ESA HEARTLAND SERIES: Q&A WITH MULTIVARIOUS CEO CHRIS VOLPEChris Volpe (front center) poses for a photo with Multivarious team members. ESA asked Chris Volpe, CEO of Multivarious in Columbus, Ohio, about his experiences in the video game industry, the types of games and technologies his studio focuses on, and why he thinks Columbus could be the next Silicon Valley. Read the Q&A to learn more about Multivarious and how its initiatives, like the Central Ohio Gamedev Group, are creating a video game development hub. Showcasing the geographic diversity of the video game industry, the Heartland Series features interviews with video game publishers, developers, and innovators from across America, highlighting the groundbreaking work and innovation they bring to every corner of the nation. NEW FUNDING TO ADVANCE MEDICAL TRAINING VIDEO GAMESThe video game ‘Airway Ex’ allows physicians to practice difficult airway procedures based on real patient cases using smartphones or tablets. Chicago-based start-up Level Ex recently raised $11 million to advance its medical training video games and expand its virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) capabilities. The developer’s flagship game, Airway Ex, allows physicians to practice difficult airway procedures based on real patient cases using smartphones or tablets. The game helps users refine hand-eye coordination prior to performing actual procedures and supports better decision-making. Moreover, the game includes anesthesia simulations and patient reactions. “Our main focus with the Series A funding will be to expand our mobile apps as the mobile device is one of the most convenient and accessible training modalities that will ever be adopted by doctors,” said Level Ex CEO Sam Glassenberg. “Additionally, we plan to expand our AR and VR titles based on our market demand coming in from the medical device and pharma industry, and medical societies interested in these technologies as a new format for continuing medical education.” Feedback from the medical community has been positive. More than 1,000 anesthesiologists have tested Airway Ex and more than 700 gastroenterologists have tested Gastro Ex, a similar video game that simulates gastrointestinal tract endoscopic surgery. “We’ve been working hand-in-hand with physicians since the beginning,” Glassenberg said. “We know how to do virtual reality, but we needed access to the reality, and the medical community has been walking us through key challenges and feeding us all of these videos to build simulation cases from.” DID YOU KNOW? There are 665 million people around the world who tune in to platforms like Twitch and YouTube for content about their favorite video games. (Source: Superdata) INDIGENOUS CULTURES EXPRESS THEMSELVES THROUGH VIDEO GAMESCreated in collaboration with Alaska Native Iñupiaq community members, elders, and poet Ishmael Hope, ‘Never Alone’ follows the journey of a young girl and an arctic fox. Native cultures around the world increasingly are using video games to preserve their heritage and tell the story of their people. One of the most recent games in this trend is Mulaka, a 3-D action adventure game about the Tarahumara culture of Chihuahua, Mexico. The Tarahumara are a little-known people outside of Chihuahua. Players in Mulaka take on the role of a Sukurúame – a Tarahumara shaman – and work to solve puzzles and fight against a foulness corrupting the land. The game even preserves the Tarahumara language through some of its dialogue. “It’s the only medium where you not only get to learn about a story, but also be part of it,” said Mulaka writer and programmer Guillermo Vizcaíno. “Right now as you’re playing, you are a Tarahumara indigenous character. You're experiencing the physicality of the region for yourself. That's the best way to create empathy in players. It's the best way to tell a story that just sticks with you.” Other games like Maoriland and Honour Water were also created by and in collaboration with indigenous peoples, and one of the most well-known games to come out of this trend is Never Alone. Created in collaboration with Alaska Native Iñupiaq community members, elders, and poet Ishmael Hope, the game follows the journey of a young girl and an arctic fox. Players must guide the pair through frozen tundra and treacherous ice flows to save the girl’s village from an eternal blizzard. Gamers and many in the industry embrace this new form of storytelling and engaging with native cultures. More than 80 percent of reviews for Never Alone on the video game platform Steam are positive and the game was a 2015 Games for Change award winner. VIDEO GAMES BOOST LEARNING AND IMPORTANT SKILLSA student practices video game development skills during a STEM learning exercise in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill. Playing video games improves the ability to learn and fosters the development of highly desirable skills, such as resourcefulness and adaptability, according to two recent studies from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and Ruhr-Universität Bochum in Germany. In the first study, Matthew Barr, a lecturer in information studies at the University of Glasgow, randomly assigned undergraduate students to play video games in a computer lab over a two-month period. The students were tested on their communication, adaptability, and resourcefulness before and after the experiment. The study found that after the experiment the group of gamers performed better in all three categories than a control group that did not play video games during the two-month period. “Modern video games often require players to be adaptable and resourceful, and finding multiple ways of accomplishing a task,” noted Barr. “The way games are designed often encourages critical thinking and reflective learning, commonly cited as desirable attributes in graduates.” In the second study, neuropsychologists at Ruhr-Universität Bochum created a test group of volunteers who reported playing action-based games on a computer or console for more than 15 hours a week. Volunteers in the control group did not play video games regularly. Both groups were given a “weather-prediction task,” an established test that measures the learning of probabilities, and were evaluated on their performance. The study concluded that the test group of gamers performed significantly better than the control group and showed increased activity in brain regions linked to learning. “Our study shows that gamers are better in analyzing a situation quickly, to generate new knowledge and to categorize facts – especially in situations with high uncertainties,” said Sabrina Schenk, co-author of the study. The researchers are optimistic about their findings and hope to use video games to stimulate
the hippocampus, activating the parts of the brain associated with memory and delaying the onset of brain diseases like Alzheimer’s and dementia. WEBBY AWARDS DEBUTS NEW HONORS FOR GAMESThe Webby Awards, the leading international award program honoring excellence online, recently created a new suite of video game categories to recognize the outstanding work of the video game industry across mobile, social, and browser-based platforms. The new categories cover a number of video game genres – action, puzzle, sports – and features like game design, technical achievement, and user experience. Leading innovators from the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences will judge nominated entries. Judges include Anne Munition, gamer and Twitch streamer; Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine Productions; Constance Steinkuehler, president of the Higher Education Video Game Alliance and former White House advisor on video games; Ken Levine, co-founder of Ghost Story Games; and Rio Caraeff, chief content officer of Magic Leap. Video games may be entered in multiple categories if appropriate. Entries in multiple categories will be reviewed separately and are eligible to win multiple awards. The full list of categories is available here. The deadline to enter the next round of Webby Awards is Friday, December 15. ESA will host a Webby Talks event from 5 to 7 p.m. December 6 at its Washington, DC, headquarters. Webby Talks events provide an in-depth, thought-provoking look at current online trends. You can RSVP for Webby Talks here. STATISTIC OF THE MONTHThe dedicated augmented reality device market is expected to reach $660 million by 2018. (Source: EdTech) IN THE NEWS QUOTE OF THE MONTH“I am hard pressed to think of an activity that challenges our young people to collaborate, think critically, and engage persistently, even in the face of repeated failure, to achieve some level of success towards a desired goal. I see … popular esports titles as a way to build these critical skills in hopes that we can then transfer them to other domains.” - Clint Kennedy, Supervisor of the Innovation, Personalized Learning, and Magnet Program at Connecticut’s New London Public Schools (Source: Mashable) CONTACT USEntertainment Software Association
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