Entertainment Computing - ICEC 2008

Book excerpt: The 7th International Conference on Entertainment Computing, under the auspices of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP), was held September 25–27, 2008 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Based on the very successful first international workshop (IWEC 2002) and the following international conferences (ICEC 2003 through ICEC 2007), ICEC 2008 was an international forum for the exchange of experience and knowledge amongst researchers and developers in the field of entertainment computing. ICEC is the longest established and most prestigious conference in the field of entertainment computing. The conference provides an interdisciplinary forum for advanced research in entertainment computing, broadly defined. ICEC is truly international with leading experts from 14 nations representing academia and industry attending this year’s conference. These leaders presented their newest research, insights, products and demonstrations. Although the field of entertainment computing is thought of as new, in fact modern digital computer games go back over 45 years with games such as Spacewar developed in 1961. This is not to say entertainment computing is limited to computer games. As evidenced by papers in this volume, entertainment computing covers virtually every aspect of today’s recreational diversions.