Serious game

Draft

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Introduction

Serious games have a long history. A good example are military games. Today (since the late nineties), "serious game" most often related to a kind of educational computer game or a kind of educational computer simulation.

We suggest the following definition: A serious computer game is a computer simulation or a microworld that is designed and implemented with according to gameplay principles. In addition, such software may use game technology.

See also:

• gamification
• gameplay and playability
• microworld
• simulation

History

Serious computer games go back to the 1970's (Abt, 1970), and mainly appeared under names like "educational game", "business game", "gaming and simuluation" "simulation", "edutainment". However, there are subtle differences with respect to modern main-stream serious games, for example:

• The "fun" aspect usually was less developped in simulations
• Educational games often just implemented a rewards system and were probably not as engaging as real video games
• Edutainment refers to games that (maybe) would develop cognitive skills with younger children, mainly commercial CDs

Recently, so-called gamification gained attention in some circles. "Gamification" mainly uses simple reward systems that are supposed to engage users in activities. It's inspired by "boy scout" badges and actually implements badgin systems.

Examples

• 1066 (by Channel4)

Links

Overviews

• Serious game (Wikipedia)

Indexes of serious games

• Serious game (Wikipedia), includes a longer list at the end of the article

• Jeux pédagogiques List of entries in french made by our students

See also:

• Computer game
• Simulation

Acknowledgment

The first drafts of the article are strongly based on the Serious game article.