11 December 2008
Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, London

Futurelab and the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) jointly ran a one-day conference on Government and Games, focusing on the role that computer games might play in education, public services, and government policy. The intention of the day was to take stock of past progress and to begin formulating new ideas for policy, business development and research to ensure that computer games are recognised as a distinct cultural form with a role in public services.

The day featured speakers from BERR and Futurelab as well as senior staff from Becta, DIUS, the Technology Strategy Board, Immersive Education, Caspian Games, Blitz Games, and the MoD. Keynote presentations were provided by Lord Puttnam of Queensgate and Tom Watson MP, Minister for Transformational Government, who argued it is time to bring games to the heart of government. It was attended by key government departments and agencies, research centres, serious games companies, and the entertainment games industry.

A selection of video outcomes is now available - see tabs above and links below (NB some of these streamed videos are quite large, so that pages may take a little while to download):

videos (1) - David Puttnam (Lord Puttnam of Queensgate)
videos (2) - Doug Brown (Becta).
videos (3) - Andy Fawkes (MoD) and Euan Mackenzie (3MRT).
videos (4) - Dave Taylor (Imperial College) and Graeme Duncan (Caspian)