Gaming in the Middle East....

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Raymond de Villiers

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Nov 4, 2008, 9:18:40 AM11/4/08
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While rAge was going on in SA, Raymond & Brendon from Wisdom Games
attended the World Games Expo & Summit, and World Gaming Championship
in Dubai. It was an interesting trip and really opened our eyes to
the realities (and opportunities) of the Middle East market. At the
expo there were representatives from Dubai, Iran, India, Korea, Japan,
Canada... and a few other countries you wouldn't bump into at Siggraph
or E3.

Much like in SA, many of these companies and regions have identified
the potential inherent within the mobile platform. There was a great
session on the benefits of using 3rd party middleware for development
- hosted by EPIC games the owners of the Unreal Engine [which can be
used for more than just FPS games].

We managed to have one on one time with the guys from GamePower 7 who
are developing the first Arabic MMO. They licensed a game title from
Korea and spent their development $$$ in localising it - an
interesting approach. They consequently have a big team in place that
have localisation skills, and they have identified the key process
elements in migrating a game title from one base country to another.

We also got to spend time with the guys from KOGIA - they are the
agency put in place by the Korean government to fund the development
of gaming within Korea (the Korean government has identified gaming as
a key strategic growth area for the country). It was fascinating
talking with people who have $30,000,000.00 in government funding for
2008, and will see it double to $60,000,000.00 for 2009. Korea really
is decades ahead of the rest of the world.

We have spent this week pulling our stuff together, but you can expect
a few posts on our site through the course of next week, that will
touch on some of the more interesting stuff. I'll post the direct
links to the posts through the course of next week, but you can check
out the site in the meantime www.wisdomgames.co.za if you subscribe to
the RSS feed you will be notified as soon as they're up.

Ciao
Raymond de Villiers
ray...@wisdomgames.co.za
www.wisdomgames.co.za


Steve Vosloo

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Nov 4, 2008, 9:36:00 AM11/4/08
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Thanks for the update, Raymond. Very interesting to get such insights
from countries not on the usual map.

The Koreans are very impressive. Is KOGIA about growing a game developer
industry in Korea?

Looking forward to the rest of the trip news,
Steve

--
Steve Vosloo
Fellow, Communication and Analytical Skills Development
The Shuttleworth Foundation

Tel: +27 21 970 1240 | Fax: +27 21 970 1241
Web: www.shuttleworthfoundation.org
Blog: www.innovatingeducation.wordpress.com

Email disclaimer: wiki.tsf.org.za/EmailDisclaimer

Raymond de Villiers

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Nov 4, 2008, 10:33:42 AM11/4/08
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Hey Steve

KOGIA's focus is on developing the gaming industry as a whole. There
is more detail on their site http://www.kogia.or.kr/english/about_kgdi/01greetings.jsp

Another resource they provide is called Game Industry Total
Information Service System (GITISS). It is a useful resource
(although both of these sites have less content than the original
Korean ones). There are free white papers dealign with the Korean
gaming industry for download at http://english.gitiss.org/html/research/white_list.jsp

We met Ken (Kyu-Nam) Choi, but spent most of our time with their
business development manager Johnny Lee [as Ken hurt himself and had
to fly back to Korea early].

Hopefully you & I will have coffee soon and I'll give you more detail
if you need it.

Raymond

Raymond de Villiers
ray...@wisdomgames.co.za

Raymond de Villiers

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Nov 4, 2008, 9:18:40 AM11/4/08
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Raymond de Villiers

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Nov 12, 2008, 11:10:34 AM11/12/08
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Hi Everyone

Not sure why this was posted again today. I wasn't even near my
machine at the time. Sorry for the glitch.

Raymond
Raymond de Villiers
ray...@wisdomgames.co.za



Steve Vosloo

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Nov 13, 2008, 2:28:07 AM11/13/08
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Sorry everyone, my fault.

Raymond de Villiers

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Dec 3, 2008, 10:10:41 AM12/3/08
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I receive this innovation newsletter on a regular basis.  This month the complete newsletter focuses on the use of MUVE's for education.  I haven't read any of the articles yet, but I thought it would be worth posting here.  Hope there are some useful bits :)

Raymond

_Innovate [1]_ is published bimonthly as a public service by the
Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern
University and is sponsored, in part, by Microsoft. 

Our December 2008/January 2009 special issue on academics in virtual
environments focuses on the possibilities and pitfalls of teaching in
virtual worlds. Our contributors offer insights into how educators
exploring multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs) can use the lessons
learned in earlier versions of the technology, describe worlds built
to meet specific educational needs, and offer advice for using Second
Life and other environments to help students with special needs.

