Serious Games in Serious Trouble
June 27, 2007 — Daniel Livingstone[via the Second Life Ed. mailing list, submitted by Nik Peachey]
Justin Peters in Slate thinks that Serious Games just aren’t any fun - and this is a problem. Its a fun read, and makes a few very pertinent points. In the past I’ve reviewed one or two conference papers describing serious games for training that just left me wondering why they bothered… writing dull papers describing dull games to train people in skills that could be easily gained in around 15 minutes by providing the training in the workplace instead of on screen.
And as my colleague John Sutherland points out from time to time, there is a real risk that children will reject games that they see as educational. As he says, ‘they can smell the worthiness’. I’m not convinced adults will necessarily be any more drawn to worthy but dull training games.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t (or can’t be) good serious games - just that there are a lot out there that are dull and fairly pointless. Meanwhile, the variable educational value of lessons learned in pure games is highlighted by what Justin has learned by playing Civilization:
I have learned … not to trust Mohandas Gandhi if he offers me an armistice.
Ah, indeed.
July 20, 2007 at 6:24 am
The potential of serious games lies in keeping those aspects of games for entertainment that keep players playing because they are emotionally involved and fired up. What interests me is what these aspects are. I’ve started a blog to explore this and other aspects of serious games. It is easy to focus on the technology rather than what it is that makes games exciting.