"Serious Games" Industry Gains Traction

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."

Comments

Fun

[MrEricSir]

But are these "serious games" fun to play? That seems to be the most overlooked part of educational games.

Re:Fun

[kaizokuace]

like back when the falcon games were around? People stopped making full on flight sims. It's sad.

in other news from 1983

[Trepidity]

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:Serious Game = Sim?

[dave562]

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.

Re:Serious Game = Sim?

[hitmark]

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.