Serious games poised to take off
Forrester Research released a new study that you can purchase for a cool $775 USD arguing that serious games are “poised to take off” in the next seven years.
I wholeheartedly agree. This is a space on the verge of hitting it big, and the evidence is mounting after the success of the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS, and all the Brain Age and Wii Fit games.
Why are serious games about to take off? As this article indicates:
“Forrester cites the “green revolution,” which is pushing major corporations like IBM and SAP to experiment with virtual world technology as a way of saving on energy and operational costs, as well as the pervasive popularity of technology, especially among the Net-savvy Generation Y: “This comfort with virtualized workspaces has opened the door for the use of video games to help reduce long-term expenses in other cost centers, like training, learning, and team building,” the report reads. (Forrester’s authors distinguish persistent virtual worlds like Second Life from serious games, which are developed for specific goals in a limited time frame.)
In case there was any doubt, big industry players are taking notice. For instance, Microsoft. It’s one of the reasons they got into the simulation market with Microsoft ESP. I expect other industry players to dive in over the next few years as well.
Filed under: Games
