FROM: Daesung Group

Daesung Group Hosts
 ‘2010 Serious Game Development Camp’

- Theme of the 3 nights and 4 days of camp is ‘teenager health’
- Young people improve their ‘problem analysis and solving’ abilities and ‘creativity’ 
   through development of serious games
- Selected outstanding works will be provided on-line with additional development 
   by a professional game development company
 

Daesung Group (Younghoon David Kim, Chairman) hosted the ‘2010 Serious Game Development Camp’ with the Gyeonggi Digital Contents Agency (GDCA) and Gyeonggi-do Province. Under the theme of health for young people, the camp was held from August 3 to August 6 at  Gyeongwon University.

Fifty students (4th, 5th, and 6th graders) were divided into eight groups to create games that reflect solutions to social issues such as obesity, smoking, drinking, drugs and game addiction. Students created the narratives of the games after participating in lectures and discussions on teenager health and making on-site visits to health centers.  The kids were aided by in the development of their stories, the creation of characters, and computer programming by a group of college students who were majoring in computer media development at Gyeongwon University and another group who were studying nursing at Ewha Women’s University. Team presentations on games and the awards ceremony will be held on the last day of the camp.

Suzanna Samstag Oh: Chapter Leader for Games for Change Korea, Moon Sunghoon: CEO of Ensony, a professor specializing in digital storytelling at Sogang University and in game science at Sangmyung University, and other specialists from game industry judged the games. Some of well designed games will be further developed as an on-line service by Methodsoft, a professional game development company.

“The idea for this camp originated in the fact that immersion in games can play a positive role in education. Daesung Group plans on hosting a serious game camp every year that reflects various social issues. The subject of the last year’s camp was climate change and renewable energy, and this year students will learn how to stay healthy at the camp,” noted Chairman Kim. “We found noticeable improvement in the camp this year as we collaborated with public organizations for the first time such as GDCA and Gyeonggi-do.”

“Teenagers will gain valuable experience and increased awareness on serious social issues that are difficult to learn in regular school curricula through the serious game development camp,” said Suzanna Oh of Games for Change Korea.  “Teenagers will improve their ability to analyze and solve problems and gain creativity by creating their own games.”

Daesung Group concluded a MOU with GDCA in June in order to expand the development and dissemination of serious games and for the promotion of the contents industry. The result of ‘2010 Serious Camp Development Camp’ which is the first collaborative project with GDCA, Gyeonggi-do, and Daesung Group, will be featured at ‘KSF 2010 Gyeonggi Serious Game Festival’ in September by students demonstrating the games they created.

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* Games For Change

‘Games for Change’ is a New York-based non-profit organization. Established in 2004, it aims to increase awareness and to find solutions to major social issues such as race, famine and the environment through computer games. The organization offers expert help on game production to both individuals and organizations that wish to build games addressing social issues.

Daesung Group established Games for Change Korea (g4c.korea.com) to develop and expand serious games. Daesung Group is playing a leading role in supplying and developing serious games and is extending the application of serious games to a public science camp.