serious-games-institute
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South Korea serious about serious games, invests $64 million
The South Korean Ministry of Culture, Sports, Tourism and Starcraft (okay, we made that last one up) plans to invest ₩80 billion ($64 million) in serious games. The Korea IT Times reports that the ministry is trying to grow the market to ₩500 billion ($400 million) by 2012. Minister Yu In-chon notes that the serious games market is at an early stage and is an "emerging blue ocean." Oh, look who's jumping on the hot topic business bandwagon.The "Blue Ocean Strategy" is a concept where a company sets up shop in an unknown space, rather than compete in a cluttered market. For gamers, obvious examples of applied Blue Ocean Strategy would be Nintendo's entire marketing of the Wii, and developers who jumped on the iPhone app store. Currently, Korea has no specific serious games projects announced, but likely applications are based in the medical, educational and military fields. [Via GI.biz]
Culture Minister speaks in Second Life
Following earlier reports that David Milliband MP, the Foreign Secretary in the British Government, has a Second Life avatar The Times and Tameside Eye both report that James Purnell, Minister of the Department of Culture, Media and Sport, gave a seminar at the Serious Games Institute in Second Life. There is a video of the presentation available here - be warned, although he is a politican, he isn't the most gripping of speakers, plus the video is home movie quality.Second Life is seeing campaigning and the like increasingly often of course, but I believe this is, however appropriate it may be, the first time a politician has come into Second Life for a routine presentation as part of his or her day to day duties.
