Developer Epic Games has released a free, Unreal 3-powered development kit that will allow students, schools, researchers or fledgling game developers the ability to experiment with 3D game technology.

The Unreal Development Kit (UDK) can be downloading at the UDK website. The UDK is free for noncommercial or educational use, and a variety of licensing options are available—including a revenue sharing model—for anyone creating commercial content. This specific development kit is for the PC platform only, though Epic is considering console support in the future as well.

Epic notes that over 100 campuses already make use of Unreal Technology as part of their curriculum, including University of Pennsylvania, North Carolina State University, The Art Institute system of schools, Drexel University, Westwood College, DeVry University and Atlantic College.

As part of an initiative to chronicle the health benefits of videogames, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has bestowed over $1.85 million in grants to nine research teams.

RWJF’s Health Games Research program, headquartered at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is backed by $8.25 million in funding from RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio, which operates under the mantra of supporting “innovative projects that may lead to breakthrough improvements in the future of health and health care.” The grant winners announced today are part of a second round of funding.

Pioneer Portfolio Team Director Paul Tarini stated, “The pace of growth and innovation in digital games is incredible, and we see tremendous potential to design them to help people stay healthy or manage chronic conditions like diabetes or Parkinson’s disease.  However, we need to know more about what works and what does not—and why.”

Research teams were chosen from 185 total proposals and each was awarded between $100,000 and $300,00. The grant winners, and a short synopsis of their field of study, are:

• Children's Hospital of Philadelphia - Reward Circuitry, Autism and Games that Teach Social Perceptual Skills
 
• George Washington University - Active-Adventure: Investigating a Novel Exergaming Genre in Inner City School Physical Education Programs

• Georgetown University - Wii Active Exergame Intervention for Low-Income African-American Obese and Overweight Adolescents

• Long Island University - Dance Video Game Training and Falling in Parkinson’s Disease

• Michigan State University - Buddy Up! Harnessing Group Dynamics to Boost Motivation to Exercise

• Michigan State University - Short-Term and Long-Term Effectiveness of Exergames for Young Adults

• Teachers College, Columbia University - Lit: A Game Intervention for Nicotine Smokers

• University of California, San Francisco - A Video Game to Enhance Cognitive Health in Older Adults

• University of Southern California - Robot Motivator: Towards Adaptive Health Games for Productive Long-Term Interaction

The Madison Media Institute (MMI) is set to opena new branch in Minnesota that will offer multiple degree paths, including Game Art & Animation and Digital Media Design & Production.

Dubbed the Minnesota Media Institute, the Edina-based campus is set on the former home of legendary producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, who had called it Flyte Tyme Studios. Grammy-award winning producer and engineer Tom Tucker was part of a group that purchased the space with a goal of launching a world-class training center.

MMI President Chris Hutchings said:

We`re excited to establish a Twin Cities location for MMI, and we’re very much looking forward to bringing our expertise to an already thriving arts community.

An open house to celebrate the branch’s grand opening is scheduled for November 28th.

A new study undertaken by a group of Massachusetts General Hospital researchers attempts to further explore whether a link exists between playing violent videogames and aggressive behavior in adolescents.

“M-Rated Video Games and Aggressive or Problem Behavior Among Young Adolescents” surveyed 1,254 7th and 8th grade students in Pennsylvania and South Carolina in late 2004. Youths were asked which five games they had “played a lot” in the past six months and were asked to detail any “delinquent,” bullying or physically aggressive behaviors.

Among those who were current game players, 48.8% (67.9% boys and 29.2% girls) had at least one M-rated game on their most-played list. Cross tallying and crunching variables led the researchers to conclude:

M-rated games remained a strongly significant predictor of engaging in bullying and physical aggression However, we found no significant relationship between playing M-rated games and being a victim of bullies, or engaging in delinquent behaviors.

Boys were then split off from girls and their responses analyzed separately. With boys “M-rated game exposure ceased to be a significant predictor of bullying, and aggressive personality,” though “M-rated game play was still a significant, though weaker, predictor of fighting.”

With girls, “frequent M-rated game use became an even stronger predictor of bullying and fighting.”

The group concluded:

Overall, our hypothesis that heavy play of Mature-rated, violent games would predict a greater risk for common problem behaviors, even when controlling for potential confounders suggested by previous research, was partially supported.

