Defining Serious Games

[Katrin Becker]

I realize this may (re)opening a can of worms, and I admit I am a latecomer to this forum (tho not to serious games).

I just noticed the definition of serious games that is posted on the main page and I wonder why this definition differs from the one generally accepted by the Serious Games Initiative?

Serious Games are games intended for purposes other than pure entertainment. (The definition has been kept purposefully broad).

The definition on the site is: "Serious games (SGs) or persuasive games are computer and video games used as persuasion technology or educational technology. They can be similar to educational games, but are often intended for an audience outside of primary or secondary education. Serious games can be of any genre and many of them can be considered a kind of edutainment."

Not all serious games are persuasive games, and educational games are in fact part of the serious games space, and there are educational games that are not created for formal educational settings.

Educational games *are* serious games, but 'edutainment' has negative conotations in some circles and it might be helpful to avoid the term.

I realize that 'a rose by any other name....', however, it turns out that labels do affect how people judge things.

[AC]

I pulled the definition that is on the homepage from wikipedia.

I think it gives newcomers to the subject an overview of the origins of serious games.

Obviously serious games is an evolving area and a simple broad definition is needed to cover all the new and exciting uses that are being found for games technology.

Please be aware that I am in no way seeking to create a new definition of the term 'serious games'. Simply to introduce as may people as possible to these evolving technologies :)

I'd defiantly be open to someone helping me write some brief copy that better introduces the subject.

[Katrin Becker]

The Wikipedia definition isn't accurate. I just finished writing an article for Educational Technology Magazine with Jim Parker and Ben Sawyer that responds to an REClark editorial which takes issue with his definition as well. He too got his definition from wikipedia. Does anyone know who posted the wikipedia entry?

One of the things I have noticed is that the definitions people espouse for SG, games and simulations are typically drawn along disciplinary lines, with groups tending to refer mainly to authors in their own disciplines. As a result, many in education use Gredler's definition (which I am really finding interferes with progress). If I were to have a vote, I'd say to use the definition used by the guy who first used it in this context which would be Ben Sawyer.

In a post early this year on seriousgames, Ben said the following:
"An overall appropriation of games and game technologies for a variety of purposeful uses beyond entertainment. As such the use of "serious" as a means of creating a greater sense of purpose isn't the worst branding and doesn't seem to have hurt the growth of the sector much at all. "

and

"For a full definition of how the term came to be see Ian Bogost's next book which has about the most accurate reporting ever on how this all got started... the short story is that Dave Rejeski appropriated the term from books previously mentioned and then with him and other co-horts we pretty much made it the defacto brand for this new sector within commercial game development. Nothing else better stuck. "

-K.

[Brian Selzer]

Serious, persuasive, educational.... all seem to be different labels for games designed to have a higher purpose... yeah? Personally I don't like the term "Serious Games" at all. Games are supposedly to be FUN! Why is everybody so serious?! The subject matter of the game can still be important, or perhaps even serious, but the game should remain engaging, elevating, motivational, educational, inspirational... (perhaps a better term can be found here).

Who came up with the term Serious Games anyway? Are those who plan on developing content to inspire positive action stuck with having their project be called a Serious Game? If I was a kid (which I am not), I would run from anything labeled that! Sounds like Homework to me.

If anybody knows of a campaign to find a better term for what is certain to become a growing genre in gaming... sign me up!

[AC]

I don't think people in this field are 'stuck with' the title 'serious games'. It's just that is the title that has the most recognition.

The reason so many different titles such as, serious, persuasive, educational etc ... have evolved is the diversity of the creators and consumers in this space. An academic who needs a brand for his work will call his games epistemic or persuasive. A company trying to sell to a blue chip will call their product a 'rule based simulation'. A university faculty looking for a title for a degree course would look for something eye catching like 'compassionate games'.

However as a 'catch all' term 'serious games' seems very well entrenched and has the most recognition. I don't think it is anyone's trademark and it has a good track record of winning public and private sector funding.

As for the history, well just like web 2.0 (another title everyone hates and everyone uses) it is the title of a conference created by Ben Sawyer of Digital Mill in 2002. Before that a book called 'serious games' was published in 1970.

[Katrin Becker]

The term 'Serious Games' first appeared in this context in a white paper written by Ben Sawyer and Dave Rejeski in 2002. I believe the first conference was a year or more after that, and like Ben said in the post I quoted, Ian has done a thorough job of discussing the term (on pages 54-59) in his new book. As far as anyone knows, Clark Abt came up with term (he wrote a book with that name in 1970).

Most of the kids I have talked to about serious games (ages ranging from about 10 to past their 20's) seem to quite like the term. The terms they don't like are 'edutainment' (which they equate with crappy) and 'educational' (which they equate with no fun at all - that's the one they associate with homework)

There have been numerous campaigns to come up with a better term, but so far nothing has worked as well as this (try the seriousgames list or the gamesnetwork list - this discussion makes the rounds several times a year on both of those lists ). It may well be that the term remains something we argue about for many years to come. We fought over the term "software engineering" for years and years too - sometimes even in the courts, yet it still sticks and it's still inappropriate (I'm one of the people who hates the term, but other people more or less know what it means, so it has communicative value, and I will use it).

