VS-GAMES 2010 Preface

This proceedings contains a selection of the best scientific communications submitted to the 2nd IEEE International Conference on Games and Virtual Worlds for Serious Applications (VS-GAMES 2010), held in Braga, Portugal, on March 25–26, 2010. The use of virtual worlds and games for serious applications has emerged as a dominating force in training, education, and simulation due to its capacity to engage younger, hi-tech generations in the highly motivated gaming environments and to the opportunities offered by the commodity technologies commonly associated with the entertainment industries. This field is informed by theories, methods, applications, and the state-of-the-art in a number of areas based on technological principles and innovation, advances in games design, pedagogic methodologies, and the convergence of these fields. While the serious games community has made it possible to bring together such diverse fields, further academic and industrial collaboration is needed to define, formalize, and apply the standards and methodologies for the future. The VS-GAMES 2010 proceedings presents a step forward in this direction and will, we hope, encourage a further exchange of knowledge and experience in this crossdisciplinary area and its related applications in the use of games and virtual worlds for serious applications. This year we had 34 submissions, which were reviewed by our International Program Committee (IPC) composed of 50 internationally recognized academics, external reviewers, and four editors. Each submission received three or more reviews. In the end, a total of 18 full papers, 5 short papers, and 1 poster were accepted for publication. This year’s accepted papers cover a diverse set of topics from the fields of serious games and serious applications. The topics include technical methods for serious games development, content generation, serious applications, such as health, and evaluations of user studies for serious games.