Thomas and Cola are on-site at the 2008 Game Developer’s Conference in San Francisco this week. This is a special year for us at the GDC, because KidConfidence is getting access to a lot of larger media companies than we’ve had in the past.

In fact, with all the video interviews and special events that Thomas and Cola are covering, they are starting at 7:00am and wrapping up around 11:00pm every night! I talked with Thomas last night and he said he doesn’t even have time to download all the video he’s shooting before starting the next day.

We’ve got some great interviews coming with executives and designers from: Nickelodeon, Neopets, Sony, Electronic Arts and many more.

Stay tuned!

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Cola and I have been gamers since we were kids. We are both born in 1977 and therefore blessed to have experienced the rise of the video games in the US (Cola) and Germany (Thomas). We also belong to the first generation of parents that actually has grown up with computer and video games.

Initially founded to develop and publish videogames that are both fun and have a learning value, we utilized the KidConfidence domain and our small team of amazingly talented individuals to create a computer game, video game and virtual world review website, blog and community. We set out to create compelling content that is easy to understand and appropriate for the entire family – no prior video game experience necessary.

We are very pleased to announce that we will cover the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco in the coming week. We will report on exclusive product premieres and announcements, in addition to conducting interviews with most prominent individuals from the interactive entertainment industry.

Being a small and independent company allows us the freedom to explore what we (and you) deem worthy. Leave a comment or contact us directly with your questions and topics you would like to see covered.

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The Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007 was a great success for Kidconfidence. Click the image below for our “GDC Impressions” video.

More interviews, articles and videos are coming soon, aside from what we already posted. Check out our site and subscribe to our feed.

We would like to thank Ian Bogost, Ph.D. - Persuasive Games, Shigeru Miyamoto – Nintendo, James M. Bower, Ph.D. - Whyville.net, Tom Crago - Tantalus, Randall King – US Army, Judy Shasek - RedOctane, Jessica Hammer – Columbia University, Dan Roy – MIT, Dr. Debbie Reese – WJU, Ed Fleming – VGXPO, Kan Anant, Ph.D. – PhaseSpace, Professor David Williamson Shaffer - University Wisconsin, and all other speakers and exhibitors who interviewed with us.

Our Kidconfidence GDC video is featuring music from Sonic Picnic.
 Sonic Picnic specializes in sound design and music composition for games and other media.

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More great coverage of the GDC and Serious Games Summit from Thomas and Cola. Today they talked with Dan Roy, who presented Labyrinth: Keeping the Play in Learning Games at the summit.

Dan is an educational game designer with MIT’s Education Arcade, and has been studying games for more than 15 years. In the interview, Cola asks for his views on video games as a learning tool for children. Here are some excerpts:

When asked about the relationship between learning and video games, Mr. Roy compared the learning process in schools to the learning process in games. Too many students get turned off by traditional school, homework, social pressure, etc. But video games can help people see the relevancy of a topic, give them motivation, and help them enjoy learning and see it as a fun activity. And not every challenge in a game is necessarily “fun”, but once you get hooked on a problem, you want to solve it.

Dan says one of the primary reasons that games don’t get used more in schools is that the current educational structure is very focused on testing due to the No Child Left Behind act. We need to explore how games can be used to measure what people are learning if we want greater acceptance in schools. We don’t really know how to “test” a student via games, even though the way games work this would not be hard to do. (ed: See How Computer Games Help Children Learn for more about our educational system and how computer games can help to improve it.)

What can developers do to make games both fun and educational? Well, Mr. Roy says that past approaches were built on the thought - hey, let’s take something fun, then we’ll break it up and put some learning in there every so often. This can really take away from the playability of the game and people choose to play the fun games instead. He says we need an approach where the #1 goal - learning - is integrated with the fun. He goes on to provide some examples of how they are having teams of players interact with each other during the game, while learning to write and express their ideas better.

Be sure to listen to the podcast to hear Podcast: Interview with Dan Roy. (4:17)

Thanks for your time and insights Dan!

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In Thomas and Cola’s continued coverage of the GDC in San Francisco, their second interview is with Jessica Hammer, Ph.D. Candidate at Columbia University. Ms. Hammer’s presentation today was titled Serious Games: A Preparation for Future Learning Approach.

Thomas and Cola caught up with Jessica after her presentation for this interview where they asked for her views on video games as a learning tool for children. I’ve included some excerpts of the interview below, but be sure to listen to podcast: Interview with Jessica Hammer for the full interview (8:23).

Ms. Hammer has worked as a game designer and social software consultant. She saw the potential of video games as a learning tool right away while working on Zoo Media Rescue: an adventure game that teaches kids basic math skills (ed: sorry, I can’t find a link to the game.) Jessica says that games have an underlying structure; a set of rules, ideas and objects that have complex relationships to each other and can model some things from real life.

But game play doesn’t have to be educational in terms of modeling. She observes that the way passionate game players engage with games can be very powerful. They do research, talk with friends, and in some cases bring the scientific method to life in a way that most kids don’t do in other aspects of life. Part of the reason is that in the real world, the stakes for failure are very high. In video games, it is ok to try things over and over until you get it right. People who are engaged in games not only learn what the game itself teaches, but they also learn a lot by the way they engage with the game.

I’ve seen this in my own experience with my 7 year old daughter, Abby. We’ve been playing a game called Viva Pinata on the XBox 360. In this game you are put in charge of building and cultivating a garden as conditions change. As you plant certain seeds and things grow, they attract different types of cute Pinata creatures who may become “residents” of your garden and make it their home. Well, you also attract some not-so-nice creatures to the garden, including one fellow named “Dastardos” who can mess up your garden and make things difficult for you.

We set limits on how much time she can spend playing video games, and in between the times she actually gets to play, she is constantly thinking about new strategies and ideas for her next session. She asks me things like “How can we get rid of Dastardos?” “What kind of seeds do we need to plant to attract a Sparrowmint?” We even did some research on the web together to find out that we could create a jack-o-lantern out of a pumpkin to tame a Sherbat, to hold off Dastardos. It was a fun way to do some “problem solving” and “research” together, and it never felt like work to either of us!

Indeed, as Ms. Hammer said in the interview, “Video games can provide experiences just as rich socially and intellectually as other types of activities.”

Thanks for your time and insights Jessica!

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