[Kevin Corti]

Hi KAtrin,

You might want to check out the debate at:

http://www.seriousgamessource.com/item.php?story=15832
http://theevilnumber27.wordpress.com

By thh way, the book 'Serious Games' by Clarke Abt was published in 1970 - obviously it pre-dates computer-based games but I think is where the term first appeared. Personally I think we should move on from worrying about thevname for the space and work out strategies for how we communicate what each of us do for our respective markets.

[Katrin Becker]

I agree. (I'm also on seriousgames and gamesnetwork and have followed some of the discussions on this).

I also think it is important to keep the area/ discipline/ community/ practice/ whatever as broad as possible. Pardon my bluntness, but I see two tendencies happening. People have a tendency to:
1. to define the space in terms of what *they* personally feel is important (so education folks see serious games as being about learning, others may see it as being about marketing or social justice,...)
2. to define what they are doing as "the real thing" while finding ways to exclude what others are doing (this sort of thing is common in academia where we have been organized into departments and forced to compete against each other for resources for as long as most of us can remember)

Neither are productive and nether really make anything better. Just the same, the name is important. As Mitch Resnick said, "the words we use can make a big difference in how we think and what we do" (Worf and Sapir said something similar). I agree that the name is somewhat problematic, but I also think the reference to 'game' is an important reminder that what we are making involves a certain kind of engagement.

[Shon Wood]

If people aren't engaged by the medium they are interacting with how can they either learn from it or be persuaded by
it? I agree that the words we define ourselves by will affect other people's views on the merits of our work. While the term 'edutainment' has negative conotations it is accurate to some degree.

[Kevin Corti]

My contention with the term 'engaged' is not the philosophy but rather that many people seem to be substituting 'engage' for 'fun'.

There are many, it seems, who believe that this means that we must hide the learning element (if we are talking abut a learning application) as much as possible as the audience are so prone to ADD or 'hard to reach' that elements of explicit learning will turn them off. This may be the case in some scenarios but I find this to be a rather patronising view ot the audiences that we serve.

Learner 'satisfaction' can be had from an appropriate level of challenge, application of levelling/flow etc and by making the application very relevant to the audience's needs. We don't need to revert to overtly gamey techinques all of the time.

'Edutainment' is indeed seen by many as a dirty word. This is unfortunate as the roots of edutainment were in the main admirable but the common tendancy (borne of commercial greed and laziness) to dress up poor instructional design by adding a very basic quiz game style or even just fancier images was painfully transparent to the audinces it was aimed at (mainly kids <12). As a result it failed.

[Kevin Corti]

Plus there is the tendancy (motivation) to belong to groups and to fit in!

You are right of course. I think we are seeing a clear formation of different elements which could well stand as 'communities' themselves i.e. educational 3D games, immersive training simulations and military training sims (which are of course very well established already). It all comes down to terminology that your audience/customers will accept and which articulate some element of the value proposition that the vendor or service provider is seeking to sell.

[AC]

I think the age of the audience is a big factor in determining the amount of effort a game needs to make in disguising its educational elements. Ludo-educational titles for very young children must be pure fun, teenagers need a balance between fun and educational elements, while a mature adult may be turned off by too many trivial (non learning) elements in a title (e.g. animated cut-scenes or a fantasy setting).

[Katrin Becker]

I've always been kind of uncomfortable with the whole notion that learning has to be disguised. Why do we think people need to be tricked into learning?

I came across a good article by Mitch Resnick the other day (it's a little old, but still good): http://www.parents-choice.org/article.cfm?art_id=172&the_page=c...
"So why don't I like edutainment? The problem is with the way that creators of today's edutainment products tend to think about learning and education. Too often, they view education as a bitter medicine that needs the sugar-coating of entertainment to become palatable. They provide entertainment as a reward if you are willing to suffer through a little education. Or they boast that you will have so much fun using their products that you won't even realize that you are learning—as if learning were the most unpleasant experience in the world."

For little kids learning IS fun, at least until we screw it up with formal schooling (or at home if they are unfortunate enough to come from a family or culture that is proud of its ignorance). The big challenge for designers is making the learning interesting (which is what I mean by engaging). While there is a place for 'cutting to the chase' and just getting at the learning that needs to be learned, this is most often true in rote learning situations, where memorization is more important than deep understanding (multiplication tables, anatomy, parts of CPR, traffic rules,...). There are ways to make that less tedious too - ever heard Tom Lehrer's Elements song?

I think a big part of the problem is that it is often HARD to create interesting instruction, and I suspect we are subject to the 80/20 rule here as in almost everything else: 80% of instruction is crap (or crappy) and only 20% is good.

Commercial games do not advertise themselves as being easy - they advertise themselves as being challenging, or even downright hard - and people eat it up. I don't think *fun* has to be part of it at all, although engaging most definitely does (unless you define fun as Chris Crawford does: an emotional reaction to learning something interesting).

The implication I try to get at with the use of the term 'game' is that it's OK to fail; that success comes through practice and that it's usually OK to be playful about it. Games, in a sense, value wrong answers and formal schooling REALLY doesn't.