Serious games, Square Enix, GDC, and you |
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Serious games aren't "serious" in the sense that they're for gamers who are "serious" about playing (for example, you're "serious" about playing Winx Club: Join the Club). No, serious games are "serious" because they're used as persuasion or education technology.Examples of typical games would be Darfur Is Dying (simulates life in a Darfur refugee camp), LegSim: Legislative Simulation, America's Army ("The Official U.S. Army Game"), and 3rd World Farmer. The main consumers of serious games are the military and government as well as specialized industries including healthcare, corporate training, and education.
But things may liven up a bit. At this year's Serious Games Summit of the Game Developers Conference 2007 (GDC 2007), the keynote address will be delivered by Square Enix">Ichiro Otobe, chief strategist for Square Enix. That means that Square Enix and other popular developers have ideas about bridging the gap between commercial entertainment and the serious games industry.
And why is this important to you, the QJ reader? Because better serious games will make your life better. Many education-entertainment or "edutainment" games are boring. A multiplication table, even if it has the Winx fairies doing cartwheels, is still just a boring table. But imagine if companies like Square Enix (with their MMO and RPG games), Maxis, or Blizzard got involved.
Instead of edutainment games made by librarians for librarians, we might actually have serious games made by people who know how to make good games. This is what the world of serious gaming could become:
- Social studies, civics, and humanities classes can play historically and geographically accurate RTSs, MMORPGs, and FPSs.
- Grown-ups learn to balance their taxes by playing mini-games similar to Cooking Mama, Raving Rabbids, or WarioWare.
- Kids learn basic safety tips and actually remember them as habits. Kids say they "don't talk to strangers," but a simulation can train them to really not talk to strangers, to run when in trouble, and to drop their backpacks so they can run faster.
- A geography game will be like Shadow President. You study the countries you want to dominate. You end up quickly learning the names and locations of
all the major economic and political powers like Japan and Germany. Naturally, you'll ignore the little guys like Lesotho and
Burundi, but you'll eventually have to conquer them and learn where
they are and what their society is like. That's education made painless.
- Specialized skills can be taught through immersive games. Learn first aid, car repair, typing, Java programming, line dancing...
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