"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."
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:in other news from 1983 (Score:3, Informative)
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 triggered a nuclear war, the game did nothing but end and print a textual message: "You have ignited a nuclear war. And no, there is no animated display of a mushroom cloud with parts of bodies flying through the air. We do not reward failure." There's a lot more [amazon.com] examples too, although I agree expanding them would be good.
Is that really where "serious games", especially in the form of the "serious games industry" is going, though? Things going vaguely under the heading "newsgames", like Darfur is Dying [darfurisdying.com] seem to be doing that better, while the "serious games industry" seems to be focused on, well, people who would pay them to make a serious game, which tends to be more training-ish stuff.
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.
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.