Serious Games Summit touts keynote speakers

The Game Developers Conference has never shied away from topics that expand upon the mind-set that pegs the game industry as one that cares only for its movie tie-ins and first-person shooters.

Some might even go so far as to say GDC is the thinking-person's trade show. Attendees can be the judge of that positioning, but adding to that branding is word today from the event's owner and producer, the CMP Game Group--the organization announced today the Serious Games Summit keynote speakers and highlights of the summit's sessions.

Opening the Serious Games Summit, a component of the main GDC event, will be presentations from Linden Lab founder and CEO Philip Rosedale and author and keeper of blog The Ludologist, Jesper Juul.

Linden Lab's marquee product is the virtual-world game Second Life. Juul is the editor of the Game Studies journal and author of Half-Real: Video Games Between Real Rules and Fictional Worlds (MIT Press, 2005).

GDC director Jamil Moledina called serious games "an increasingly viable option for many sectors, especially corporate training and education," in a statement today. "As game creators develop better tools and apply the solutions more broadly, they have a larger arena to make impactful serious games."

Event highlights, according to organizers, include the following sessions and speakers:

Advergaming, Game-Based Messaging, and Marketing
Ian Bogost, Persuasive Games

Serious Games Tutorial: Core Approaches for Serious Game Project Success
Ben Sawyer, Cofounder, Digitalmill

Better (Serious) Game Design: As Lecture and Practice
Noah Falstein, The Inspiracy

Human to Virtual Human
Nigel Papworth, Lulea University of Technology
Business Model Blasts
Doug Whatley, BreakAway Games Ltd.
Eric Marcoullier, Cyberlore Studio
Ntiedo Etuk, Tabula Digita Inc.

New Interfaces for Serious Games: Case Study Blasts
Juha Arrasvuori, Nokia
Domenic Greco, CyberLearning Technology LLC
Jeff Ridenour, University of California, Irvine
Nigel Papworth, Lulea University of Technology

Mass Audience Issues for Serious Games
Suzanne Seggerman, Games for Change
Carl Goodman, Digital Media at the Museum of Moving Image
Katie Salen, Parsons School of Design
Connie Yowell, MacArthur Foundation
Karen Sideman

A Corporate Learning Consortium Looks at Games
Mark Oehlert, MASIE Center Learning Consortium
Brent Schlenker, Intel

Real Teachers: Real Games
Speaker: Kurt Squire, University of Wisconsin

The summit will take place March 20 and 21 at the Marriott Hotel, adjacent to the Convention Center, in San Jose.