Clark C. Abt
{{Short description|American educationist and researcher (born 1929)}}
{{Infobox person
| name = Clark C. Abt
| image =
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| birth_name =
| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1929|08|31|df=y}}
| birth_place = Cologne, Germany
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| nationality = German, American (starting 1945)
| other_names =
| occupation = Pedagogue, Researcher
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Clark C. Abt (born 31 July 1929) is a German-born American researcher. He became an American citizen in 1945, at age 16, and is known for first formalizing the concept and usages of serious games.
Biography
Abt left Germany for the United States in 1937. In 1947, he applied as an aeronautics student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he graduated in 1951. He then served four months in the merchant navy as a seaman, then spent a year at Johns Hopkins University as an English teacher, eventually obtaining a master's degree in the Writing, Discourse and Drama Department for his thesis, titled A Year of Poems. In 1965, he earned a PhD from MIT in political science. He founded Abt Associates immediately afterwards.{{cite web
|title=Home / Who We Are / Our People / Clark C. Abt, Ph.D.
|url=https://www.abtassociates.com/who-we-are/our-people/clark-c-abt-phd
|publisher=Abt Associates
|access-date=January 15, 2019}}
He married Wendy Peter on November 3, 1971, fathering a son and daughter.{{citation needed|date=September 2017}} His son is Thomas Abt, a senior research fellow focusing on evidence-informed crime research at the Harvard Kennedy School.The Atlantic [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2019/09/can-thomas-abts-bleeding-out-curb-gun-violence/596164/ This man says his anti-violence plan would save 12,000 lives], September 11, 2019CCJ [https://counciloncj.org/page/TAbt Council on Criminal Justice -- Thomas Abt]
Works
Abt is known for his book Serious Games (1970),{{cite book| title=Intelligence Management: Knowledge Driven Frameworks for Combating Terrorism and Organized Crime | last1=Akhgar |first1=Babak |last2=Yates |first2=Simeon | publisher=Springer Science & Business Media | date= 2011 | page=134 | isbn=9781447121404 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-4PqhsWy8hwC&q=clark+abt+serious+games&pg=PA134 }} where he formally established a basis for the concept of serious game.{{cite book| language=fr | title=Les Serious Games : Une révolution |last1=Kasbi |first1=Yasmine | publisher=Primento | date=2013 }}
In this work and subsequent ones, he described sports games, role playing games and (then marginal) computer games as mediums for educative, political or marketing ideas.{{Cite web | url=http://www.ludoscience.com/files/ressources/origins_of_serious_games.pdf | title=Origins of Serious Games |last1=Djaouti |first1=Damien |last2=Alvarez|first2=Julian |last3=Jessel|first3=Jean-Pierre |last4=Rampnoux|first4=Olivier }} This interest probably stemmed from Abt's involvement with the development of TEMPER, an early computer wargame designed for a Cold War context.
References
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External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20140702103545/http://abtassociates.com/About-Us/50th-Anniversary/Presidents/Clark-C--Abt.aspx Clark C. Abt - Abt Associates Founder, President and Treasurer (1965-1985), Chairman of the Board (1986-2006) and Chairman Emeritus]
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{{Portal|Games}}
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