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"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."
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.)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I dunno. I'd find an actual F-16 flight sim to be full of win and fun.
"There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
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.
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.
I piss off bigots.
The difference is fidelity. Simulators strive for real-world emulation. Educational sim games abstract away a lot of details and will have lower fidelity. The purpose is often to get familiar with basic cause/effect within an environment in which the player can win or lose and experience a variety of situations. Sim games also tend to contrive the virtual world to present conflict and entertainment. I build CyberCIEGE, which most definitely is NOT a real-world simulation of network security. However it is a constructive management simulation that confronts players with choices that lead to learning. And, for at least some students, it is fun.
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.
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.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
I hear the KA-50 Black Shark 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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like back when the falcon games were around? People stopped making full on flight sims. It's sad.
Balderdash!
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" 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. 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.
I fail to understand your question. What could not be fun about a fully realistic simulation of the inner workings of the reproductive system of the Liturgusidae?
If you can read this, I forgot to post anonymously.