnsson - pictured above) along with the Sony Ericsson brand, was an important part of the eGames 2006. We're staunch supporters of this annual Knowledge Oasis Muscat initiative and intend to bring new and exciting elements to the conference in 2007.”

Maskari Delivers eGames Opening Speech

Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat deliver the opening address at this year's eGames: The State of Play Conference: Here it is.

It's a great pleasure to welcome you to eGames – Knowledge Oasis Muscat’s annual electronic gaming conference.

This two-day event will focus on mobile and serious gaming. We have attracted distinguished speakers from Oman, the UAE, Britain, Canada, Sweden and Singapore. Indeed, the eGames blog has had hits from countries as diverse as France, Saudi Arabia, the US, Canada, Romania, South Africa and Brazil. People across the globe have been learning about KOM, eGames and beautiful Oman.

Today, Gaming isn’t just about entertainment it’s about education and training. It’s about using games to help people learn about managing money, fighting disease, preparing emergency services to deal with natural disasters, training air force pilots, guiding geologists on digging oil wells, through to helping my children learn English and keeping them occupied at the weekend!

This morning I’d like to talk a little about mobile gaming - Advances in mobile telephone handset technology, such as large colour screens, larger memory capacity and compact physical size, in addition to developments in 3G, EDGE and Java will enable the market to realise the potential of mobile handsets as fully-fledged gaming devices.

What makes mobile gaming so different from any other type of console based gaming is the fact that the ‘potential mobile gamer’ already owns the platform on which they can play the game.

The penetration of game enabled mobile devices, which stands at 40% of the 2 billion devices worldwide today, is set to grow to 97% of all mobile phones sold in 2008. Compare this to videogames where over the past 25 years 500 million consoles have been sold, compared to the 600 million mobiles sold just in the past 12 months. The figures are staggering and so are the opportunities. It's clear that mobile gaming is definitely not a market to be ignored.

But who's playing mobile games and how are they playing? Figures reveal that more women than men are playing games on handsets. When we look at the behaviour of the average mobile gamer, we find that games are played in short bursts of time - it’s a virtual snack in comparison to the four-course banquet offered by the consoles.

Let's briefly consider one of the world's most dynamic gaming markets, Japan. In fact, when it comes to mobile gaming, the Japanese are at the bleeding edge. Only a few years ago, nearly every twenty-something Tokyo commuter spent their entire journey sending e-mails on their phones, now they’re playing mobile games. The Japanese mobile games market is thriving and in time we should expect to see the same boom in Oman. We want to be ready and we want to lead it in the region.

The mobile gaming sector is the fastest growing segment of the gaming market. It's more than evident that the opportunities are there for those who understand the dynamics of this rapidly growing industry. We hope that eGames will motivate Oman-based telco operators and content providers to drive this industry on and up and achieve its true potential. Oman has a lot to offer.
I wish you a pleasant and profitable two days.

Thank you.

Ericsson Exhibits Hot Games

Ericsson is a lead sponsor of this year’s eGames Conference which is scheduled to kick off on Sunday 10 December at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

According to Charlotte Skanstad, Project Manager, LM Ericsson the worldwide total market for digital games is worth over US$30 billion. The primary platforms have been PC and consoles but she believes mobile phones are taking an increasingly bigger part of the pie.

Ericsson recently conducted extensive research in the Middle East markets that revealed 32% of users in the UAE and Saudi Arabia play games at least once a week. These numbers outperform other mobile services like MMS, portal browsing and listening to music or even mobile TV. Ericsson’s research also showed that the game market today is worth US$67 million and could reach US$377 million by 2011 when considering the strong growth in the Middle East. “Gaming is very big business and universities, banks, clothing stores, soft drink manufacturers and airlines across the world are tapping into the gaming market to push their experience and brand image,” said Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, KOM.

“In co-operation with SonyEricsson, we’ll have an exhibition booth at eGames and we’ll be encouraging delegates to try out the latest mobile multimedia handsets and the hottest mobile games currently available in the Omani market,” said Skanstad.

Delegates will have he opportunity to experience the latest technology – IMS - that will radically enhance the possibilities for mobile gaming applications. According to Skanstad: The new IMS-based multimedia services will change the users’ communication experience where they will be able to combine various content and communication, share with others and invite multiple contacts. This is a very exciting development in the gaming space. Adding, online gaming can run between mobile phones and PCs and fixed line phones and PDAs.

eGames Conference Agenda

Knowledge Oasis Muscat (www.kom.om) will hold eGames 2006, 10 - 11 December at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Muscat, Oman. Now in its second year, eGames is the premier conference for the Gulf’s gaming community. With speakers from leading operators, developers, publishers and academics worldwide, eGames 2006 will focus on Mobile and Serious Games. Attendees will walk away having shown, discussed and seen state of the art innovation in the mobile and serious games industry.

Only at eGames will you gain access to:

• Developer training and education specific to serious and mobile game development.
• Advanced sessions on top-line design, production, implementation and assessment issues related to the use of serious and mobile games.
• Case studies pertaining to game-based solutions and simulations used within education, healthcare, training and marketing.
• Results on cost-effective development and regulations for serious and mobile games.
• Expert sessions on the future roles of serious and mobile game development and extensive networking opportunities.

