Games and Interactive Simulation

Jonathan Schaeffer (leader), Regan Mandryk (co-leader)

Computer game production has become an important global industry worth C$50 billion annually, historically experiencing double-digit annual growth. Canada is an important global leader in this industry, with an estimated 20% of the top-selling games in North America originating in Canada. In fact, Canada is home to two of the largest game development studios in the world -- Electronic Arts (Burnaby) and Ubisoft (Montreal). british Columbia alone has more than 180 game companies. BioWare (a subsidiary of Electronic Arts) is located in edmonton and is the industry leader in story-based games: nearly all of its releases have received critical acclaim and achieved financial success. The impact of gaming technology extends beyond the entertainment industry and youth culture. Serious applications use interactive gaming technologies to improve education and training, and to enable political commentary and social change. For example, new serious games and simulations are expected to transform how doctors and nurses train in medical ethics, cultural competencies, and the conducting of patient interviews and healthcare assessments.

We use the term "game" refer to video games, such as those played on a computer or video console, as well as online games, multiplayer games, and mobile games. Indeed, almost all forms of new media can be used for gaming or in support of gaming. In this theme, we will use games to make progress in Game Development itself, creating the technology to support the game-development process and to enhance the gaming experience in education -- including K-12, university, and skills development -- and in applications, as games are a fundamental technology in many areas, including computer science, economics, biology, and defense.

The GamSim theme will have a transformative impact across a broad range of fields, and will ensure that Canada leads the revolution in gaming technologies. The notion that game development is all done by computer programmers is out of date: modern games are built by multidisciplinary teams; computer programmers typically comprising less than 20% of the team. Advances in gaming and simulation will require not just the skills of computer scientists, but also of interface designers, creative writers, artists, musicians, and domain experts. In cooperation with industry partners, we will bring these groups together to serve as a catalyst for creating new technologies to advance the state of the art in gaming and simulation, building proof-of-concept games (which may themselves have commercial value), and developing novel components to give Canadian game companies a competitive edge. Critical to our success is a multidisciplinary approach. The development of complete games is a key element of our proposal because games research cannot be properly evaluated outside of the context of a finished game, but creating complete games for every avenue we explore is well beyond the scope of our research. Thus, we will also build prototypes and test-bed environments for experimentation and assessment. These prototypes will be useful to our partners in the game industry. The GamSim theme covers a broad range of research in the construction, use, and understanding of games. The following highlights each of the main areas under investigation. Game Development Technologies Modern games require the use of numerous technologies across a wide variety of fields. A massively multiplayer online role-playing game such as the World of Warcraft, a game with over 11 million subscribers -- is a good example. These games exist as self-contained worlds where hundreds or thousands of players interact, socialize, and in almost every sense, lead lives parallel to those in the "real" world. Recent research in human-computer interaction (HCI) highlights the importance of careful game design when the goal is to encourage active collaboration and competition. As part of the motivation of data-driven content generation, understanding the ways that game players interact in virtual worlds (EOVW) is critical for game developers to refine and enrich the game playing experience. This is but one benefit that hCi brings to gaming (VIRTPRES). Another is the design of appropriate evaluation methods (AFEVAL) for evaluating the usability and playability of games.

Intelligent and adaptive user interfaces are also critical to new generation games. An example is modeling and adapting to game players' complex cognitive processes and emotional states (SIMUL). This is an exciting area of overlap between hCi and artificial intelligence, with intriguing applications to problems with high social relevance such as physical fitness (GAMFIT). Enhanced artificial intelligence technology is regarded by industry as essential for developing the next generation of computer simulations and games (MCSIG) and for enhancing the believability of non-player character behaviors in story-based games (BELIEVE), such as those created by our partner bioware -- the world leader in digital story-based games.

Education

Another important research direction examines the divide between entertaining games and educational games. Modern games are characterized by their capacity to capture a player's attention for hours on end and are generally considered to be entertaining. In contrast, educational games are often described as boring. Research within GRAND will gain a better understanding of student learning in the context of games, building prototyping environments for creating entertaining educational games and assessing the benefits of computer-game-supported learning (DIGLT).

One example is the role of simulation in training the next generation of surgeons. There is strong evidence that surgeons tend to perform better after playing video games. The question is not whether interactive multimedia exercises improve surgical performance, but rather how multi-modal training can best be designed for a range of surgical training. A variety of simulators are today available to train surgeons, including trainers that provide realistic haptic feedback, and Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) simulators (a combination of virtual simulation with real-world physical objects). Research on understanding these tools and their effect on surgical training is fundamental to enhancing and developing the pedagogical value of the experience, and is sorely needed but has not yet been fully conducted with the necessary rigor. The project (HLTHSIM) will do just this, combining medical knowledge with research expertise in experimental psychology and cognitive science.

Applications

Games are most often associated with recreation; however, the use of games is much more pervasive in research and society. GRAND has several projects that involve building games to support societal benefits. One application area is to develop and evaluate games for people with sensory and motor disabilities (INCLUDE). The input, output and processing requirements and interpersonal interactions in game play include elements of a user's physical, perceptual and cognitive processes that may have certain limitations. It is important to develop systems that support these limitations and to use an inclusive development and evaluation framework.

Another important area of social concern that can benefit from game research is sustainability, as games can be used to train people to modify their energy usage (HCTSL). Living in a sustainable house has been described as "piloting a ship," demanding constant monitoring, course correction and reconfiguration, and strategies for understanding how occupants' behaviors interact with desired outcomes such as a reduced ecological footprint -- in short, learning to play a sophisticated game.