"Serious Games" Industry Gains Traction 92
schliz writes "So-called 'serious games' are gaining traction in military, business, education, and medical applications as Gen X and Y come into power, iTnews reports. While game developers acknowledge the risk of trivializing real-world issues (as in the Six Days in Fallujah controversy), intelligently designed 'serious games' could allow complex situations to be presented in a simple way. Cisco, for example, has an amusing online games arcade that prepares networking professionals for a variety of certifications."
Serious Game = Sim? (Score:2)
What the difference between a game and a simulator, Srsly what's the difference between the f-16 flight trainer that pilots train on and the fancy Racing simulator games you play at dave and busters? other then the cost.
Re:Serious Game = Sim? (Score:5, Insightful)
The level of realism and computing power available to the simulator is what sets it apart from a game. A game at D&Bs is going to be focused on fun. You'd be able to put the airplane through all sorts of fun and exciting manuveurs that would tear the wing off of a real plane. A simulator is going to be focused entirely on making a reproduction of the real thing that is as accurate as possible. The purpose of a simulator is to train a pilot to fly a multi-million dollar airplane without destroying it. The purpose of a video game is to provide some entertaiment and a momentary escape from reality.
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there used to be games that did both. But that was before the big corps started gunning for the lowest common denominator so as to make the shareholders happy.
Re:Serious Game = Sim? (Score:5, Informative)
I hear the KA-50 Black Shark [digitalcom...ulator.com] simulator is pretty close.
Then it continues to describe each system (rotors, hydraulics, electrical, etc) and how it simulates each one.
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Thanks for sharing. That game looks pretty epic.
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ah yes, i keep forgetting that there are some smaller companies still interested in this area. Heck, there is also bohemia interactive, that seems to have specialized in simulators where one can go from soldier to pilot (tho the latter is simplified to fit within the controls of the former).
http://www.bistudio.com/ [bistudio.com]
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The issue that many people try to draw clear lines between but that is hard to actually do is the amount of realism vs fun that constitutes and escape from reality. As a former military person, I tend to stick to FPS games, but when it comes to some of my favorites, (rainbow six, Operation Flashpoint 2, ARMA 2 etc) many of friends find it not as fun due to the "slow pace". But I still find it an interesting escape from reality. Its all in the eye of the beholder.
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What the difference between a game and a simulator, Srsly what's the difference between the f-16 flight trainer that pilots train on and the fancy Racing simulator games you play at dave and busters? other then the cost.
The laws of physics make most "simulators" vastly harder and much less "fun" in comparison to "games".
For example: The Army took their combat simulator, made it easier, then called it "America's Army"
The vast majority of gamers want only enough realism to keep the game authentic.
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Even better example was Full Spectrum Warrior, which was a game version of a squad training tool for the military. They actually put the full version of the military tool on the disc as an easter egg. Interesting but not as fun as the game, though difficulty wasn't much more than the "hard" setting of the game.
A while back my buddy who is a pilot got me some time on some of the sims they use. The difference is realism of course, but there's no reason home software couldn't do the exact simulation they're
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One difference that strikes me: in one you fly a plane, the other you drive a car? If I were to make a car analogy, I'd say that it was as if in one you drove a car, and the other you did not drive a car. Seems quite clear cut.
Besides, most arcade racers are utter tripe. The only one I've played that seemed to make any attempt at realism was a Ferrari licensed one.
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All games are, at their heart, games. As in, some players follow some rules in an attempt to best each other. In computer games, the computer can create the effect of having more opponents whether that be by adding fake names and scores to the high scores table (as in Tiger Woods Golf, for example) or by using an AI routine to control a character in the game in much the same way a human would. Every game has players competing to best each other.
All sims are, at their heart, sims. They seek to recreate some
Fun (Score:2, Insightful)
But are these "serious games" fun to play? That seems to be the most overlooked part of educational games.
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I dunno. I'd find an actual F-16 flight sim to be full of win and fun.
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Think I'd be posting on /. if I was a pilot of military jet aircraft? I'm sure I'd be sitting at home with my wife right now doing something much better than respond to ACs on /.