The researchers pointed out a few limitations of their study, which included the fact that “Involvement in problem behaviors is common among adolescents.” Also, responses from the children indicating their top five games of the past six months were not independently verified.

Interestingly, in touching on legislation that seeks to ban children’s access to “violent” videogames, and asking “who would determine whether a game fits these critieria,” the study states, “Because of these complexities, it is unlikely that a narrow category of games could be clearly identified and supported by research as broadly harmful to young people.”

GP: We have an inquiry in with one of the researchers to make sure that's it's OK to post the whole study (PDF) on the website.

Update: Just a note that the research team included Dr. Cheryl Olson, co-author of Grand Theft Childhood.

Update 2: Here's a link to a PDF of the full study.

If you happen to be a thermal engineer with a specialty in low temperature, cryogenic applications and you’re feeling a little out of practice, a new interactive training simulator can get you back up to speed.

Cool-It emerged from The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Division of Information Technology department. Users choose from a selection of jobs for the Navy or NASA—overseeing a variety of minesweepers or space depots—before being tasked with building the object so that it falls within tolerances.

The Flash-based sim is rather polished and the explosions resulting from failed engineering attempts are neat as well… trust us.

An Indian youth recently spent over 40 hours straight playing Grand Theft Auto IV, and instead of a one-way ticket to ReStart, he received congratulations and a spot in the record books.

That’s because Chirantan Patnaik of Mumbai set a Guinness World Record with his gameathon, surpassing the previous GTA IV-specific endurance mark of 28 hours and one minute, which was set by a U.S. gamer last year. Patnaik lasted a total of 40 hours and 20 minutes reports ZeeNews, with Guinness rules mandating a 10-minute break every hour.

Patnaik prepared for his binge by running and practicing yoga. He added that avoiding coffee and eating dates (the fruit) helped him stay alert during the session. An avid gamer, this was the first time Patnaik had played GTA IV.

Indian gaming portal Zapak sponsored the event and provided observers. The company’s COO, Rohit Sharma, offered the following about Patnaik:

We have always believed in the potential of Indian gamers. Chirantan's success is a proud moment for the Indian gaming industry. This will encourage more youngsters to take gaming seriously.

A couple Iowa professors have set up a video games lab designed to study how people respond when playing video games.

The professors have acknowledged that video games are becoming an important part of our life, and their Video Game Institute for Education and Research is designed to measure responses to those playing games, such as heart rate, respiration and skin response, according to a report by KPTH Fox 44 News in South Dakota.

The Morningside College instructors, psychology professor Susan Burns and computer science professor Dean Stevens, have already collaborated on two other video game studies without their lab. The pair want to continue their research into online gaming and gaming addictions to educate consumers to give them a better understanding about video games:

"It has such a huge affect on who we are as a people and so it's important to realize what's happening with video games and how they affect us," says Stevens.

"We feel it is our role, our purpose, to not just gather the knowledge and keep it to ourselves, but to educate the public as well," says Burns.
 

Opinion: It is refreshing to see researchers taking what appears to be an objective approach to a study, with education as the goal, as opposed to scare tactics. But, we still need to see how the final results are presented in the end.

Can problems with video game addiction lead to other gaming addictions? According to a recent study looking at Australian youth, it can.

An article on BASIS Online looks at the study, which examined the correlation between video game play over the past year with a screening instrument that looks at pathological gambling markers. Participants in the study, a total of 2,669, were 12-17 years old and pulled from four major metropolitan schools in South Australia.

Video game involvement "measures included frequency of play, number of hours played, and type of game played, including: TV games (e.g., Xbox, Nintendo, Playstation); phone-based games; hand-held games (e.g., Nintendo, Gameboy); PC games; and arcade games." Pathological Gambling (PG) was assessed using 12 yes/no questions that looked at past and present behavior. With the answers to these questions allowed researchers to put the student into three groups: Not At Risk, At-Risk and PG. The results of the PG were then correlated with frequency and type of video game play.

The conclusion:

The results indicated significant associations between various types of video-gaming and gambling-related problems. However, the effect sizes were very small; this suggests that frequent video-game playing accounts for only a small part of the relationship between video game playing and gambling-related problems among adolescents. The inconsistency within the results (e.g., PC games were protective of PG, but hand-held games did not show a difference between no risk and at risk) suggests that other factors might better explain the association between video games and gambling-related problems. Future research should consider exploring additional factors (e.g., social/family influences, personality, beliefs etc.) that extend beyond frequency of playing video games that may explain why some adolescents experience gambling-related problems.

