Dear Augusto,
thank you very much for the document on "Entertainment Computing" which
will be
discussed at IFIP GA in Montreal. Obviously this was an outcome of IWC 2002
where TC6 members including myself) had been nominated for the steering
committee.
However, I was not contacted at all by the organisors. Maybe this was due to
the belief (see minutes of their meeting) that Europe where IFIP has a
rather strong
hold has not much activities in computer games and thus might be
reluctant to go into that area.
I append some comments below.
Best regards
Otto
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Comments on the proposal for a new IFIP TC 14 on "Entertainment Computing"
1. There is another discussion on IT & Sports which will also be discussed
in Montreal. It is recommended to combine both of them since they fit
very well together - and a concentration of "sports" or
"entertainment" alone
would fall short.
2. There were some overlaps mentioned: with TC3, TC5, TC9, TC12, and with
TC13.
Interestingly enough, TC6 was not included in that list but the topics
"network based entertainment" (i.e. distributed games), "mobile
entertainment",
"location-based entertainment" and some others have a clear relation
to aspects
which are treated byIFIP TC6.
I don't propose to stop any new activities but a strong cooperation
with TC6
is recommended.
3. The concentration on "entertainment" (i.e. on "algorithmic research on
board and on card games", "hardware technology research for
implementing enter-
tainment systems", "haptic and other human interface technologies for
enter-
tainment; see: Aims of the new TC) misses a lot of other aspects which
or of equal and even bigger importance for the society:
Namely: "Planning of Leisure activities", "Health improvement by IT
methods for
an ageing society (e.g. by robot assistance)", "Management and
Organisation of
Large Sport Events", "Networks for Efficient Drug Monitoring",
to name just a few topics which deserve to be included in the new TC.