Free Pre-conference Workshop (9 December)
A key component of this year’s event is the free pre-Conference workshop scheduled for 9 December (9:00am - 4:00pm) at the Middle East College of Information Technology based on KOM. Delivered by staff from De Montfort University’s Faculty of Art and Design this high-octane full-day workshop is limited to 100 attendees and will cover: storyboarding, character design and development, animation, narrative storytelling and visual effects. To reserve your seat e-mail your name and contact co-ordinates to: mulkie@kom.om

Day 1 Schedule

Welcome Remarks (8:30am - 8:40am)
Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat

Keynote Address: The Mobile Content Economy (8:40am – 9:10am)
Andreas Johnsson, Director Business Development, Connected Media Centre, Middle East, Ericsson

The keynote address will consider:

o What is the business model for mobile content?
o How is the multimedia value chain structured?
o How does the ability to target different consumer markets impact on content creation?
o Different markets for mobile content – who are the players?
o Immersing your brand in mobile in content

Morning Coffee & Networking Break: (9:10am – 9:30am)

Session 1: Mobile Game Development 101 (9:30am – 11:45am)

• Stefan Niemiec, Sun Microsystems
• Jerome Tillotson, Vignette EMEA
• Aneth Arosemena, Oman Mobile
• Abdullah Al Zakwani, University of East London
• Raed Dawood, Nawras

Session 1 will focus on frameworks, approaches and organizational techniques that help build better mobile games. Participants in Session 1 will trade success and horror stories and share their approaches to improving the mobile games development process. How do you tap into the US$2.43 billion worldwide mobile gaming market?

Coffee & Networking Break: (11:45am – 12 noon)

Session 2: Mobile Game Development: The Business Angle (12 noon – 1:45pm)

• Alivin Yap, Nexgen Studio
• Bilal Saleh, Motorola
• Dr. Irfan Ahmad, Yahoo!
• Raza Ashraf, Total Alignment
• Jaffer Mir, Game Frontier
• Martine Parry, ANGILS

Session 2 will be an open discussion about the business side of mobile gaming. What are the biggest risks and mistakes? How do developers make, raise and spend money? Who do they work with? How do they convince a telco to carry their game?

Lunch: 1:45pm – 2:45pm

Session 3: Telcos & Mobile Entertainment (2:45pm – 4:45pm)

• Amru Al Sharif, Seeb Systems
• Mohammed Al Shibli, Soharsoft
• Andreas Johnsson, Ericsson
• Firas Al Abduwani, Hussam Technology

We now have wireless access to the web, e-mail, chat and entertainment. Over the last 5 years, Gulf-based telcos have changed the way we talk, built a new way of communicating (SMS) and created new channels for distributing and playing games. In this session, representatives from leading ICT firms will discuss how mobile games fit into the telco world and what that means for the future of mobile entertainment.

Day 2

Session 4: Gaming is Serious Fun (8:30am – 10:30am)

• Kevin McNulty, Terris Hill Productions
• Martine Parry, ANGLIS
• Alinah Aman, ASM Technologies
• Professor Andrew Self, Serco

Session 4 will look at how we can take the tools of game design for entertainment and apply them to serious purposes. Games entertain in many ways - through gameplay naturally, but also through aesthetics, story-telling, novelty, creative play and much more. They can all be adapted to present and reinforce learning content and Session 4 will show how through demonstrating some recent examples this can be achieved.

Morning Coffee & Networking Break: (10:30am – 10:45am)

Session 5: Designing Learning Based Games (10:45am – 12:15pm)

• Steve Abrahart, De Montfort University
• Chris Hinton, De Montfort University
• Michael Powell, De Montfort University

Computer Games are getting serious. Not only as a modern popular entertainment format, but also as a powerful vehicle for education, cultural dissemination, training, public policy, healthcare, simulation and many other applications which fall outside the entertainment software norm.Historically, educational games have been a bit like a cabbage sandwich - not very tasty. Indeed, more people are discovering the pedagogical potential of games. Session 5 will bring together leading players to discuss key issues and emerging trends that may help educational gaming achieve its promise. The goal is to get educators and the gaming industry talking and working together to see what can be achieved.

Games are a powerful teaching tool, allowing kids to explore, create and learn from their own mistakes, Session 5 will offer attendees an in-depth forum through which to examine and further the role of games in education.

Lunch Break: (12:15pm – 1:45pm)

Session 6: Avatar-Based Marketing: What’s the Future for Real-Life Companies Marketing to Second Life Avatars? (1:45pm – 2:45pm)

• David Wortley, Coventry University
• Gavin Dudeney, The Consultants-E

Just when you think that you've got your head around the online world and the possibilities of blogs and Wikis, someone comes along with a whole new world for you to think about. Second Life is an online world which is free to enter, has its own currency with an exchange rate to US dollars and has almost 300,000 worldwide registered players. How do public and private sector organizations tap into this virtual gaming world to market their products and services?

Afternoon Coffee & Networking Break: (2:45pm – 3:00pm)

Session 7: Competitive Computer Gaming and eSports (3:00pm – 4:00pm)

• Jaffer Mir, Game Frontier

What is eSports? Can competitive computer gaming be recognised as a Sport? What is the current scene and status of the market place? What kind of money is involved in this sector for the industry and the gamers? Jaffer will present a short demo to profile the scene: Video Showcases and Practical (Fun) Challenge.

Jaffer will also consider the developer and publisher perspective. Does an organised competitive gaming activity for a new game make any difference in the uptake and shelf-life of a game? If so, how does this have an impact on games sales and the developer and publisher’s bottom line?