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I never liked the computer flight sims because a) never had a joystick and a mouse and keyboard just don't cut it and b) no front, left, right, back view.
Also, I've never had a computer up to the task of actually running them (I usually played on a friend's computer).
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Whatever. You and I have different definitions of fun. If I had the money to give, I'd have one of my own just for the realism.
Re:Fun (Score:5, Informative)
Oh hey, a /. topic where I have first-hand knowledge!
They don't have to be. You're confusing serious games with edutainment - the latter is entertainment with an educational value (even if it, as you pointed out, quite often fails at the "entertainment" bit), while the former is basically education in the form of a game. Think "military war game [wikipedia.org]" compared to "chess". Different aims, different audience. A lot of serious games would actually be called simulators, if that word hadn't carried so much semantic baggage with it.
The project I'm involved in, aimed at firefighters and other rescue workers, is intended to be an replacement for and complement to certain live (and therefore dangerous and expensive) exercises, for example. That means it's meant to be played with instructors present, as part of their normal education regime. Thus, there's no need to "sell" the game with entertainment. Trainees can practice on their own if they want to (PC-based software), but if they do, they do it for the sake of their own education.
Anyway, if anyone's interested in the subject I can recommend the freely available
From Gaming to Training: A Review of Studies on Fidelity, Immersion, Presence, and Buy-in and Their Effects on Transfer in PC-Based Simulations and Games [bbn.com]. It's DARPA-funded (DARWARS - I love that name!) so it's aimed at military educational gaming, but it's a good introduction to the field.
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I’m sorry, but your definition of what is a “game” is way off.
A game is by definition fun. If it is not, it is not a game, but a simulation. (Yes, if you have fun with a simulation, it becomes a game.)
The reason is, that fun is essential to motivation which itself is essential in good progress. E.g. learning progress.
See it like this: Fun is pleasure with surprises. Surprises are all things that your brain did not expect. (Essentially all spikes in a neural network.) And pleasure is essent
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Re:Fun (Score:4, Funny)
REGVLA XXXIV (Score:2)
What could not be fun about a fully realistic simulation of the inner workings of the reproductive system of the Liturgusidae?
It would be its own Rule 34 at least.
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IT does not matter if games are fun or not in themselves - it only matters if your audience wants them to be.
Although we use the word 'play' with a game, since there is no equivalent of game under 'work', games (things we do in a structured, competitive environment), can be used for both work AND play.
Of course, understanding what the word game truly represents is the real underlying cause of most of it's problems anyway...
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DarrenTomlyn/20100505/5089/An_objective_foundation_upo [gamasutra.com]
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But are these "serious games" fun to play? That seems to be the most overlooked part of educational games.
'Serious Sam' is seriously fun to play, though perhaps that is not the type of game the article is about.
in other news from 1983 (Score:4, Insightful)
Apple Computer and Scholastic Inc. are pleased with the inroads "educational games" have been making in K-12 education, and argue that intelligently designed games can be both entertaining and educational, and usefully supplement the traditional curriculum, especially in terms of engagement.
(And seriously, a lot of those games were better than the kind of stuff in that Cisco game arcade.)
Re:in other news from 1983 (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a difference between Educational and Serious. I do not take Bobo the mathematical Monkey counting bananas as serious.
I do take seriously the simulation of what war is really like overseas in countries that experience the real blunt end of it. Civilian casualties, oppression, vulgar and obscene acts of violence. These are the kinds of things that have been a little taboo for video games, because the idea has always been to make a game fun, not realistic. The real world isn't fun, and now they are making games that aren't, to prepare people for the harshness.
Thats basically what they are getting at, not the whole education part.
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Well, a big part of their push seems to be training-games/etc., which just seems like the adult version of educational games.
