PlayGen

PlayGen, located at PlayGen.co.uk, is a London-based developer of Serious games, Educational Interactive shows, and tools for training and has created programs for a wide variety of public and private sectors ranging from educational programs for the BBC to training tools for the United Kingdom's Department of Defense.
PlayGen has created content for a wide variety of available platforms from flash-based online strategy games such as FloodSim to downloadable 3d rendered action simulations such as NanoMission. PlayGen also allows the option of building a game from a variety of pre-designed and customizable platforms such as a virtual world platform usable within SecondLife or a downloadable role-playing platform. Besides creating training aides and serious games, PlayGen also creates measurement services that do things such as gather public opinion.
Public and Government Response
The games and materials created by PlayGen have garnered a very positive response from players, the media, scientific groups and the governments of the UK.
FloodSim has pleased the government of the UK greatly, even receiving public backing from Environment Minister Phil Woolas who has said “The floods of 2007 show just how serious flooding can be, and I am glad to see that this project has been developed to enable people to have a greater understanding of the risk of flooding. A number of decisions need to be taken when we look at managing the risk of flooding - including our annual spend on flood defenses, where and how we build new houses, and the emergency response procedures we have in place for times of flood. This game gives the game player the opportunity to make informed decisions about all of these policy areas.” To date, over 108,000 players have played Floodsim. Over half of all players have voiced opinion that flooding is a major problem and want the government to take greater action on it and the majority of Floodsim players feel that Floodsim has greatly helped their understanding of the flooding problem.
At Virtual Worlds Forum Europe 2007, Lord Puttman called for virtual worlds to "encourage to exercise those same values and skills we wish to see them exercise in the real world”. In response, PlayGen created SeriousPolicy. The game cost took PlayGen only two weeks to make and cost less than 10,000 pounds. This fast turnover started a media frenzy as it showcased that now for little more than the cost of publishing a magazine a game can be developed that can potentially reach tens of thousands of people worldwide with far greater interactivity, easier reproducibility, faster transmission to the people and greater opinion-gathering potential than any old media could have offered.
NanoMission has attracted the attention of high-profile scientific groups such as Cientifica, a European-based nanotechnology association, and The Wellcome Trust, the UK's largest charitable organization that funds innovative biomedical research globally "The falling numbers of science and engineering students in western Europe and the United States will have a real economic impact in an increasingly technology dependent society," comments Tim Harper, director of Cientifica and project adviser to the NanoMission series, "It is vitally important that the technology community supports projects such as NanoMission to ensure that our economies remain competitive in the 21st century." The game's current research and development board has also attracted top names in the Nanotechnology field such as Mark Welland, director of Nanoscience at the University of Cambridge; Richard Jones, a professor of physics at the University of Sheffield and a frequent writer on nanotechnology; Wolfgang Luther, head of nanotechnologies at VDI, the Association of German Engineers; and nanomedicine expert Kostas Kostarelos, deputy head of the center for drug delivery research at the University of London's School of Pharmacy.
Catalog of Creations
Anti-Money Laundering
This learning game shows how money can be used to support financial crime and teaches the player how to recognize and prevent money laundering from happening within their firm.
Data Security
This simulation shows how information can be gathered by illegal means and how stolen information can be exploited in order to create awareness of the importance of data security. It also teaches the player how to properly secure and store their personal data.
Climate Health Impact
Climate Health Impact is a simulation game designed to give college-level biology students a better understanding of the health impacts of climate change. It focuses on identifying climate-related diseases and understanding policies that could be implemented to help the world adapt to a rapidly-changing environment.
FloodSim
FloodSim is a flood management and prevention simulation created to draw attention to the dangers flooding presents to the United Kingdom and how to prevent said dangers. In this game the player takes charge of all flood planning and protection in the UK for three years.
Open Source Virtual World
Developed for the UK's defense Ministry this game is a multiuser, objective-based immersive training simulation based on the World of Warcraft game series and is created upon Open Source technologies. Players run quests alone or in groups and interact with NPCs who may question and brief the players.
Media War
This simulation brings to light decisions faced by media operatives working in areas of war and civil unrest and the repercussions of the choices on the national and international media.
NanoMission
NanoMission is a game series that teaches about nanomedicine, nanotechnology and related concepts through a series of 3d rendered action games.
PrettyPoli
An exercise in fast and effective realistic creation game models, this game was created within a week. PrettyPoli satirizes both political events in the UK and the Writer's Guild strikes by telling a story in which a film producer seeking an Oscar but unable to get writers due to the strike decides to turn to the world of politics as a source of entertainment material.
SeriousPolicy
In this political strategy game, the player must attempt to gain funding from the Treasury for a new helpful policy for the people of the UK, teaching about the real life political processes and decision making that goes on every day in Parliament.
Time Commanders
A Game show created for the BBC in which players take control of historical armies to battle simulated versions of the greatest generals of all time. Time Commanders was a fairly popular TV show in the United Kingdom and was hailed as a successful and innovative mix of real history with game show entertainment.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu