§ John ThursoTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport (1) what contracts his Department has awarded to external computer game companies, broken down by(a) the company to which the contract was awarded and (b) the date and total cost of the contract; what the purpose of each contract was; and what has been delivered to date on each contract; [139587]
(2) if he will list the computer games on (a) his Department's website and (b) other websites supported financially by his Department; what the cost to date was of (i) producing and (ii) promoting these; what each game seeks to achieve; and what assessment has been made of the effectiveness of each in meeting its aims. [139588]
§ Mr. JamiesonOur THINK! Road Safety web site—www.hedgehogs.gov.uk—which is designed to engage children has a games area:
The contract for the games area was awarded to Draught Associates on 13 February 2001 and cost £13,125 ex vat. The purpose was to design and develop a series of interactive games as a fun and relevant vehicle for communicating important road safety messages to 7–11 year olds. The contract has finished and five interactive games were delivered. This included versions of the games for under 7s, and for 8–11s. The contract cost covered design, production, testing and research.
The site and games were launched as part of the 'Be Safe Be Seen campaign' in October 2001 and the URL has been on advertisements, T-shirts, stickers, etc we have aimed at children since then. We do not incur expenditure promoting the games specifically as Be Safe, Be Seen is itself our promotional message.
For the under 7s there are three games:
921W'Double Up' is a simple matching pairs game where children must find a total of 18 pairs of road safety icons e.g: crash helmet, zebra crossing, lollipop lady, etc.'Simon' is a game where children have to remember a sequence of coloured cars as they drive past. It becomes increasingly difficult and there is a road safety message after each sequence'Look Out' is a game where children must scroll through a street scene and, when prompted, identify children being careless in various scenarios eg:playing with a ball near the road, cycling without a helmet, etc.For the 8–11 years old there are five games:
Double Up' is similar as for the under 7s except it uses more advanced icons eg: road signs etc.Zebras'—in this game players navigate a zebra through a series of crossings. They must use crossings where the man is green to score points 'Simon' is similar to the under 7s game of the same name except the player follows a cyclist and identifies his arm signals.Walkies' is a similar concept to the game where you have to feed a metal loop along a wire without touching the two together. The player has to walk their pet dog along a road and use designated crossings etc to score points.Look out' is similar to the under 7s game of the same name but uses scenarios which are more relevant to older children.Qualitative research was carried out with groups from the target audience to test the games. The hedgehogs site is popular with children and has had 403,719 page impressions this year.