Case Study: Nadeo and Trackmania
How to use competitive gaming to effectively target the demographic of the new gamer, casual (existing) gamers and serious gamers? Clever marketing and branding with competitive gaming and eSports. Finally, what’s the potential for eSports the Middle East?

Conference & Workshop Registration Fees

Workshop: The eGames pre-Conference Workshop (Saturday 9 December) is free of charge. However, it is limited to 100 attendees and places will be allocated on a first come first serve basis.

Conference: eGames is a not-for-profit event, however to help cover general expenses the three (3)registration fees are: RO150 (US$380); RO125 (US$325) for public sector employees; and RO50 (US$130) for full-time tertiary students and academic staff. Said fees include all sessions, documentation, food and refreshment.

To register for the Workshop or/and Conference contact Ibtisam Al Faruji on: ibtisam@kom.om

Middle East Mobile Gaming: Press “Start” to Play

The worldwide total market for digital games is worth over US$30 billion. The primary platforms have been PC and consoles but now the Mobile Phone is taking an increasingly bigger part of the pie and this is only logical when you look back at successful mobile gaming consoles like the Nintendo and the Gameboy, I so miss my double-screened Donkey Kong…

But games are not all about having fun, its serious business nowadays. In fact, it’s now so serious that there are sub-economies forming around popular games. If you go to Ebay.com you will find that you can buy Warcraft accounts for as much as US$3,000 and last year one person paid US$26,000 for a virtual island inside the MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) Entropia. But why constrict yourself to planet earth when we are in the digital fantasy world? A month later another person bought a space station in the same game for US$100,000. He said he would use it as a “resort” for other players’ characters in the game.

So why should an operator care about something as silly as games? Well, the Middle East telecom market is moving into a more de-regulated environment that will also be more competitive and that meansthat the operator has to do more to stand out from its competition. In this competitive environment, operators will need to differentiate and position themselves with Value Added Services, such as games.

Ericsson recently conducted an extensive research in the Middle East markets that showed 32% of users in the UAE and KSA play games at least once a week. These numbers outperform other mobile services like MMS, portal browsing and listening to music or even mobile TV. Ericsson research also showed that the game market today is worth US$67 million and could reach US$377 million in 2011 when considering the strong growth in the Middle East.

But revenues are not the only benefit from Games in the operators offering to its customers. In an increasingly competitive landscape the cost of acquisition and churn will be eating away on the operators business cases. For some European markets de-regulation and increased competition has meant a decrease in voice revenues between 30-70%. Research show that users who are active VAS users (like gamers) are 50% less likely to churn from that operator and by using attractive games to get new customers attention the cost of acquisition can be lowered by as much as 35%.

So games are important to operators and Ericsson can offer a complete games portfolio for an operator in the Middle East. Ericsson’s game portfolio consists of both single player and multiplayer games, of simple games and more advanced 3D games. With many games to choose from, there is also a HiScore community that will enhance experiences and create the stickiness operator needs to fight churn. All games are screened for cultural, geographical and religious considerations. Ericsson can also provide games that are localized to Arabic and with Arabic environments and contexts.

In addition to its games portfolio, Ericsson is also investing heavily in technologies such as HSPA that will allow higher bandwidth in the 3G networks. This bandwidth can of course be used by our creative game developers to create an even more immersive user experience. Another technology is IMS that will allow game developers to use for instance speech and location as an integral part of a multiplayer game. Here, it’s only the imagination of the creative game industry that sets the limit.

GAME OVER!

De Montfort University Links with KOM

The organisers of eGames (www.egamesoman.blogspot.com), a two-day international conference on mobile and serious game, scheduled to be held 10 – 11 December at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, has partnered with staff from De Montfort University in the UK to assist in the debate over the current and future needs of the Gulf’s gaming community.

Recognised as gaming industry experts, Michael Powell, Steve Abrahart and Chris Hinton from De Montfort University’s Faculty of Art & Design, will deliver a full-day gaming workshop – aimed at the Omani youth market – at the Middle East College of Information Technology on 9 December. According to Mulki Al Hashmi of KOM’s Marketing Department and eGames Workshop Co-ordinator: “The workshop will cover storyboarding, character design and development, animation, narrative storytelling and visual effects. We’re delighted with the tremendous response that this full-day program has received from the local student community.”

The De Montfort University trio will also deliver a conference panel on Designing Learning Based Games. Michael Powell said: “Computer games are getting serious. Not only as a modern popular entertainment format, but also as a powerful vehicle for education, cultural dissemination, training, public policy, healthcare, simulation and many other applications which fall outside the entertainment norm. Historically, educational games have been a bit like a cabbage sandwich - not very tasty. Indeed, more people in education and training are discovering the real potential of games. This is what we intend to highlight in our session.”

De Montfort’s Chris Hinton (pictured), commented: "Our involvement in the eGames workshop and conference re-enforces the University of De Montfort’s mission to provide students with the necessary skills and knowledge to enter into the games industry and I and my colleagues are delighted to be appearing as workshop presenters and guest speakers at eGames."

He added: "We fully support eGames as it provides a unique opportunity for both experts in the industry, business and educators to exchange ideas and perspectives as well as sharing understanding and best practice relating to the future of the Gulf’s gaming community."

eGames is the first conference in the Gulf region that brings together game developers, telco providers, publishers, game producers, educators, marketers and other professionals interested in the mobile and serious gaming space,” said Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat and organizer of the annual eGames program.