The article mentioned several limitations on the study and provides a chart that breaks down gambling groups in relation to frequency of video game play in the past year.

Legitimate concern or grasping at straws? I'm honestly not sure.

Two researchers at the IT University in Cohenhagen, Denmark, are looking at creating adaptive games that would change as you play them and learn whether you are playing to be competitive or just for fun.

According to an article in New Scientist, Julian Togelius and Georgios Yannakakis gathered volunteers to play two separate versions of Super Mario Bros. The game had been altered by changing the type and number of enemies and the size and gaps between platforms. The game was also set to record the moves that players made and how long they took standing still.

Some of the findings:

Some early results appear obvious. "If you die by falling too often down gaps that is indicative of frustration," says Yannakakis. However, the approach goes beyond "common sense" associations to uncover those that are not so readily apparent, he says. In Super Mario Bros, for example, hitting bricks to release coins or stomping turtle shells and throwing them - activities not necessary to accomplish the overall goal - positively correlate with a fun experience, Togelius says.

While this experiment is an interesting concept, the thought I found most disturbing is that, according to Ian Bogost associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, some developers may resist the idea because "some wonder if this effort destroys the potential for art to produce the unfamiliar or disturbing." In my mind, the two can live separately. If you create games for gamers, let the game adapt. If you want to create art, then don't.

A good read no matter what side of the fence you are on.

An upcoming lecture in Queensland, Australia, looks to tackle the topic of first-person shooters and real-life violence, according to a news story at Crispy Gamer.

The lecture, entitled "Are Video games to Blame" and to be delivered by academic Peter Mantello, plans to ask if "these kinds of games by their very nature desensitize young adult males and teens to violence, conflict and war and ignore conflict resolution." Apparently, Mantello is a gamer and a founder of the Center for Advanced Media Arts Studies at Ritsumeikan University in Japan.

The Crispy commenter takes issue with the way the university news story on lecture, wondering if certain quotes by Mantello are direct or taken out of context. For example:

“Players transform into cyborg soldiers and patriotic crusaders whose goal is to liberate failed nations, protect national security interests and vanquish pre-modern evil."

The lecture is scheduled for Oct. 5 at the University of Queensland’s School of Political Science and International Studies in St. Lucia.

Dr. Christopher Ferguson (left) of Texas A&M International University dropped GamePolitics a line this morning to say that he has published a new study with some interesting findings about media violence.

Ferguson's new work (co-authored by Claudia San Miguel and Richard Hartley) appears in the Journal of Pediatrics and maintains that youth violence is linked to depression and peer delinquency, not consumption of violent media. Ferguson summarized his findings in an e-mail to GP:

We examined multiple risk factors for violence in a sample of 603 mostly Hispanic youth... We assessed results across seven separate measures of youth violence and serious youth aggression, including the Child Behavior Checklist aggression and rule-breaking scales as reported by both children and their parents, involvement in violent and non-violent criminal behaviors and bullying behaviors against peers. 

 

We found that depressed mood and association with delinquent peers were the strongest and most consistent risk factors for youth violence across outcome measures.  Parents' use of verbal cruelty in domestic relationships and the child's antisocial personality traits were also reasonably strong predictors of violent behavior.  By contrast video game violence exposure and television violence exposure were not found to be predictors of youth violence. 

School kids may not have to hide their PSPs under their desks for much longer.

Recently, noted game designer Will Wright (The Sims, Spore) interviewed Harvard Professor Edward O. Wilson (left) on NPR’s Open Mic segment and asked if he saw a role for video games in the educational process. Here's what Wilson had to say:

I'll go to an even more radical position. I think games are the future in education. We're going through a rapid transition now. We're about to leave print textbooks behind. For example, I envision visits to different ecosystems that the student could actually enter – taking this path, going to that hill – with an instructor. That could be a rain forest, a tundra, or a Jurassic forest...

 

When children went out in Paleolithic times, they went with adults – they learned everything they needed to learn by participating in the process.

Wilson sees the virtual experiences of video games as a way to help motivate kids to go out and learn by having real experiences. Check out the whole audio interview right here.

Via: GoNintendo

-Reporting from San Diego, GamePolitics Senior Correspondent Andrew Eisen…

New research indicates that in-game advertisement which feature violent elements may be more memorable to players than nonviolent ads.

