Knowledge Oasis Muscat’s annual eGames Conference was officially launched with an impressive line-up of leading international experts and developers of serious and mobile games.

The eGames will be held at the Rusayl-based Technology Park from March 31 to April 1. This is the Gulf region’s only annual serious gaming conference and will be held under the patronage of minister of commerce and industry Maqbool bin Ali Sultan, said an official spokesman.

“KOM’s eGames event (www.kom.om) illustrates clearly the Omani government’s interest in the serious games market and its applications to sectors such as tourism, heritage and culture, health, defence and education,” said director of the Serious Games Institute at Conference University and a presenter at eGames David Wortley.

The serious games movement has opened up a hitherto-untapped pool of expertise to the global interactive 3D community as a whole, enabling the industry to exploit multidisciplinary skills in arts, science and technology, heritage and human factors.

“Indeed, if we take on board the lessons learned from the highs and lows of the Virtual Reality experiences of the 1990s, then serious gaming is set to revolutionise the way in which Oman attracts tourists, promotes its cultural assets, teaches its medical students and trains its military personnel,” said Wortley. – TradeArabia News Service