Serious Games Summit DC 2006: Corporate Games Audit
Serious Games Summit DC 2006 Corporate Games Audit- Chris Oltyan
The recent Serious Games Summit DC conference included a panel titled “Corporate Games Audit”, which included representation from a wide variety of internal evangelists for games in their respective companies. Jerry Bush, program manager at Cisco Systems, Michael R. Nelson, who was a last minute replacement for Chuck Hamilton from IBM, Mark Conger, Project Manager at Northup Grumman, Joe WH Little Technical Consultant at BP, and Brian Gomez Managing Director Alchemic Productions spoke about their roles and needs.
Ben Sawyer opened by looking at specific sectors and their needs. He noted there are needs across all domains of a large organization, and each of these needs must be addressed specifically if developers want to get a piece of the lucrative market. Ben noted in conclusion to his introduction that if corporations become truly engaged then the expenditures, they could outweigh all other sectors in terms of dollar investment in serious games.
Marketing Games to BP
BP has some back story. BP used to be "British Petroleum", but much like the artist formerly known as Prince, BP has severed all ties to its past name and is now just "BP". This was a move was made to help distance itself from its petroleum past and help raise awareness for its growing alternative energy business (BP is one of the worlds leading
providers of Solar Panels) and future plans for expansion beyond its oil laden past.
Joe Little started with the question of why someone would want to market to BP. With 123,000 employees across 100 countries with 25,000 retail shops, a $233 billion market capitalization, and $285 billion in revenues, Joe suggested that all of those statistics represented good reasons to be interested in the process.
The interests of BP range from exploration to a growing alternative energy division. All in all, over 180 business units are inside this massive corporation, and they all have needs. Particularly, a large number of staff are poised to retire and there is no good way to transfer that knowledge with current tools. The danger of losing important skill sets and expertise is driving a movement towards alternative solutions, and helping to accelerate the adoption of serious games into the company
Initial interests were started when marketing decided to use PGR and other games to market to an important segment motor oil, the 18-35 year old male. Realization that the only way to reach this segment was through games has increased awareness of this sector within BP.
Many specific learning issues are inside BP, and investigation revealed more and more needs. Safety, while at the top of the list, heads a huge number of requirements. From Drillers to marketers, all of BP is in need of experienced individuals to help shore up its soon to be retiring workforce, and they are now embracing serious games as a means to this end.