The conference will feature debates with international speakers sharing their views on the future of mobile and serious game development. In addition to De Montfort Unversity staff, Ericsson, Nexgen Studio, Oman Mobile, The Consultants-E, Nawras, Sun Microsystems, Game Frontier and the Serious Gaming Department from Coventry University will lead discussions on mobile game development; telcos and mobile entertainment; serious gaming and its applications to education and business; and competitive computer gaming and eSport. “We saw from last year’s conference that eGames appeals to business, government and education – if you’re a tour operator or running a government department, a bank, an insurance agency, a college or even an oil company you should be interested in learning how to leverage mobile and serious gaming not only to promote your products, services and brand but also train your staff – gaming is the next frontier for training and marketing,” said Al Maskari.

Get an eGames Discount

Conference & Workshop Registration Fees

If you register for eGames before 22 November you will qualify for a 15% discount on the conference delegate fees.

Workshop: The eGames pre-Conference Workshop (Saturday 9 December) is free of charge. However, it is limited to 100 attendees and places will be allocated on a first come first serve basis. If you want to attend, e-mail your name and contact co-ordinates to: mulkie@kom.om

Conference: eGames is a not-for-profit event, however to help cover general expenses the registration fees are:

• RO150 (US$380)
• RO125 (US$325) for public sector employees
• RO50 (US$130) for full-time tertiary students and academic staff

Fees include all sessions, documentation, food, refreshment and the Gala Dinner.

To register for the Conference contact Ibtisam Al Faruji on: ibtisam@kom.om

Nexgen Studio Presents at eGames

Muscat – Singapore-based Nexgen Studio (www.nexgenstudio.com), one of the world's leading gaming companies, today announced that CEO Alvin Yap, will present at the eGames Conference, to be held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 10 – 11 December.

Nexgen Studio works very closely with Nanyang Technological University and the National University of Singapore. Together, a beneficial mutual relationship has been created, harnessing the strength of R&D work from academia and industry knowledge and applications from Nexgen Studio. Collaboration work ranges from animation algorithms to artificial intelligence.

"Alvin will talk about the challenges facing mobile games development and distribution. He will also touch on the cross pollination of converging technologies and business models," said a Nexgen Studio spokesman.

eGames is organized by Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) in partnership with Ericsson, Oman Mobile, Sun Microsystems, Middle East College of Information Technology, TIGA, and The Knowledge Mine business incubator program.According to Mohammed Al Maskasri, Director General, KOM: "The two-day conference will provide attendees with the opportunity to hear from leading game developers, telcos, marketers and trainers and get their perspective on the growing opportunities within the increasingly viable and lucrative mobile and serious gaming industry." Conference sessions include:

The conference will grant attendees access to a high level, influential line-up of speakers including representatives from Oman Mobile; Ericsson; Sun Microsystems; Terris-Hill Productions; Game Frontier; Nexgen Studio; Yahoo!; De Montfort University; Motorola; and Nawras.

TKM Looks for eGaming Start-ups

Education and mobile games may seem like an unlikely match but an initiative run by Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM) is trying to persuade students to consider a career in the games industry.

In partnership with Ericsson, Oman Mobile, Infocomm, Sun, ANGILS, Oman Economic Review, TIGA, the Middle East College of Information Technology (MECIT) and the Knowledge Mine business incubator program, the Rusayl-based technology park will run eGames: The State of Play (www.egamesoman.blogspot.com) 10 – 11 December 2006, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel.

eGames is a two-day gaming conference that will focus on mobile and serious gaming. As well home grown gaming experts the event has also attracted speakers from Sweden, the UK, Korea, Singapore, the UAE, Oman, Canada and Spain, so attendees are assured of walking away having shown, discussed and seen state of the art innovation in the mobile and serious gaming industry.

“We’re looking at mobile gaming as revenues from this sector are expected to grow from US$3bn in 2006 to US$10bn by 2009, this increase is being driven by continued growth in subscriber numbers, an increase in roll-out of 3G services, falling game prices and a new generation of made for mobile games,” said Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, KOM and organizer of eGames.

“Mobile games have come of age. They’re no longer the poor relations of console and PC games. They are a different family of entertainment products with their own set of characteristics,” continued Al Maskari.

“If we look further down the line, I see continued growth of mobile subscribers in Oman and across the Gulf, and given the global mobile gaming growth projections the revenue streams for the region’s telco providers and mobile game developers will soar,” he added.

In addition to the conference, KOM is also organizing a one-day gaming workshop in partnership with MECIT. The workshop is aimed at college students and will be run by staff from the Faculty of Art and Design at De Montfort University in the UK. According to Al Maskari the workshop is intended to promote the games industry as a career option to students. "When we go to colleges, we find it’s not something students have thought about doing," said Ibtisam Al Faruji, KOM’s Head of Marketing. "We want to encourage students with an interest in drawing, animation and story writing that the gaming industry is something they could get into. In fact, we’re very keen to attract gaming start-ups to set-up in the Knowledge Mine business incubator program," she said.

On the question of financing a gaming start-up, Al Maskari said: “For people with truly inventive, credible investments, approaching angel investors, venture capitalists and similar routes of funding isn't as hard as the impression people have of it. If you are credible and have done the required thinking, pretty much anyone will talk to you."

Martine Parry: eGames Speaker Profile

Martine Parry (pictured) will present on two panels at eGames 2006. She is Director of Apply Group and also of trade association ANGILS. Martine has held senior positions in the knowledge industry for 20 years.