MIT's Technology Review reports on the study conducted in part at the University of Luxemburg

[Researchers] developed a simple racing game called AdRacer... A player drives around a virtual course and scores points by hitting targets along the way--as she drives, unobtrusive graphical ads are displayed as billboard graphics... while a camera records her eye movements. After playing, each player's ability to recall of brands shown on the side of the road was tested.

 

Those who played a violent version of the game, where the goal was to run down pedestrians, resulting in a blood-splattered screen, demonstrated significantly better recall of advertised brands than those who played the regular version...

Of course, while violent ads may increase the player's memory of the product, they could also be a public relations disaster in the making. Technology Review notes that University of Luxemburg researchers have also found that ad violence can lessen a gamer's opinion of a brand.

GP: The screenshot at left is from the University of Luxemburg's AdRacer.

A study conducted by researchers at the University of Adelaide has linked regular video game play to gambling addiction.

Australia's ABC News reports on comments by Paul Delfabbro of the University's school of psychology. Delfabbro's team studied more than 2,500 Australian teens and found that more than half admitted to gambling within the preceding 12 months. Delfabbro commented on his findings:

If you look at those young people who are classified as pathological gamblers you will find that they do have a higher frequency of involvement with many different types of videogame. They're much more likely to play games on Xboxes and similar consoles. They are also more likely to play arcade games...

 

Some young people who don't have a lot of structured activities in their life... what they'll often do is spend very large amounts of time playing videogames or often be more likely to be the ones who go off to street venues to play arcade games.

Those sort of young people who've had this need for more sort of unstructured activities probably also drift into gambling a bit more because it's another activity which you can do if you're out on the street.

However, University of Sydney psychology professor Alex Blaszczynski said that the evidence gathered by Delfabbro does not support a causal link between video game play and compulsive gambling:

Does an interest in gambling lead to people becoming involved in video games or do video games lead to people becoming involved in gambling? Or is there a third factor which accounts for both gambling and videogames?

There’s also the possibility that some people with certain characteristics would then tend to engage in both video and technology type gaming activity and gambling as well. And that may well be linked to things like risk taking or impulsivity or other factors.

The University of Adelaide research will appear in next month's Journal of Gambling Studies.

It's a sad day when one of the web's most intelligent game-oriented sites rides off into the sunset.

And so it is with Water Cooler Games, operated since 2003 by Georgia Tech prof Ian Bogost and researcher Gonzalo Frasca. Both academics are also accomplished designers of provocative, issue-oriented games.

We note the following in the site's RSS feed this morning:

Water Cooler Games is now closed. Thanks for reading all these years. The site has been archived in full (with comments)... For my take on "videogames with an agenda," you might want to read Persuasive Games. I am now blogging at Bogost.com...

—Ian Bogost, August 2009

Because the issue-oriented focus of Water Cooler Games often intersected with that of GamePolitics, WCG was frequently cited here on GP. We will miss it, but it's good to know that it will live on in an archived version.

UPDATE: Ian Bogost has posted a lengthy commentary on the WCG closure:

From my perspective, the Water Cooler Games project was very much a success. The fact that so many venues now exist for discussing of what we coyly called "videogames with an agenda" speaks at least in part to the influence we exerted.

More so, the site had been immensely useful in helping me conduct research. My 2007 book Persuasive Games drew many examples from titles we covered on Water Cooler Games... 

 

Closing WCG opens up new opportunities for my writing, on this site and elsewhere... The truth is that I've said most of what I want to say about [political games, advertising and games, and other topics covered on WCG]...

GP: We wish Ian continued success and the best of luck going forward...

The Ontario city of Sault Ste. Marie plans to support development of a speech therapy game to the tune of $50,000, according to The Sault Star.

The money from the city's economic development fund will be awarded to Algoma University, which is partnering with the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute to build a game studio devoted to developing health-oriented games.

Council member Steve Butland called the project "different and darn near cutting edge for Sault Ste. Marie."

Yesterday, GamePolitics reported that two more former college quarterbacks have sued EA over the alleged inclusion of their likenesses in the best-selling NCAA Football series of games.

Ryan Hart of Rutgers and Troy Taylor of Cal filed their suit in New Jersey Superior Court. In May, former Nebraska QB Sam Keller lodged a similar complaint against EA.

While some observers have ridiculed the athletes' claims, columnist Jon Solomon of AL.com, a website incorporating several Alabama newspapers, believes the allegations have merit:

The NCAA insists that college athletes shouldn't be sales tools... What does that mean? Crossing that line has been awfully blurry, even before the video game lawsuits.

