Theory

[prankenstein]

http://blogs.watoday.com.au/digital-lif ... games.html

The "serious games" sector could overtake the interactive entertainment business within the next decade according to an expert in the use of games for learning.

Serious games can be powerful educational tools, allowing users to experiment, learn from their mistakes and safely experience risky or dangerous situations.

Computer game technology is now being used for applications like military simulations, workplace training, education and health care, including training emergency services, pilots, soldiers and surgeons. It is even helping ice cream store workers get a feel for the correct portions of their tasty treats.

Evidence of the ongoing extension of the virtual world to cover all aspects of the real world.

[icycalm]

A bit too melodramatic, aren't we? Besides, the article has nothing to do with what you claim it does (or at any rate no more than anything else that is currently happening in the world of videogames). It is merely a fluff piece produced as a by-product of a pointless conference on educational games -- "educational" here being merely a euphemism for "boring". The hack himself sort of stumbles on this but doesn't actually realize it, and therefore doesn't bother pursuing it:

Players know that games can be hugely immersive, and can readily identify that their driving skills have been sharpened by Gran Turismo, or their knowledge of history enhanced by the Civilization games, or that they developed a new appreciation and understanding of the complexity of urban planning via SimCity.

All games are educational, in one way or another -- and the best way to make them more educational is to make the more fun. If you do not aim for fun and aim for anything else whatever, you will simply make a less fun game, if not an outright boring one.

I guess an article might be in order here.

Transport and Distribution Australia produced a game to help instruct transport and distribution workers in tasks like lifting freight, operating forklifts, loading trucks and identifying security threats. In the Netherlands, VSTEP (Virtual Safety Training and Education Platform) has developed many realistic 3D simulations for applications like training oil rig workers, emergency services, port authorities, hospital staff and military.

Oooh, sounds exciting. Torrent plz.

[prankenstein]

All games are educational, in one way or another -

This is true in the sense that games are rule sets. Playing the game educates us about its rule set. I have a stricter perhaps more useful definition. Games are educational only when the game designer has the intent to educate a specific audience. A game may then be judged on its educational merits by how well it manages to do so.

Most if not all of the video games discussed and reviewed on this site are not educational games because the designer did not intend to educate the players. So looking for educational content or messages in these games is absurd. Games that are educational I call serious games. For example, a game whose purpose is to show a new employee how to escape from a catastrophic fire on an oil rig.

- and the best way to make them more educational is to make the more fun.

The designer of a serious game would be better off making the game more interesting as people retain more when they are interested in the subject they are studying.

If you do not aim for fun and aim for anything else whatever, you will simply make a less fun game, if not an outright boring one.

Fun is mostly irrelevant to the making of a serious game. The exception may be the aspect of fun found in mastering the serious game. It is relevant that you master the game but you don't have to find it fun.

[Worm]

A game may then be judged on its educational merits

How is this a useful criterion? What are you going to do, round up a bunch of stupid people and run some tests? "By the tenth trial, 47 out of 50 test subjects successfully demonstrated understanding of OSHA regulations at the 'proficient' level. 5/5 stars."

Fun is mostly irrelevant to the making of a serious game.

Sounds like a better approach would be to give them all 0/5 stars as a default score.

[prankenstein]

What are you going to do, round up a bunch of stupid people and run some tests?

Um, yes. Worm's tone is no doubt due to my suggestion that a type of game exists that does not aspire to be fun. Let me sidestep that by saying a training game is not a game at all, just a simulation, so I would not expect them to be reviewed on this site. The term 'serious game' is just a provocation.

I have played many games with a level where the player has to escape a collapsing structure (eg. Ratchet and Clank 3). Let us say a popular new game has copied the outlay of an oil rig, and the oil company training department uses that level to familiarise their rigworkers with escape routes in the event of a fire. Changing the context from my theatre room to a training centre would suck the fun out of it for me. That, and being told I have to play it, and that I will be asked check questions at the end. By using it as training, the popular game becomes just a simulation.

To be a game, a simulation has to have no higher purpose than to entertain. Purposes can be given by the game designer or end user or both.

[Worm]

worth more than 0/5 stars as a training game

You're not getting it. Why should you or I or any intelligent person care about such objectives, other than maybe as a warning ("Watch out for these developers--they like to make 'learning' games instead of, you know, interesting ones.")?

There are also games designed to sell products (so-called "advergames"). There are games that try to spread preachy moral messages. Hell, there are probably games designed to help people fall asleep. But what is there to say about any of them other than that they are usually simplistic and boring? The intent is irrelevant.

[prankenstein]

But what is there to say about any of them other than that they are usually simplistic and boring?

The Gran Turismo series sold a shit load of Mitsubishi Lancers all around the world: I had hours of fun with GT3. That has to be the ultimate "advergame".

Why should you or I or any intelligent person care about such objectives, other than maybe as a warning

Why do I have to justify a theory discussion in a Theory thread?

[icycalm]

All games are educational, in one way or another

This is true in the sense that games are rule sets. Playing the game educates us about its rule set.

Nonsense. It educates you in the same sense that lifting a barbell "educates" your muscles: it exercises your brain. That's it. The more educational ones therefore are the ones that exercise your brain more: the more complex ones: Sid Meier's Civilization, for example.

Besides this, your problem is that you don't even know what the word education means. And don't worry: you are not the only one. I have still to meet or hear of anyone who does.

I have a stricter perhaps more useful definition. Games are educational only when the game designer has the intent to educate a specific audience. A game may then be judged on its educational merits by how well it manages to do so.

Your definition is rubbish, again because you don't know what education is. And don't ask me to tell you: it's a huge subject. I'll get to it eventually.

I am not even going to bother with the rest of your post: you are either very young or very foolish, and most certainly very uneducated. So stop. Give it a decade and check this thread again at that time.

[icycalm]

Why should you or I or any intelligent person care about such objectives, other than maybe as a warning

Why do I have to justify a theory discussion in a Theory thread?

No one is asking you to justify THIS THREAD. You can't even grasp what the man is asking you for fuck's sake! Like I said, please do not post in this thread until at least 2019.