BIOGRAPHY

Jason Robar has contributed to commercial games development since the earliest days of DirectX, Microsoft's baseline game technology. Recently, Jason has consulted on a variety of "serious game"-styled projects including work with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).

This experience gives Jason a unique perspective into how the worlds of government, military, and game developers are colliding.

ABSTRACT

Romulus and Remus or Castor and Pollux: A Discourse on the Twinned Industries of Learning and Gaming

This symposium will focus on a facilitating a discussion of how two industries, one focused on learning and training and one focused on game development - can begin to establish both cognitive and corporate bridges and the roles that academics and researchers who have served both these markets can again serve as translators and interlocutors. It will feature speakers with deep background in both camps who have all begun traversing this gap in one way or another. Learn from their mistakes and success and help plot future efforts.

As interest in videogames intensifies and the number of events dedicated to their discussion increases, it is crucial that issues of learning and the social role of games do not get lost in the equally worthy cause of industry-building.