I do agree that there are other aspects games can cover, of which the representing-what-something-is-like part is a big one. But those haven't always been taboo for games, either. One of the best 80s games on the Cold War was Chris Crawford's Balance of Power [wikipedia.org] , which aimed to illustrate the issues involved, not just provide a "fun" war simulation. To emphasize the point, if you trigg
Re:in other news from 1983 (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd agree. I was quite impressed with Full Spectrum Warrior. You run your little squad of 4 guys around in Iraq (yeah, it had a fake name). But you'd run them around with tactical commands and you had to be really careful. One stupid move and your whole group had been taken out by and RPG. Forget to use cover fire and a guy is shot down and you have to go get him and drag him for the rest of the mission or back to the med truck at the start. The game was really a RTS/squad hybrid of sorts.
The game was developed for the military as a training sim, and made less punishing and realistic for civilians. If you dared (I didn't), you could put the game in full military mode which was much much more difficult.
It had a story, and it was fun to play, but it gave you a real sense of just how dangerous and hard that kind of anti-insurgency close quarters combat could be in a way that traditional FPS games don't.
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Maybe the game was more dynamic than that, but for some reason it stopped being interesting for me and I
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Success is fun. Especially close calls.
So you are very wrong, by suggesting that because the real world isn’t fun, the simulations of it also shouldn’t.
Quite the opposite is true. Have you ever noticed how in every game, film and book, there usually is this horrible base scenarios, which then has to be fought to make everything good again? And it feels great and fun, doesn’t it? Well, that’s because it is.
I understand how you might be wondering how that could be fun and feel right to
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I'm not suggesting that serious and fun are mutually exclusive, just that a serious game tends to turn some people off. For example, Call of Duty 4's big stink with players being told to kill civilians. While its true that its not necessary to progress the game, you can even skip the scene, it still upset people.
What you've been describing are the cliche stories where you fight against Oppression, against vulgar acts, and against injustice in general. These have been around since the 90's.
The "Serious games
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Well, duh. This is news? (Score:3, Informative)
Serious games have had their own conference (in D.C., where the government and charity funding sources are, of course) for several years now. Serious games are major -- and they're no longer just low-grade "edutainment." They're about things like teaching kids how to manage their diabetes; teaching firefighters how to handle hazardous materials; helping injury recovery and rehabilitation; training surgeons; teaching Third World executives how to manage a water system efficiently. And yes, they are fun.
Imagine a form of physical therapy that ISN'T both agonizingly painful and mind-bogglingly dull. Distraction works as well as painkillers; video games have been demonstrated to be efficacious.
Re:Well, duh. This is news? (Score:5, Funny)
You're right. We've had serious, realistic games for years. Just many of the situations haven't come up yet.
But when the Zerg come, we'll be ready.
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Considering that supposedly "low-grade" edutainment was also demonstrated to be effective in improving learning outcomes, it seems strange to dismiss it just to bolster some industry's claims to novelty. See, for example, Lepper & Malone's 1987 paper, "Intrinsic motivation and instructional effectiveness in computer-based education".
Well there WAS a lot of crapware... (Score:2)
"Educational software" and "edutainment" got a bad smell in the early 90s thanks to a whole bunch of people jumping on the bandwagon and cranking out cheap and nasty products. A lot of it was thinly-disguised (or not disguised at all) drill and practice. Kids were turned off and parents got fed up.
We know perfectly well that software can educate, and the industry isn't trying to claim that this is new. After all, it goes back to the PLATO system in the 1970s. What IS new is ditching the tired old methods fo
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Whoa, Papert in 1998 feels like some sort of ghostly communication. But yeah, I agree, there was a lot of crap. Mostly, though, I feel the 80s form of edutainment has been unfairly maligned. I'd trace a lot of my personal engagement with CS and mathematics to Apple ][ edutainment software, some of it even fitting the mold people seem to dismiss (i.e. you do some math problems, and you get some sort of reward). Stuff like Number Munchers was both fun and improved my arithmetic!
And some of it depends a lot on
Entertainment has many forms (Score:1)
Describing a generation of non-linear thinkers who are becoming decision makers in the workforce, Kilsby expects a new wave of serious games for training and education.
