NASAGA - Games and Simulations

Keynotes

Motivational Roadmap of Players - Scott Rigby

Games and simulations have a tremendous power to engage, energize, educate, and entertain. But how can we better understand (and assess) the critical elements of the player’s experience that contribute most strongly to these outcomes? More simply put, what is the deeper motivational power of fun?
For the past five years, Immersyve Inc. has been developing a motivational model of gaming – The Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS) – that directly measures core elements of psychological satisfaction directly related to positive outcomes from game and simulation experiences, including increased value, energy, and sustained interest and engagement.
This session will review the PENS model in detail, along with applied research demonstrating its value in building optimal experiences for players, focusing specifically on interactive environments. By identifying the core needs good experiences fulfill, as well as how to measure them, attendees will take away new strategies for creating and using games and simulations to achieve educational and training goals. Understanding the motivational roadmap of players not only enhances your ability to increase valued outcomes, but also inspire new areas of innovation and creativity.
Scott Rigby is co-founder and Chief Strategist at Wattage. He is also president of Wattage's parent company, Immersyve Inc., a virtual environment think tank focusing on sustaining motivation, satisfaction, and impact within interactive applications and virtual environments. Scott is a veteran of both the ivory tower and interactive product development. After earning his Ph. D. as a clinical psychologist focusing on motivation, Scott founded and ran an agency in Manhattan that developed interactive applications and content for Citibank, Sony, Time Warner, and Viacom. He has hosted several television shows in the New York market on consumer technology, including Your Internet Show (TV-55) and Plugged In with Scott Rigby (Metro Channel). His company won numerous industry awards for innovative design, and was ranked by Deloitte and Touche as the 11th fastest growing company in New York’s metro area in 2000. His interactive work can also be seen as part of the “Explore the Universe” exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Scott is a former faculty member of the New York New Media Association, and is a sought after speaker and author on the topics of maximizing motivation through innovative interactive technology.

Play Pride

Based on his extensive experience with classic games (such as Dipomacy) and research, Pierre Corbeil exhorts us to take games seriously. He explores the impact of games on human behavior and encourages gamers and trainers not to apologize to school administrators, deans, and clients taking up too much of the teaching or training time. Check this section for more details of Pierre’s keynote because, as usual, his overactive brain is likely to be churning up more new ideas.
Pierre Corbeil, a long-time NASAGA member, holds degrees from the University of Toronto (Canada) and from the Université de Montréal (Québec). After wargaming, historical games, and intercultural games, Pierre became interested in entrepreneurship and has published a collection of games on that subject, Entreprendre par le jeu. He believes games favor invention over classification and defines history as the illusion of reality recreated generation after generation. He also believes that games are a serious business. Retired from teaching, he still plays wargames, and edits games and reviews for Simulation & Gaming journal.

Art, Simulation, and the Work Environment - Rosalyn Chan

Relevance. A particularly interesting word when we look at all the rapid and radical changes that impact and transform our daily lives. What is relevant any more? Everyday, in an ever-accelerating pace, we are expected to deal with complex issues and come up with a relevant solution. Relevant answers require creative ideas. In both the academic and corporate work environment, training and development programs are progressively emphasizing the creative perspective, connecting seemingly disparate ideas together to create solutions that are unexpectedly elegant and simple. Simulations are the pathway for linking both creativity and relevance to performance. In this presentation, we will focus on how to transform the way people visualize possibilities, how to create venues that open up new ways of seeing relevance in business contexts, and how to develop new ways of showcasing imaginative thinking and innovative leadership. Ros will present they story of an art project that became a year-long simulation for enhancing the work environment, leading to some astounding results that even the business leaders thoroughly appreciated.
Rosalyn Chan has over 15 years of extensive human resources management experience in entrepreneurial corporate environments. In her current capacity as Managing Director of Human Resources with Redwood Trust, a NYSE financial services company, she participates and contributes to broader organizational management initiatives, and acts an internal consultant to all levels of management to provide solutions to a variety of HR challenges facing a growth company. Previously Rosalyn worked as Human Resources Director with Red Sail Merchandising (a Hyatt affiliate), a specialty advertising company, and as Human Resources Manager with Landor Associates, an international corporate identity and brand design consulting firm.
Rosalyn’s peers and colleagues recognize her as a great coach, a leader who motivates others, and one who truly cares. Her peers report that her high positive energy is contagious.