Following graduation in Physics from Kings College, London University in 1986, Martine spent eight years in the AI industry, two as a Research Engineer in computer vision systems with GEC Marconi and the remainder with various leading visualisation, simulation, pattern recognition and performance support tools and service organisations, developing business across sectors including defence, the intelligence community, energy, telecommunications, health and finance.

She also developed the telecommunications market for leading European software house Admiral Computing (Group: 3000 employees and US$470m t/o and now merged with LogicaCMG) during the first major period of the industry’s deregulation in the UK.

Since 1996 she has worked within the learning, CGI and games sectors, developing new projects, scoping application needs and analysing sectors and application segments.

Martine founded Apply Group Ltd, a leading business consultancy in order to continue this work. In addition to the core consulting business with Apply Group, she has been responsible for driving the serious games association ANGILS over the last few years and is now transitioning it to a full trade association by embracing organisations as members in addition to individuals. This is driven by a maturing market to some degree.

ANGILS is attracting attention and membership from a global audience as we seek to address the key business, design and deployment issues of knowledge transfer from the games and entertainment sectors to the knowledge industries, and vice versa. www.angils.org

Pro-Gaming All the Rage

It's 7:30 on a Tuesday evening and I shout out to my sons that dinner’s on the table. They shout back: “We’re coming, just finishing off this match. We’ll be there in 5 minutes.” They’re playing Pro-evolution Soccer 5 on a Sony PlayStation and it’s an “important game.” Welcome to the world of eSports and competitive gaming.

Today, there are full-time, professional computer game players - the most successful of whom make US$100,000 a year by playing in competitive gaming tournaments. Thinking of professional gaming as a sport may seem a little strange, but those who are excelling in it devote the same type of skill, passion and commitment that a real-world athlete does.

“In Jaffer Mir we’ve one of Europe’s leading specialists presenting on competitive gaming” remarked Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat (www.kom.om) and organizer of eGames, 10 – 11 December, Crowne Plaza Hotel. “Jaffer’s the Managing Director of Game Frontier Ltd (www.gamefrontier.com) a UK based digital entertainment and computer gaming company that’s leading eSports across Europe and the North America. We’re delighted to have such an expert present at eGames,” said Al Maskari.

The stereotype of computer gamers as techies competing from their bedroom is shattered by the professional gaming movement. Most of the games played at the competitive level require team-play, so by definition they are intensely social. Serious teams assign roles to each player; much like a football coach would assign a role to his midfield. Tactics are discussed prior to matches, and a post-match analysis often takes place. “This is a sporting movement that’s getting ever more sophisticated and popular amongst young people and it’s not just teenagers, it’s young professionals that make up the bulk of players. Just as a football fan might follow every move or match of Chelsea’s John Terry, many gaming enthusiasts follow their favourite teams or players. Go to any Internet Café around Muscat and you’ll find folk competing. We’ve even got a World Cyber Games - an Olympic style competition where teams representing each country play for medals in a variety of different computer game tournaments,” said the KOM Director General.

Take a look at any sport today and you'll find sponsors, brand names on stadiums to logos on football shirts. Professional gaming is no exception. Since its inception sponsorship has played a major role, enabling players the means to pay for their expenses while focusing on their sport. Four Kings, a British professional gaming team is sponsored by Intel. Sports gaming giant Johnathan Wendel, aka Fatal1ty, (www.soundblaster.com/fatal1ty/fatal1ty1.asp) is sponsored by game accessory manufacturer Auravision. Indeed, the biggest competitive gaming event on the calendar, the ATI/AMD Cyber X Games: Windows XP Championships in Las Vegas is sponsored by all the brands listed in the event's title as well as a host of other major names in the gaming and computer industries. “Just look at Korea as an example, sponsoring a professional gaming team makes good commercial sense. Fifteen million people, or 30% of the Korean population, are registered for online gaming, and that means a big marketing opportunity. In time, this will be happening here in the Gulf and if I were a marketer I’d be looking at pro eSports very seriously,” remarked Al Maskari.

Ericsson's Mobile Java 3D Technology

A focus on cutting-edge Mobile Java 3D technology has made Sony Ericsson a preferred choice among game developers and a leader in mobile gaming.

In June, Sony Ericsson introduced its new Java platform, Java Platform 7 (JP-7), which supports the development of advanced games with high picture resolution and better 3D graphics, and makes it possible to run several applications simultaneously

(www.ericsson.com/mobilityworld/sub/articles/other_articles/nl03mar11)

We spoke to Peter Ahnegård, Content Acquisition Manager, Games & Graphics at Sony Ericsson who says the company has become a leader in Mobile Java 3D technology. “We were involved really early on in the mobile 3D era and we took on the challenge to educate operators and game developers on the technology. Today, the majority of our game developer partners are producing 3D games in addition to their 2D games. For example, Beach Mini Golf 3D and Extreme Air Snowboarding 3D by Digital Chocolate.”

The Preferred Choice
The benefit for game developers using Sony Ericsson’s platform is that they do not have to make changes to every game they produce to fit the various Java handsets on the market. “Our strategy is to base a number of devices on the same Java platform version. Not only does this save developers a tremendous amount of time and money, but it also means operators can spend less time on game verification later on,” says Ahnegård. “Game developers have said they are really happy with this approach, and recently Fishlabs, which is one of our game developer partners, stated that they only need a single binary code to support all our 3D handsets.”
Making games easily accessible to consumers

Sony Ericsson is not only focusing on making it easier for game developers to create games. The company is also making sure playing and accessing games becomes more attractive to consumers. “If people knew how to access mobile games in an easy way, the market would explode,” commented Ahnegård.