Oh it's still very linear, see "shortest path algorithm". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijkstra's_algorithm [wikipedia.org]
We just think more "efficiently" in our tunnel vision these days...
On another note, this has been going on for quite a while. Some of these systems have 360 degree screens (circular room)... but I've only heard that stuff as a rumor. Interesting read:
http://publicintelligence.net/the-u-s-militarys-video-game-training/ [publicintelligence.net]
What's New? (Score:5, Funny)
Games have always had serious real world applications. Pitfall! for the Atari 2600 was used by the Boy Scouts of America to demonstrate survival tactics in the wild. Throughout the United States, Super Mario Bros. is still considered essential training for elite plumbers. In recent years, Call of Duty has saved the military millions of dollars in automated weapons costs by relying solely on long range knife throws.
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Only if the source code is available for a cadet to modify.
Not a bad thing, but... (Score:2)
[...] intelligently designed 'serious games' could allow complex situations to be presented in a simple way.
The problem is that, eventually, you have to present complex situations in a complex way. As an introduction, simulations are a great way to provide a high-level view. They're also often good ways to hone skills. The danger -- as with television "science" programs -- is that people often walk away with them thinking they've learned a great deal from something with the informational content of an index card. Personally, I find the trend toward oversimplification alarming. The universe is a complex place, and
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Take a math text book for example. How many of those are tedious and boring to read because of over complication.
Most of them that I've seen are tedious and boring because of oversimplification, endless examples explaining the same simple crap over and over again for the benefit of people who weren't interested in the first place, flashy and largely irrelevant sidebars and callouts, and reduction of complex but coherent mathematical structures into simple but disconnected parts. There is a danger of over-complication, of course, but this usually arises from writers and teachers who either lack communication skills or
Like this game? (Score:1)
Bye bye Karma (Score:1, Flamebait)
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The games weren't intelligently designed...they evolved from earlier, simpler ape-like games. The real difficulty is in finding the so-called "missing link".
Is it Donkey Kong?
Part of the advantage of "serious games" is Fun (Score:1)
Simulators are not good enough. Fun is necessary.
I just finished a "serious game" for the Ford Motor Company. We dealt with an incredibly boring, dry topic. The key was to deeply embed all of that in a fun game. In order to do well in the game, you need to know the material we're trying to teach. On top of that, provide enough motivators for the player and purely-fun gameplay mechanics that aren't related to the subject matter and you have players that teach themselves without even realizing it.
The best networking game I know (Score:1)
Military (Score:2, Interesting)
Can we finally stop acting like the games industry helping sell/train the military is a good or acceptable thing? It's truly shameful that the art of games is used to purposely aid real-world killing and it's time the community stands up to it.
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I'm not being sarcastic, I want to hear your reasoning. If there's a safer, more efficient way to train the military to better protect themselves and us, why is that bad?
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In entirely subjective terms, a game creator could be politically and philosophically against the use and misuse of his game by the army or some political party or ideology. Creating a game about real world or imaginary conflicts could be both a critique or a propaganda of a specific ideology ( and no, I don't believe them when they say that their game "has no political point of view, really!", nothing is unbiased).
See for example the case of Ed Rotberg and the "battlezone bradley training". [dadgum.com]
It's nothing no
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Intelligent Design? (Score:2)
intelligently designed 'serious games' could allow complex situations to be presented in a simple way
Here go the "intelligent design" folks trying to dumb down the complexities of life again. We'll probably see a game where you have to "cause" genetic mutations with lighting bolts.
Airsoft guns (Score:1)
"Fake" training on 'gaming' simulators is probably just as good, a lot better than using real guns you can point but not fire.
Ender's Game (Score:2)
I'm not a big conspiracy theory person by any means, but the idea brough to mind the Orson Scott Card novel "Ender's Game". The premise of the book includes the concept of using computer game simulations in the abstract to solicit solutions to complex problems from unwitting players. (Gr
Dubious Utility (Score:2)
These guys have had The Urinal Game [albinoblacksheep.com] online for over a decade. And there are still a LOT of guys out there with no concept of Mens Room Etiquette.