Serious Games Squared

Speakers: Ichiro Otobe

Track: SGS: Vision

Format: 60-minute Keynote

Experience Level: All

Description: What happens when serious games get backed and powered by a leading game company and what can we learn from it? In March 2006 Square Enix, one of the largest developers and publishers of interactive entertainment including the Final Fantasy®, Dragon Quest® and Kingdom Hearts series of games, announced it was forming SG Lab – a serious games oriented joint venture with Gakken a major textbook publisher in Japan.

This announcement marked a specific point in the growth of the serious games field as it was entered directly into by one of the most respected game developers in the industry. Little to date has been released about the effort beyond its initial announcement and the venture's corporate Web site (http://www.sg-lab.net/).

In the opening keynote, Ichiro Otobe will detail the thinking and the efforts that went into Square Enix's entry in the serious game business. He will focus on how the company is reconciling the economics and approaches from commercial entertainment with the realities, challenges, and opportunities from serious game sectors including education, health, and more. His talk will also feature demos of prototype games and of titles under development.

This keynote offers a unique opportunity to identify how other large commercial entertainment companies can orientate themselves towards new markets serious games offer. It also provides a glimpse into the design, philosophy, and production approaches for serious games that can emerge from studios comprised of the talent and culture behind some of the game industry's top titles.