Why do you think fans buy No. 8 Alabama jerseys and No. 15 Florida jerseys? It's no coincidence the punter's jersey number doesn't hang in stores next to those of Julio Jones and Tim Tebow...

There is no question EA Sports identifies individual players. If this were an open-records request by a media outlet, universities would redact every video game player, citing personally identifiable information. Funny how that works, isn't it?

All it takes for a major NCAA mess is one sympathetic judge or jury to an athlete's claim of exploitation. Ironically, that forum could come from video games, which are wildly popular with the very college athletes whose identities are being used.

Via Water Cooler Games comes word that a new academic journal dealing with video games and education is in the works.

The Computer Game Education Review will be edited by Stephen Jacobs (left), a professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology (and, we're proud to say, a longtime GamePolitics reader). A blurb on the publisher's website describes what the new journal is all about:

CGER will be a peer-reviewed academic publication addressing issues that concern the teaching of game design and development including, but not limited to, curriculum organization, teaching techniques (e.g., conceptual vs. exemplary), game typology, societal impact, economic and commercial issues, legal aspects, and student evaluation that are of interest to faculty and institutions involved in the education and training of future game developers.

A new report published by the Joan Ganz Clooney Center at Sesame Workshop discusses the potentially positive effects of video games in educating children and promoting their physical well-being.

Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children’s Learning and Health urges educators as well as government and the healthcare industry to look beyond the stereotype of video games as harmful. The report also calls for increased investment in the medium:

All groups committed to the public interest—educators, policymakers, the federal government, industry leaders, philanthropies, universities—should invest resources in learning how to maximize the impact of a potentially powerful phenomenon that can advance both children's learning and health.

Because a large percentage of American youth play video games, increased investment in their positive aspects could reap enormous benefits for the next generation, the report concludes. The authors note, however, that video games are under constant scrutiny due to their perceived negative effects:

Despite their reputation as promoters of violence and mayhem, digital games have in fact been shown to help children gain content and vital foundational and 21st century skills.

While noting that some stakeholders have reservations about investing in video game tech because of the perceived sedentary nature of games and potential links to rising childhood obesity rates, the report notes the popularity of  the Wii and Dance Dance Revolution. Nintendo’s popular console and Konami’s best-selling dance game franchise have helped to alter perceptions about negative physical effects of video games.

The authors also point to a number of well-established examples illustrating the potentially beneficial effects video games could have on the education and health of future American generations:

Digital games are here to stay and offer the country a rare opportunity to leverage children's already established enthusiasm in order to reform education and promote healthy development.

Via: Kotaku

DOCUMENT DUMP: Grab the full Game Changer report here. Grab the executive summary here.

GP: With this article we welcome Doug Buffone to the pages of GamePolitics. Doug, a student at Georgetown, is interning with GP's parent company, the Entertainment Consumers Association.

On Wednesday GamePolitics reported on a study which linked players of violent games with aggressive behavior while claiming that those who played games with prosocial themes were more likely to be helpful. Prof. Brad Bushman of the University of Michigan and Prof. Douglas Gentile of Iowa State were among the study's more recognizable authors.

Yesterday we reported on Texas A&M Prof. Chris Ferguson's reaction to the Bushman-Gentile study. Ferguson slammed the research methodology involved, including a somewhat academic foray into concepts like multicollinearity, which made our brain hurt just a bit.

So, in the interest of keeping things simple, we went back to Ferguson with a follow-up question concerning the methodology used in one portion of the Bushman-Gentile research. 161 U.S. college students served as test subjects:

After playing either a prosocial, violent, or neutral game, participants were asked to assign puzzles to a randomly selected partner. They could choose from puzzles that were easy, medium or hard to complete. Their partner could win $10 if they solved all the puzzles. Those who played a prosocial game were considerably more helpful than others, assigning more easy puzzles to their partners.  And those who had played violent games were significantly more likely to assign the hardest puzzles.

Given the uniqueness of the methodology, GamePolitics asked Ferguson whether, in his opinion, the "puzzle test" was a valid measure of aggression or a reasonable predictor of violent behavior. Ferguson quickly said that it was not:

No, not even remotely.  It is worlds apart from any real world aggressive or helping behavior on many levels.  Unfortunately this is a typical ad hoc outcome with no validity.