The Fun & Download service, which can be accessed through the company’s website and WAP service, is meant to make it easy for consumers to download all kinds of content, from video clips to games. “We now have a very good games offering on the portal and traffic has increased thanks to improved accessibility and promotions. Today, the major part of revenue from Fun & Downloads is games.

Another such service is PlayNow, (www.midlet-review.com/index?content=handset_review/sony_ericsson_w550i) which can be accessed through the menu option on phones. A service that is updated on a regular basis. “Sales have increased dramatically with new users accessing PlayNow and we’ll continue to develop the service in the year ahead by adding new functionality and improving the user interface,” commented Ahnegård.

Sony Ericsson has also been making mobile phones more attractive to gamers. The W550 and W600 Walkman phones, launched in 2005, and the K790 and K800 Cyber-shot phones, launched in 2006, are examples of this. These devices are very entertainment-focused and appropriate for games because they have two additional A and B gaming buttons on top of the screen and a screen display that can be rotated 90 degrees to support two-handed game control in landscape mode. This creates a PC or console-like game experience familiar to more-experienced gamers.

Sony Ericsson intends to continue developing new devices with gaming features, for example, the P990 smartphone, the M600 messaging device, and the W950 Walkman devices that will take mobile gaming into the future. According to Ahnegård: “Our UIQ 3 phones not only have hardware-accelerated 3D, they also provide better graphics than first-generation consoles.”

More Generic Games
In an effort to encourage people to play more games, Sony Ericsson is pre-installing games on all their devices. “Our job is to make sure operators have a solid and extensive offering for each device we introduce to the market,” comments Ahnegård.

Sony Ericsson has opted for a general selection of pre-installed games to attract a wide audience of gamers. “We are getting better at selecting pre-loaded content that suits the intended target audience, which means we are not only offering 3D action games. With our game developers, we are constantly discussing what types of games we and the operators need,” remarked Ahnegård.

The Future
Sony Ericsson is focusing on improving the gaming platform for the next generation of mobile phones. The company is looking for the best hardware and platform solutions to be able to help developers create exciting, high-quality games targeting different consumer segments.

Sony Ericsson’s efforts in establishing itself as a leader within mobile music is also having an effect on the type of mobile games the company will be offering in the future. Sounds is a lot more than just music. For Java ME and UIQ applications, it can mean everything from sound effects that make games rock to easy-listening instructions for applications such as language courses.

Ericsson Recommends
http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/telecomreport/archive/2006/august/marketing.shtml

http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/telecomreport/archive/2006/august/games.shtml

Get a MUVE On

With online teaching and training on the rise, the search is still very much on for the most effective way of delivering online courses, and encouraging interaction between participants at a distance. Second Life (www.secondlife.com), is the newest, hottest thing in the online teaching world. Gavin Dudeney of The Consultants-E (www.theconsultants-e.com) and presenter at Knowledge Oasis Muscat's eGames Conference (10 – 11 December, Crowne Plaza Hotel, Muscat) looks at the learning and educational opportunities offered by Second Life.

Harvard University are running classes there, and so are Trinity College Dublin. Suzanne Vega performs there, and Kurt Vonnegut talks about his writings ‘in-world’. You can even take a class in creative writing, or learn how to become a video director there. All from the comfort of your own home.

The place is Second Life, a three-dimensional online synchronous environment, known in technorati circles as a Multi-User Virtual Environment, or MUVE. The time is now. Think of a video game, where you can take on a 3-dimensional character (or ‘avatar’ in MUVE-speak) and visit an entire ‘world’, populated by real people, who are accessing Second Life from their own computers. You can chat, both via text or audio chat, exchange ‘objects’, even buy and sell land! Second Life may not be new – MUVEs have been around since the later 1970s - but it is most definitely sexy, to the point where the BBC Horizon series is planning to make a documentary about it, and it has appeared on BBC television and radio, and in magazines such as Business Week.

Founded by the Real Networks CTO Philip Rosedale in 2003, Second Life (SL) is a privately owned virtual world, which currently has approximately 740,000 users. In Second Life you sign up for free, design a 3D representation of yourself and move around a rich online world, in which the residents interact, build houses, design clothes, make gadgets, dance at virtual clubs and, yes, attend classes.

But is Second Life all just fun and games? There are plenty of people who refuse to refer to Second Life as an online game, and rightly so. Whilst there is plenty of gaming occurring ‘in-world’, there is also a burgeoning collection of more serious projects, from courses in ‘cyber law’ taught under the auspices of Harvard Law School (blogs.law.harvard.edu/cyberone/), to awareness-raising projects for young people (http://www.holymeatballs.org), and even a group dedicated to discussing and exploring the potential for education in such environments (www.simteach.com).

So what is it exactly that makes Second Life more successful than other online social environments in recent history? And why are educators being drawn to it in droves?

Currently, most online teaching and training is done via Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), or learning platforms – one of the most popular being Moodle. Yet there is something inherently flat and static in a VLE, based as it is on webpages. And no matter how much socialization work and pair and group interactions one builds into an online course in a VLE, one rarely has more than a flat photograph of each participant as the embodiment of their real life character, and emoticons and other emotion-conveying devices never really capture the essence of a person, nor entirely mitigate any potential for misunderstandings which may arise from the almost exclusive use of the written word. Despite the availability of text chat for communication, and even of voice chat in VLEs, online course still tend to lack the cut and thrust of real time interaction – the synchronous, or ‘real time’ element of communication.

For this reason educators are starting to look beyond the idea of a VLE to something that emulates the real world in a more immediate and recognisable form - and they are looking to MUVEs such as Second Life for the solution.

Second Life is particularly adept at handling media, supporting a variety of audio and video sources, as well as public text chatting, private messaging and audio communications A combination of these elements can provide a rich learning environment in which more traditional text-driven elements such as reading material can be delivered alongside real opportunities for communication which transcend the disembodied offerings of most online schools in which text chat and email play a large part, or tutoring is carried out by a faceless tutor working in a call-centre style environment.

Take a look at a set of personal interactions in Second Life and you will notice how much more ‘real’ and warm they can seem, when compared to similar examples in a VLE. With the physical presence of people in the same space or room (albeit in cartoon form) one has more of a sense of the person behind the text or voice, and this is enhanced by the clothing they have chosen, how they stand while they talk to you, if they wander off to look at something while you are chatting with them) and generally how they behave. My character, for example, can often be found wobbling on a unicycle, or on rollerblades or riding a virtual Segway, as I run training sessions in Second Life. Non-verbal forms of communication - as well as cultural features – are suddenly part of the communication again, and this is perhaps the most significant difference between a MUVE and other distance training platforms.

Whilst it is definitely too early on in the educational exploration of the possibilities of virtual environments to draw any final conclusions, the anecdotal evidence from the courses and classes in Second Life suggests that both learners and teachers find it a less intimidating and richer way of working than other distance tools they have experienced .

To get started in Second Life, you simply download the software (www.secondlife.com) and sign up for a free account on the same site. Once installed and running, you create the virtual representation of yourself, customising your look, the clothes you wear, and how you move and interact with the other ‘residents’ and then set off to explore the ‘grid’, as it is called.

If you would like to try it out, come and look for my character, Dudeney Ge at EduNation in Second Life, a private virtual island designed for teacher training. Bring your rollerblades - I’ll be more than happy to help you explore.

eGames Promotes Virtual Reality

David Wortley the Director of the Serious Games Institute at Coventry University (www.coventry.ac.uk/newthinking/html/serious.htm) and Gavin Dudeney (pictured) of The Consultants-E (www.theconsultants-e.com) will deliver a Second Life workshop at the forthcoming eGames conference.

What is Second Life (SL)? Created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab, SL is a virtual world and role playing environment that is completely owned by its participants. In this alternate world, personalized avatars, representing each player, interact to find and create entertainment, experiences and opportunity. “SL does pretty much what it says on the package: players control their virtual alter egos - avatars - to live an alternative life. It offers hundreds of activities, from the mundane to the strange: you can make friends, travel, attend a pop concert or visit vampire castles,” said Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat and organizer of eGames.

When asked about the SL trend, David Wortley said: "Second Life is moving up the list of places digital marketers want to be. Not only do these worlds give all brands the chance to connect with their constituents within a social construct, they also represent platforms where brands can enable players of the games with services, products and experiences. SL is growing by 22 per cent each month and if this continues there will be 3.6 million Second Lifers by July 2007.

According to recent research, the SL audience is made up of young professionals and not teenagers as many people think. This explains why there are about US$5.3 million (over RO2 million) in user transactions over the course of a month in SL. Players can purchase virtual products such as houses, clothing, accessories, game services and pay for them with real dollars via a currency system. SL uses Linden dollars, which players buy with real cash to conduct business with vendors within the game. Once the vendor decides to "cash out," their Linden dollars are converted back to US dollars - after Linden takes its fee.

But people aren't just buying goods - they're also building viable virtual businesses that provide them with real income. In fact, according to Forbes magazine, there are people making six and seven-figure incomes within the SL economy. “Numbers like these make SL difficult for companies, marketers and brands to ignore,” remarked the KOM Director General.

Brands that will be successful in SL are the ones that interact with the game seamlessly and find innovative and imaginative ways of talking to players. "Companies need to make sure they’re offering customers something they want," says Al Maskari. One company that is doing exactly that is the sports manufacturer Adidas. In September, Adidas set up a store in SL, to support the launch of its extra-bouncy A3 Microride trainers. SL residents can buy them for their avatars. Reebok – an Adidas owned company - is launching an SL version of its customisation service: players will be able to design trainers for their avatars and also order real versions for themselves. “Reebok is providing consumers with something that they actually want to experience, not just bombarding them with meaningless marketing messages,” said Al Maskari. But should other brands be considering SL? “I think so, it offers an opportunity to reach an audience that can be difficult to connect with. The folk on SL are totally immersed in the environment, so they don't really interact with magazines, TV or other media," says Al Maskari.

Talking about where SL is leading us, Maskari said: “I would think that before 2015 - just nine years away - VR technology will give us fully realistic experiences for all practical purposes. Then there will be fully immersive VR with direct stimulation of the brain: real virtuality as good as the physical universe, while, of course, retaining the possibility to allow users to do things which would be impossible in physical reality, for example, flying over Jebel Akhdar like a bird or walking on the Moon without a spacesuit.”

