My first reaction when i hear about Serious games i thought : "Well, i guess there are pointless and serious games, meaning there is a backend story supporting the game?" I was wrong of course.
A serious game serves more purposes than plain entertainment. And that's the primary aspect that differentiates it from the usual "games" . A Serious game is a game of course, though it just doesn't belong to the field of entertainment only. It has other applications to other fields such as E-Government, E-Health, E-Learning and even E-Commerce.
Its' purpose is to aid in scientific research, help solve specific problems that could be training someone to learn something specific, healing a patient, advertising a product, or even pass political and/or religious/evangelical messages to the player!
Trully, their purpose is not only to entertain the player but also do all of the above. The target audience of such games usually is outside the scope of primary or secondary school and has specific uses.
Let's see some examples of such games:
Example 1 : Application in E-Learning
" A game where you take control of a man who lives in America and is jobless. You are given a specific budget and you have to survive for one month without running out of money. The game is simply a turn-based game, for one player though. Every turn is a day, and each day you have some possible choices to make such as A) Which job position would you apply for? B) How far from work would you live? C) How much rent are you willing to pay? D) Would you buy your child a gift for his birthday? E) How would you spend your money to fill the fridge for the rest of the month? The player besides being entertained and all is clearly subsequently learning about the harsh life the Americans without a job live. That's a combination of Entertainment and Education , or in simple terms, Edutainment, an application of gaming in E-Learning. "
Example 2 : Application in E-Health
" A game which is built for Microsoft's X-Box 360 platform, and more specifically for Kinect. Doctors and Game Developers could co-operate to create a game that's working purely with motion-sensors and is used to help patients with movement disorders (such as Dyskinesia) heal by performing specific excersises aiding in their faster recovery. The game would have a funny GUI, scoring systems and of course a medical tracking system that tracks / records the daily performance of the patients and automatically diagnoses their state and recovery acceleration. Such means of gaming is known as Excergaming , an application of gaming in E-Health. "
Example 3 : Simulations
" A game which has direct applications to E-Commerce or E-Government is a simulation game that's simulating the management of an industry which reflects upon the real-life situations such as the tycoon series or a game where you take control of a film making studio and produce movies and you keep track of everything at the same, such as "The Movies" game. Such games, other than advertising certain brands or just aid the player to know more and more about a specific industry are also fun, and as such many simulation games can also be Serious Games, as they serve more purposes than just fun. "
A serious game serves more purposes than plain entertainment. And that's the primary aspect that differentiates it from the usual "games" . A Serious game is a game of course, though it just doesn't belong to the field of entertainment only. It has other applications to other fields such as E-Government, E-Health, E-Learning and even E-Commerce.
Its' purpose is to aid in scientific research, help solve specific problems that could be training someone to learn something specific, healing a patient, advertising a product, or even pass political and/or religious/evangelical messages to the player!
Trully, their purpose is not only to entertain the player but also do all of the above. The target audience of such games usually is outside the scope of primary or secondary school and has specific uses.
Let's see some examples of such games:
Example 1 : Application in E-Learning
" A game where you take control of a man who lives in America and is jobless. You are given a specific budget and you have to survive for one month without running out of money. The game is simply a turn-based game, for one player though. Every turn is a day, and each day you have some possible choices to make such as A) Which job position would you apply for? B) How far from work would you live? C) How much rent are you willing to pay? D) Would you buy your child a gift for his birthday? E) How would you spend your money to fill the fridge for the rest of the month? The player besides being entertained and all is clearly subsequently learning about the harsh life the Americans without a job live. That's a combination of Entertainment and Education , or in simple terms, Edutainment, an application of gaming in E-Learning. "
Example 2 : Application in E-Health
" A game which is built for Microsoft's X-Box 360 platform, and more specifically for Kinect. Doctors and Game Developers could co-operate to create a game that's working purely with motion-sensors and is used to help patients with movement disorders (such as Dyskinesia) heal by performing specific excersises aiding in their faster recovery. The game would have a funny GUI, scoring systems and of course a medical tracking system that tracks / records the daily performance of the patients and automatically diagnoses their state and recovery acceleration. Such means of gaming is known as Excergaming , an application of gaming in E-Health. "
Example 3 : Simulations
" A game which has direct applications to E-Commerce or E-Government is a simulation game that's simulating the management of an industry which reflects upon the real-life situations such as the tycoon series or a game where you take control of a film making studio and produce movies and you keep track of everything at the same, such as "The Movies" game. Such games, other than advertising certain brands or just aid the player to know more and more about a specific industry are also fun, and as such many simulation games can also be Serious Games, as they serve more purposes than just fun. "
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment