Serious Games Award Winners Named at I/ITSEC

After a busy four days and hundreds of visitors to the Serious Games Showcase and Challenge (SGS&C) booth at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference (I/ITSEC) in Orlando, Florida, the top winners from the 25 finalist games were announced at an awards ceremony during I/ITSEC.

Image credit: Serious Games Showcase and Challenge

The SGS&C 2019 winners for each of the seven categoriesare:

Best Government Game – Chain of Command: Capture the Seas byNaval Information Warfare Command PMW-120

Best Business Game – Swibo Tilt by Swibo Ltd.

Best Student Game – SIGNAL by UC Berkeley and the Project onNuclear Gaming

Best XR Game – VestAid Game Suite by Intelligent Automation,Inc.

Innovation Award – Earth-to-Mars: A VR Serious Game forLeadership by eLearning Studios

Students’ Choice Game – Get a Life by Game-Based Learning,K20 Center at The University of Oklahoma

People’s Choice Game – Talon by U.S. Army PEO AviationUtility Helicopter Project Office UH60

“In our 14th year, SGS&C finalists continue to bringunrivaled innovation for the I/ITSEC community to experience,” said JenniferMcNamara, SGS&C director, and vice president, serious games and strategicpartnerships for BreakAway Games. “The 25 games exemplified learning integratedwith diverse gameplay from casual puzzles to first person shooters and strategygames; some offered competitive challenges, while others offered collaborativechallenges. Regardless of game style, the level of integrated play was reallyraised this year.”

In this year’s competition, there were 10 games that offeredextended reality (XR) immersion including real and virtual combinedenvironments generated by computer technology and wearables throughapplications of augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), and virtual reality(VR).

“We had a few games that incorporated peripherals includinga balance board that works with any common smartphone, steering wheel / pedalcombination, and an instrumented fire extinguisher,” added McNamara. “You couldtruly get fully immersed in the training. It was also quite impressive to seehow many of the games brought research on efficacy and validity of theirapproaches, and beyond offering a stand-alone game experience, had fullyintegrated their products within a larger program of tools for the end users.”

“This show was the first time I’ve been truly surrounded bypeople passionate about serious games and their potential,” said Ben Dunn, CEOfor Swibo Ltd., the developer of this year’s best business game, Swibo Tilt.“It was inspiring, humbling, and honestly a huge relief to see that we're notalone in trying to show people the power and impact of serious games.”

The SGS&C submission window opens each August and offersdevelopers three categories for entry: government, business, or student.  Entry games are then evaluated in October todetermine the finalists that participate in I/ITSEC.