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This semester we had the task, to read a lot about a certain topic, wich we could chose during the english class. Our group had chosen “Serious Games”. Those are games for a target audience out of primary or secondary school, to deliver valuable knowledge in a fun way.

I think this area is a big chance for independent developers. Because development costs are lower compared to normal games. The games itself are not so long, usually for one class so 45minutes maximum. In addition they dont have to meet AAA standards. Most of those games are sponsored by companies or the government. Of cause you have to know a lot about learning behaviours and technologies. So if you are interested in this topic, i can recommend you to read my abstract (by the way let me know if you find errors, my english is not so good and i havent handed it in yet. Thanks!).

Abstract English Project - ”Serious Games”

Have you ever thought that you would rather spend time playing a colorful game, than sitting in front of black text to learn something? With ”Serious Games” you can do both at the same time now!

No, dont think of classical learning-games for school kids, with little furry animals running around making funny sounds. ”Serious Games” are a new type of learning medium, to bring valuable knowledge to the mind of adults or people outside of primary and secondary school in the way we used to learn after we where born – playing.

The goal of the project was to investigate aspects of different types of ”Serious Games”, such as their content, how they are used to bring attention to specific topics, how we can get in contact with them in our everydays live as well as pros and cons. Therefore 6 texts from a variety of online news services were selected to get an in depth view on the subject. Each of the participants investigated their texts, then compiled a glossary and a list of collocations. At a meeting with all group members, each one talked about the texts and told the other members the conclusions.

At the presentation, after a small introduction and an overview on ”Serious Games”, a short excerpt of the controversial game ”Americas Army: Special Operations” will be shown live for 2 minutes. Followed up by information on the development techniques for ”Serious Games” from Ulf.

Advertising and marketing information, especially regarding the massively multiplayer game ”Second Live” will be given by Matthias.

The whole thing will be summarized by Matthias, who will be talking about several other examples of ”Serious Games” including medic simulations, fire simulations or foreign language games for soldiers.

So hey that sounds nice, ”Serious Games” are free to play most of the time. Why not go to a university in second life, where you can sit like you want, even chat with others while following the teacher? The problem is attention, getting distracted while doing that. Besides it will not be as efficient as in real life.

But attention is also the main positive aspect of this new media type, it raises our attention with free to play games to make us more sensible to problems that you only hear about somewhere and cant imagine how it is or feels like. Games put you in the situation and stimulate your senses in a way where you have to make decisions and see the direct result of that. So you actually have to think about a problem from a different perspective, not the perspective of the reader but the perspective of someone directly involved.

So our recommendation is, that you should try out this new media and see how you feel while playing, dive into the roles of the player and it will enrich your way of seeing a situation from a different point of view. But also a finger must be raised, that this will not replace classical forms of learning. In fact you will need things you already learned in a classical way prior to playing ”Serious Games”.

The project was a nice experience for all of us. The teammembers statet, that the way how they could work alone was refreshing and both inspiring. Also the ability to freely pick a topic was a big motivational plus.

For ”Serious Games” remember: You should also watch WHO produced this game and ask yourself WHY did they do it? So just because it is called serious doesnt mean you can take everything in it for granted, or that people or things simulated in such a game will do so in reality too.

But you definitaly will be able to learn and enhance your knowledge, so go ahead and give it a try!