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A serious game is a software application developed with game technology and game design principles for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment. A video game is a Game that involves interaction with a User interface to generate visual feedback on a video device. Game design is the process of designing the content and rules of a Game.

Contents

Overview

Long before the term "serious game" came into wide use with the Serious Games Initiative in 2002, games were being developed for non-entertainment purposes. See also 2002 (disambiguation Year 2002 ( MMII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. The continued failure of the edutainment space to prove profitable, plus the growing technical abilities of games to provide realistic settings, led to a re-examination of the concept of serious games in the late 1990s. The 1990s collectively refers to the years between and including 1990 and 1999 During this time, a number of scholars began to examine the utility of games for other purposes, contributed to the growing interest in applying games to new purposes. Additionally, the ability of games to contribute to training expanded at the same time with the development of multi-player gaming. In 2002, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington D.C. launched a "Serious Games Initiative" to encourage the development of games that address policy and management issues. The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (or Wilson Center) (located in Washington D Washington DC ( formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, the District, or simply D More focused sub-groups began to appear in 2004, including Games for Change which focuses on social issues and social change, and Games for Health which addresses health care applications. Games for Change (also known as G4C) is a movement and community of practice dedicated to using Computer and video games for social change Games for Health is a series of conferences made possible in part by funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

There is no single definition of serious games, though they are generally held to be games used for training, advertising, simulation, or education. Alternate definitions include the application of games concepts, technologies and ideas to non-entertainment applications.

Serious games include and are more than those intended for an audience outside of primary or secondary education. Serious games can be of any genre, use any game technology, and be developed for any platform. See also [[Game classification]] Video games are categorized into Genres based on their Gameplay interaction Some may consider them a kind of edutainment; however, the mainstay of the community are resistant to this term. Edutainment (also educational entertainment or entertainment-education) is a form of Entertainment designed to educate as well as to amuse .

A serious game may be a simulation which has the look and feel of a game, but corresponds to non-game events or processes, including business operations and military operations (even though many popular entertainment games depicted business and military operations). Simulation is the imitation of some real thing state of affairs or process Look and feel is a term used in descriptions of products and fields such as Marketing, Branding and Trademarking to signify the experience a person has using Business operations are those ongoing recurring activities involved in the running of a business for the purpose of producing value for the stakeholders They are contrasted This article describes three distinct but related terms military operations Operations as military events and operational level of war The games are intended to provide an engaging, self-reinforcing context in which to motivate and educate the players. Other purposes for such games include marketing and advertisement. In popular usage "marketing" is the promotion of products especially Advertising and Branding However in professional usage the term has a wider meaning of Advertising is a form of Communication that typically attempts to persuade potential Customers to Purchase or to consume more of a particular Brand The largest users (unsubstantiated by business intelligence) of SGs appear to be the US government and medical professionals. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A physician, medical practitioner or medical doctor who practices Medicine, and is concerned with maintaining or restoring human Health Other commercial sectors are actively pursuing development of these types of tools as well.

Development

The concept of using games for education dates back before the days of computers, but the first serious game is often considered to be Army Battlezone, an abortive project headed by Atari in 1980, designed to use the Battlezone tank game for military training. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. Atari Games Corporation was an American producer of Arcade games, and originally part of Atari Inc Year 1980 ( MCMLXXX) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1980 Gregorian calendar) A tank is a tracked, Armoured fighting vehicle designed for Front-line combat which combines Operational mobility and tactical An arcade game is a coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in businesses such as Restaurants Pubs Video arcades and Family Entertainment In recent years, the US government and military have periodically looked towards game developers to create low-cost simulations that are both accurate and engaging. A video game developer is a software developer (a business or an individual that creates Video games A developer may specialize in a certain video Game developer's experience with gameplay and game design made them prime candidates for developing these types of simulations which cost millions of dollars less than traditional simulations, which often require special hardware or complete facilities to use. Game design is the process of designing the content and rules of a Game. The United States dollar ( sign: $; code: USD) is the unit of Currency of the United States; it has also been

Outside of the government, there is substantial interest in games for education, professional training, healthcare, advertising and public policy. For example, games from websites such as Newsgaming. A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages com are "very political games groups made outside the corporate game system" that are "raising issues through media but using the distinct properties of games to engage people from a fresh perspective," says Henry Jenkins, the director of MIT's comparative media studies program. Henry Jenkins III (born June 4 1958 in Atlanta Georgia) is an American scholar currently Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities and Co-Director Such games, he said, constitute a "radical fictional work. "1 Michigan State University offers a Serious Games MA, a Master of Arts graduate program and graduate certificate in serious game design. Michigan State University ( MSU) is a co-educational public Research university in East Lansing, Michigan USA. A Master of Arts ( Latin: Magister Artium) is a Postgraduate academic Master's degree awarded by universities in a large [1]

Advantages

Video and computer game developers are accustomed to developing games quickly and are adept at creating games that simulate—to varying degrees—functional entities such as radar and combat vehicles. Radar is a system that uses electromagnetic waves to identify the range altitude direction or speed of both moving and fixed objects such as Aircraft, ships A tank is a tracked, Armoured fighting vehicle designed for Front-line combat which combines Operational mobility and tactical Using existing infrastructure, game developers can develop games that simulate battles, processes and events at a fraction of the cost of traditional government contractors.

