Serious game

Draft

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 game play principles. In addition, such software may use game technology.

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

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

Examples

• 1066 (by Channel4)

Links

Overviews

• Serious game (Wikipedia)

Indexes of serious games

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

See also:

• Computer game
• Simulation