“Isn’t it marvellous that this type of event and discussion is taking place in Muscat? Knowledge Oasis Muscat really is putting Oman on the global digital map,” Al Maskari said proudly.

Ericsson Backs eGames

Ericsson today announced the company is joining forces with Knowledge Oasis Muscat (KOM), the Rusayl-based Technology Park, and sponsor eGames 2006, scheduled for 10 – 11 December at the Crowne Plaza Hotel (www.egamesoman.blogspot.com).

On the conference, organiser Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, KOM said: "We feel that eGames is well timed, happening at this rapidly moving point in the mobile and serious gaming industry as more sophisticated gaming products and gaming enabled mobile phones start to hit the consumer market and when globally gaming is worth more than cinema, video and CD sales."

According to Al Maskari, the eGames Conference is dedicated to meeting the needs of professionals focused on mobile and serious games and their educational and commercial applications. "Attendees will include decision-makers setting the standards and looking for insights to improve their businesses and they come to eGames to get the opportunity to drill down to the key issues," said KOM's Director General.

"By delivering the conference keynote address Ericsson will play an important role at eGames. We're delighted to welcome them as partners, they bring with them a wealth of international experience in the gaming space. In addition to Ericsson's participation we've confirmed presenters from Europe and North America that are at the bleeding edge of the gaming industry, it'll be an exciting two days," remarked Ibtisam Al Faruji, KOM's Head of Marketing.

Commenting on their involvement, Peter Andersson, General Manager for Ericsson in Oman said: "We fully support eGames as it provides a unique opportunity for experts in the gaming industry, business and education to exchange ideas and perspectives as well as share understanding and best practice relating to the future of the Gulf's growing mobile and serious gaming community."

Business Week Introduces Mobile Content

In response to the growing demand for sophisticated and relevant content for mobile devices such as smartphones, PDAs and other handheld computers, Business Week has launched a new portable-electronic content delivery product, Business Week Mobile Edition. Starting in September, all of the high-quality content readers have come to expect from Business Week is now available free of charge at www.businessweek.mobi.

As Business Week advances on the mobile frontier with a new product offering, Microsoft Windows Mobile will support its efforts as the exclusive on-screen advertiser on Business Week Mobile Edition for 2006, and will be integrated into the Business Week Mobile Edition advertising campaign.

As the first global magazine to use the ".mobi" designation, Business Week hopes to provide easy recognition and ease of use to consumers who wish to access its content on their mobile devices. Consumers will soon be able to recognize Web sites specially designed for use by mobile phones by the new ".mobi" suffix, which is being introduced alongside the popular ".com," ".org," and other domains.

"Business Week Mobile Edition presents an ideal platform for providing professionals with timely insight when, where, and how they want it and for our launch sponsor, Windows Mobile, to reach this 'on-the-go' audience," said BusinessWeek.com Senior Vice President and General Manager, Roger Neal.

Yahoo and Mobile Advertising

A "select group of advertisers" are participating in the test (http://mobile.yahoo.com/searchmarketing/) of sponsored listings on mobile web search results, according to (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/061004-090744) the Search Engine Watch blog. The number of advertisers will increase as the program is rolled out. Consumers who click on the sponsored links will be taken to the advertisers' mobile website or a landing page to get more information about the advertisers' offerings and will be able to call the advertiser.

Yahoo had already been testing mobile sponsored search in Japan and the UK. In early September, Google announced that it was testing a mobile version of its popular AdWords ad offering, MediaWeek (www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/interactive/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003219561) points out.

Response rates of mobile pay-per-click ads tend to be higher than online because of increased relevance and reduced ad clutter.

Yahoo's Mobile Web service, available on most mobile phones via major operators in the US and UK, provides access to Yahoo's Mail, Messenger, Search, News, Finance and Sports services.

Serious Games Expert Set to Speak

David Wortley the recently appointed Director of the Serious Games Institute at Coventry University, an international hub for e-games technologies applied to non-leisure/entertainment applications such as e-learning, simulation and marketing has been confirmed as a keynote speaker at eGames 2006 scheduled to be held 10 – 11 December at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Muscat.

“There was time when computer games were seen as an entertaining diversion from the real world. Now the cutting-edge technology behind entertainment games is being used to solve real-world dilemmas in areas as diverse as education, healthcare, national security and corporate management,” said Mohammed Al Maskari, Director General, Knowledge Oasis Muscat and organizer of eGames 2006. “You need only look at the successful use of games such as SimCity, Civilization or Hidden Agenda as learning tools in schools and universities across the globe to understand the potential of this type of technology,” said Maskari.

“The University of Coventry has already grasped the possibilities. The Serious Games Institute is a new initiative designed to transfer the ideas, skills, technologies and techniques used in commercial entertainment games to local busineses. Managed by Coventry University Enterprises Ltd in partnership with Warwick University, the Institute will provide a focus for Serious Games activity,” remarked Wortley adding: “I’m delighted to be presenting at eGames, this event represents an important milestone in the development of the Gulf’s gaming community.”

The first of its kind in the UK, Coventry’s Serious Gaming Institute combines the skills and expertise of academic staff with that of partners from the UK’s domestic video games industry. It represents a novel approach to the integration of technology transfer, applied research and professional development and presents a unique opportunity for computer games developers to diversify their product base. “I’m looking forward to developing ties with Knowledge Oasis Muscat and contributing to its efforts in building a gaming cluster on the Park,” said Wortley.