In addition to the academic programs housed within the department, the department is also the home of several research and development initiatives of the faculty and our student body. The research mission of the department is to support the research and associated projects that relate to the Game Design & Development programs (BSc, MSc) degrees, and the New Media Interactive Development degree (BS). Through exploration, collaboration and computational simulation in game worlds and virtual spaces, the creation of systems, prototypes, and interaction models for new and emerging media, and the production of public works and dissemination of our findings, the department investigates new means of shared experience and visualization in domains such as interaction, education, science, technology, and entertainment. Activities in the department range from experimental game design & development to exploratory research in visualization environments and integrated media frameworks, outreach efforts that surround games and underlying technologies, support of STEM learning through games and interactive entertainment, and the application of games and game technology to non-entertainment domains (i.e. “Serious Games”). Also of interest is the current phenomenon of small, discrete play experiences (i.e. “Casual Games”) and their growing impact on the day-to-day perception of games as a medium, and the current production issues surrounding the creation of "media rich" experiences in various forms.
The overall goals of the department with respect to research and development are three-fold:
1. To facilitate cross-departmental and cross-college collaboration within the domains of Game Design & Development and New Media and related areas by providing (a) a conduit and meeting ground of faculty, students, and other researchers interested in scholarship and research related to media centric computing, and (b) an entity through which we interact with entities external to RIT in a variety of ways, including various forms of funded and unfunded collaboration.
2. To engage in internal and external outreach activities relative to the field with a particular emphasis on (a) the support of STEM learning through games, simulations, and entertainment frameworks, (b) the use of games and entertainment technology in application to other domains, (c) the exploration of media-rich computing and its impact on use-inspired software systems, and (d) the advancement of the state-of-the-art throughout the development process.
3. To support and extend the research and scholarship that relates to the academic programs in Game Design and Development and New Media Interactive Development through the continued interaction of faculty throughout the lab and in partnership with other units on campus (i.e. Academic Departments, Research Centers, etc.)
The department interoperates and collaborates with several entities on campus to further its work in exploring media-centric computing, including:
The Golisano College of Computing & Information Sciences (the “home” college of the IGM department and academic programs).
The Center for Advancing the Study of Cyber-Infrastructure (CASCI) (the research organization within GCCIS that operates in support of the Computing and Information Sciences doctoral program).
The RIT Laboratory for Social Computing (with a particular emphasis on the social aspect of game communities, guilds, guild leadership, and the transference of social capital in and between game worlds and the “real world”). Dr. Elizabeth Lawley, Director.
The CASCI Laboratory for Technological Literacy (with a particular emphasis on outreach and literacy campaigns as they relate to games and entertainment software, and the associated social phenomenon such as educational games on the OLPC device). Prof. Stephen Jacobs, Director.
The Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship (with a particular emphasis on the incubator and entrepreneurship aspects as they relate to current practice in the games industry and student education). Dr. Richard DiMartino, Director.
The E. Philip Saunders College of Business (with a particular emphasis on the creation of games and entertainment around business and economic simulations). Dr. Ashok Rao, Dean.
Special Note: In addition to our partnership with internal RIT entities, several recent projects in the department have been made possible by generous gifts from Microsoft Research. We are very thankful for this support.
Experimental Game Design & Development: The Lab is often involved in the creation of experimental games, usually either to test the feasibility of a particular game mechanic or design, or occasionally to test a new underlying platform or delivery mechanism. These games are generally not full-scale finished titles, but are usually comprised of a playable experience that demonstrates either the success or failure of the experiment. Occasionally we have finished such games as desired, or requested from the sponsoring agency.
Research into Game Technologies & Mechanics: At both the design and development levels, the Lab is involved in research exploring the advancement of the state-of-the-art in gaming. Hardware, software, graphics, AI, gameplay and design & development process are all fair game, as well as a variety of other topics. Through our work, we aim to contribute to the growing body of knowledge about this highly specialized aspect of computing and information sciences. This work generally leads us to partnerships with a variety of faculty and staff throughout the RIT campus, as expertise in any given area is generally augmented outside the Lab’s core faculty.
Exploratory Research into Visualization Environments: The Lab regularly conducts experiments in using game worlds and technologies to aid in the visualization of non-entertainment domains, everything from helping freshmen programmers visualize a stack or queue, to aiding the RIT College of Science with visualizing data from the National Protein Database. Games and the associated technologies are very good, and very slick, at presenting visual data, and using gaming technology for this purpose can generally offer interesting improvements when exported to other domains.
Support of STEM Learning through Games and Entertainment Frameworks: The Lab is highly involved in several projects that aim to retool the classroom to use games and entertainment titles as a way to augment traditional instruction. Two of these projects (RAPT and M.U.P.P.E.T.S.) are listed in the Current Projects area. This is a passion for several members of the Lab, and core faculty have been involved with aspects of this mission throughout their careers, with a great deal of experience on the topic both at RIT and other institutions. Of particular current interest is the concept of breaking below the collegiate level and into K-12 outreach.
Serious Games: The Lab is very involved in several projects which seek to use games and entertainment software for purposes other than entertainment. This can be seen in current projects in terms of using games for to help teach programming, mathematics, and physics in our own curriculum, to external projects that explore the use of games and their social structure as a means to promote philanthropy. Several other projects in this space are emerging, including the use of games to teach high-school mathematics, the use of games and game interfaces to aid in the analysis of intelligence data, and the use of games and interactive fiction to aid in understanding business and economic simulations. This is an area of high growth potential within the research portfolio of the Lab, in service to both the RIT community and the general public.
Casual Games: The Lab is currently exploring the use of small games that offer quick, simple play experiences for a variety of purposes including advertising, education (with an emphasis on individual concepts in discrete math and physics), perception shift, business simulation, branding, and “website stickiness”. Of particular interest to our researchers are connected webs of these small games, that integrate over time to form a larger message or framework. More on this exciting area in the near future!
In addition to the faculty of the department, there are faculty with whom we regularly partner and/or simply often find ourselves working with time and time again. Some of these include:
Susan Barnes, Liberal Arts Faculty, specializing in social software issues.
Amit Ray, Liberal Arts Faculty, specializing in social impact of games, community structures, interactive fiction and games-as-medium.
Richard DiMartino, College of Business Faculty, Director for the Albert J. Simone Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, specializing in innovation and entrepreneurship, business models, and incubator strategies for games and interactive software.