In our opening article, Rochelle Mazar and Jason Nolan outline two
instructional experiments in MOOs that have implications for current
educational practice in MUVEs like Second Life, highlighting the
similarities between MOOs and newer technologies, and suggest that
educators can apply the lessons learned from MOO experience to MUVE
practice. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=547&action=article
[2] )

Our next two articles describe MUVEs created to meet the needs of
specific educational contexts and offer evidence to support their
effectiveness. Greg Jones and Scott Warren use a MUVE they developed
to facilitate literacy learning for middle schoolers to illustrate how
intelligent agents, in-game characters that respond to the context of
the game and to the individual player\'s situation, can accelerate
learning in MUVEs and other virtual learning environments. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=576&action=article
[3] )

Next, Victor Vergara, Thomas Caudell, Timothy Goldsmith, Panaiotis,
and Dale Alverson describe the development and evaluation of a
MUVE-based simulator to provide medical students a safe and engaging
alternative to clinical practice, creating environments that allow for
interactive experiential learning. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=579&action=article
[4] )

Finally, Stephanie McKinney, Agi Horspool, Renee Willers, Omar Safie,
and Laurie Richlin describe the opportunities Second Life offers for
students with learning disabilities and assess the challenges created
by the specific needs of these students when developing programs or
courses in Second Life. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=573 blog authors
will, in turn, respond to comments, allowing for a lively,
back-and-forth discussion around important issues. In each issue of
Innovate, Shimabukuro will report on happenings in I-Blog,
highlighting interesting developments and active discussions. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=695&action=article
[6] )

In Innovate-Ideagora this month, Alan McCord and Denise Easton report
that _Innovate_'s social networking initiative now has almost 280
members, many of whom actively contribute to a lively set of
discussions. The most active topics include considerations of what
topics the Ideagora should take up in the future and a conversation
about the challenges of motivating reluctant faculty members to engage
with new technology. McCord and Easton also announce the first
Ideagora interview, with Julie Little, director of the EDUCAUSE
Learning Initiative (ELI). Little described ELI's development of their
own social network, the Top Teaching and Learning Challenges
initiative, and talked about the need to develop active learning
environments where technology tools and pedagogical interactions are
used to fulfill content requirements, meet learner needs, and fit
instructor style. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=696&action=article
[7] )

In the From Our Sponsors section, Anthony Salcito, General Manager
for U.S. Public Sector Education at Microsoft, discusses Microsoft\'s
vision of the role of technology in transforming education for the
21st century. Salcito suggests that too many institutions begin with
technology in rethinking their educational programs and describes a
number of initiatives Microsoft is using to reach beyond technology
and offer guidance through the change process. (See
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=693&action=synopsis
)

Our partner, ULiveandLearn, produces author webcasts on the topics of
their articles. You may register for the December/January webcasts at
the Innovate-Live portal (
http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/index.cfm [8] ).

Have you used Microsoft technology to enhance your teaching? Have
Microsoft tools or programs transformed administrative or pedagogic
practice at your institution? Our readers would like to hear about it!
Please consider submitting a manuscript for Innovate's From our
Sponsors section describing how you use Microsoft technology to
enhance the educational experience. Please make sure that the
manuscript conforms to our publication guidelines, described at the
Contribute link on _Innovate_'s navigation bar, and send it to me at
j...@nova.edu. The senior authors of the top three papers published
prior to June 2009 will be invited to present their papers at the
Microsoft Global Exchange summit in July 2009 (with expenses covered
by Microsoft).

We hope that you enjoy this issue of _Innovate_. Please use the
discussion board within each article to raise questions or provide
additional commentary. Your comments will be sent to authors for their
response, which will become part of the record for their article.
Also, please forward this announcement to appropriate mailing lists
and to colleagues who want to use IT tools to advance their work and
ask your organizational librarian to link to _Innovate_ in their
resource section for open-access e-journals.

Thanks!

Jim
----
James L Morrison
Editor-in-Chief, _Innovate_
http://www.innovateonline.info [9]
Fischler School of Education and Human Services
Nova Southeastern University
http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/home.htm [10]

Links:
------
[1] http://www.innovateonline.info
[2]
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=547&action=article
[3]
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=576&action=article
[4]
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=579&action=article
[5]
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=573&action=article
[6]
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=695&action=article
[7]
http://innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=696&action=article
[8] http://www.uliveandlearn.com/PortalInnovate/index.cfm
[9] http://www.innovateonline.info
[10] http://www.schoolofed.nova.edu/home.htm

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