Traditional simulators usually cost millions of dollars not only to develop, but also to deploy, and generally require the procurement of specialized hardware. The costs of media for serious games is very low. Instead of volumes of media or computers for high-end simulators, SGs require nothing more than a DVD or even a single CD-ROM, exactly like traditional computer and video games require. A computer is a Machine that manipulates data according to a list of instructions. DVD (also known as " Digital Versatile Disc " or " Digital Video Disc " - see Etymology)is CD-ROM (an initialism of "Compact Disc Read-Only Memory " is a pre-pressed Compact Disc that contains data accessible to but not writable Deploying these to the field requires nothing more than dropping them in the mail or accessing a dedicated web site. A website (alternatively web site or Web site, a back-construction from the Proper noun World Wide Web) is a collection of Web pages

Finally, while SGs are meant to train or otherwise educate users, they often hope to be engaging. Game developers are experienced at making games fun and engaging as their livelihood depends on it. In the course of simulating events and processes, developers automatically inject entertainment and playability in their applications.

Game Impact Theory

The very nature of games in Western society makes them a disruptive force. As Parker Brothers discovered in the late 19th and early 20th century, games have the power to influence society, though they must fit within societal norms. Parker Brothers is a Toy and Game Manufacturer and Brand. Over nearly 115 years the company published more than 1800 games among their Today we see computer games extending their influence into the serious business of military operations, medical education, emergency management training, and many others. In doing this, game technology is jumping the gap between entertainment and work. Throughout the evolution of electronic and computer games, this gap has kept this technology out of business, largely because games were not seen as “serious” tools. Games have often been viewed as toys, not as tools for productivity. But the incredible power of the personal computer, graphics cards, broadband Internet connections, intelligent software agents, accurate physics models, and accessible user interface are making it impossible to ignore the potential of these “toys” to be applied to some very difficult problems in the "real business world".

Game technologies have the power of technology, personal investment, financial profits, and social change behind them. Game impact theory proposes that there are five primary forces that are driving the adoption of game technologies for serious applications in a number of industries. The five forces described by this theory are:

In addition to being technologically powerful, these tools and techniques are becoming more socially acceptable, even socially desirable, as the people who experienced games as children become the next generation of leaders in business, government, and the military.

"The forces that hone games, and gamers, have more to do with anthropology than code" (Herz & Macedonia, 2001) . Anthropology (/ˌænθɹəˈpɒlədʒi/ from Greek grc ἄνθρωπος anthrōpos, "human" -λογία -logia) is the study of As with the games introduced by George Parker over 100 years ago, these forms of entertainment test the edge of socially acceptable behavior and the use of one’s time. They impact the social relationships and cultural norms of a generation. The same can be said of business practices. As a generation of gamers enters the corner office and the oval office, these technologies will continue to gain acceptance. A corner office is an Office that is located in the corner of a building | |-| |-| |- | |-| |-| |-| |-| |} The Oval Office is the official office of the President of the United States. The five forces of game impact theory attempt to describe why this is happening and provide a framework within which gamers, managers, and academics can evaluate game technology impacts on other industries.

Classifications and Subsets of Serious Games

The classification of Serious Games is something that is yet to solidify, there are however a number of terms in reasonably common use for inclusion here.

Additionally Julian Alvarez and Olivier Rampnoux (from the European Center for Children’s Products, University of Poitiers) have attempted to classify Serious Games in 5 main categories: Advergaming, Edutainment, Edumarket game, Diverted game and Simulation game. A simulation game is a Game that contains a mixture of skill, chance, and strategy to simulate an aspect of reality such as a Stock Organizational-dynamic games are Serious games that teach and reflect the dynamics of organizations at the following 3 levels individual behavior (specific (Alvarez J. , Rampnoux O. , Serious Game: Just a question of posture?, in Artificial & Ambient Intelligence, AISB'07, Newcastle, UK, April 2007, p. 420 to 423)

Examples

Notable developers

See also

References

  1. ^ The book 'Digital Game-Based Learning' by Marc Prensky was the first major publication to define the term, The Official Site of the book 'Digital Game-Based Learning' by Marc Prensky
  2. ^ Gonzalo Frasca of newsgaming.com which denounces the use of violence to resolve the problem of terrorism. Brain fitness grew out of the study of Neuropsychology and is the science of maintaining and training cognitive abilities Global warming games, also sometimes referred to as 'climate games' or 'climate change games' belong to a genre of games that are usually classified as Serious games. The phrase innovation game refers to a form of primary market research developed by Luke Hohmann where customers play a set of directed games as a means of generating feedback Gonzalo Frasca ( Montevideo, 1972 is a Game designer and academic Researcher (in the Center for Computer Games Research at the IT University

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