Serious Games for Health Problems

Gamers caught a very early glimpse of the future of serious games aimed at the health sector during the PlayMancer project’s demos at the latest Vienna Science Fair. The European PlayMancer project is working hard to improve the technology for serious games engines and tools for 3D networked gaming. It is possible to build actual games, serious games, around serious health-related problems like bulimia and chronic pain. Using gaming in this way is really breaking new ground. It is very early days for this EU-funded project but it is already demonstrating a flair for the sort of press relations it will need to develop this fledgling market for games geared towards more ‘serious’ goals than entertainment. Early technical prototypes developed alongside initial work by PlayMancer partners at the Technical University of Vienna were put through their paces by hundreds of visitors at the latest edition of the annual Vienna Science Fair. The project has released a YouTube video of the demos in action. The short film shows a cross-section of the community trying to manipulate virtual objects in a 3D variation of the old-school Pong game. However, it’s not just about developing the most fun and interactive games, or targeting particular groups.

One aim is to seriously improve the accessibility of games, making them playable by all kinds of people, including the disabled. This is where PlayMancer will need to be very innovative because the concept of developing games that are more universally accessible is still in its infancy. But you could never accuse the partners in this project of lacking vision. You get this even in the project’s name, which is a nod to William Gibson’s 1984 futuristic classic Neuromancer, widely considered the father of cyberpunk literature. The team behind the project come from a range of backgrounds in academia and industry in Austria, Greece, Italy, Spain and Switzerland. Their goal is to develop the games from the bottom up, with health and therapy embedded into their make-up. For example, people suffering from chronic pain could be playing games designed to ease their symptoms while their therapist monitors progress online. The therapist could interrupt the game any time to adjust the settings, or if there is an imminent health risk to the player. The market PlayMancer is aiming to enter when it ends late next year is underdeveloped. It falls under the umbrella of serious games, which though they are maturing, especially in business and training applications, are still by no means an easy market to break in to. PlayMancer is funded under the ICT strand of the Seventh Framework Programme for Research.

More information:

http://www.playmancer.com/

http://cordis.europa.eu/ictresults/index.cfm/section/news/tpl/article/BrowsingType/Features/ID/90519