MIT Game Lab and Tencent IEG: strategic cooperation agreement
September 6th, 2016, the day Tencent interactive entertainment group (IEG) and the MIT Center for Games, Learning, and Playful Media sign a strategic cooperation agreement at Boston, Massachusetts.
The strategic cooperation agreement signing ceremony is part of the important agenda of Tencent interactive entertainment group in the land of freedom. The ceremony was taken place in the Wyeth Room, at the old site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. Sadly there weren’t any gold left behind for everyone to take as souvenir.
For everyone who wasn’t invited, it was quite a party. Well, instead of hangovers, it was brain sparking, and instead of Miley Cyrus and Drake, it was innovation and inspiration. I wonder if they do still carry those in HMV. Nevertheless, the Managing Director of the MIT Center for Games, Learning, and Playful Media Scot Osterweil, Manager of the MIT Game Lab Richard Eberhardt, Online-game research team, user research team, project team of Moonlight blade, and brand integration team from Tencent were in the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation agreement as well.
Followed by the kindly introduction from Richard Eberhardt, Scot Osterweil and the Marketing assistant general manager of Tencent IEG Miao Hou, both gave the ceremony a memorable and meaningful opening speech without mocking their opponents’ hair or gender. Which explains the reason why their speeches did not go viral on the internet.
Scot Osterweil shared a fascinating story about the entertainment spirit of MIT students with everyone else:
Once upon a time, a school police car was being brought to the top of the great dome by the hands of MIT students. To everyone’s surprise, the police car was actually a replica based on an old Chevy, equipped with flashy lights. The students even invited a real police equipped with a gun prop while holding a box of doughnut to sit in the replica. Pranks like such are being called as “Hack”, happens around the campus more than you could think of.
Scot believes that MIT being the origin of video game isn’t a coincidence at all, and he told us how he felt about this project.
We are very excited about this cooperation, because we could see how influential Tencent is. Tencent changed people’s living habit through mobile devices and mobile applications. MIT is also very pleased to form a strategic cooperation with Tencent games.
The name of the MIT Center for Games, Learning, and Playful Media is “Ludus”, it means “game” in Latin. MIT wishes to influence more young people that possessed with creativity and initiatives, and create greater value through gaming with the help of Tencent.
Miao Hou, the assistant general manager of Tencent IEG marketing department mentioned in his speech, that online game is the loving baby of computer and internet technology. Tencent as a global leader in game development and publisher, facilitating global gaming research and exchange has always been their goal and mission. Tencent crossed paths with MIT through the process of searching for traditional games and its related culture. This means that when technological innovation meets gaming application, it is almost certain that both parties will take the field of gaming into a whole new level.
The Princeton Review has continuously ranked MIT as the North America’s top game design institute; the leadership of MIT in the fields of game research, user experience, design and development of data analysis is indisputable as Sid V being the best among the series of Civilizations.
Earlier, there has been a ground breaking collaboration between MIT and Tencent IEG: in November 26th, 2015, Research Coordinator Mikael Jakobsson from the MIT Game Lab was invited to the Tencent interactive entertainment Art symposium, to discuss the possibility of collaborating on “Preservation and protection of traditional games in the age of Internet”.
In June, MIT Game Lab and Tencent IEG co-hosted public lectures at MIT.
The purpose of this agreement is to consolidate the advantages from both parties and to promote cutting-edge research with a multi-angle approach, almost as if they are the EMC and Dell. This has a significant meaning to game development and technology breakthrough. Bringing game development to a different level through advance technology, professional philosophy, and harmonious international cooperation.
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