Serious Games (General)

General Impressions:

The Stokes article below raised some good questions about how real, serious games might be implemented in an educational system.  A couple options presented are using open-source software (www.secondlife.com) or by creating mods to games / game engines.  Second Life is pretty cool- but behind the times in my opinion.  I tried it and got bored wandering around the world- plus the quality seemed about 5 years behind the times.  In my opinion, much more creative and interactive solutions could be had by creating modifications (mods) to games that allow it (many of them do). 

Some selection criteria would have to be made so that the appropriate game engine was chosen. 

For instance, using the Quake game engine might have a limit on it's utility (Quake is a game where people run around, shoot at other people, monsters, etc:  thus the game is built around characters and weapons in a 3D environment.  Mods would / should require minimal programming- and if the underlying features in the game don't match the application, it would be too difficult).

With this in mind, it'd be easy to find a game engine allowing us to run around and fight each other.  It might be much more difficult to find a game engine that supported many sorts of educational activities.

 

Introductory

Stokes, B. (June 2005). Video Games Have Changed: Time to Consider 'Serious Games'. Developmental Education Journal. http://www.netaid.org/documents/DEJ_article-Games_and_Development_Education-June05.pdf

 

Stapleton, A. (2004) Serious Games: Serious Opportunities. Paper presented at the Australian Game Developers’ Conference, Academic Summit, Melbourne, VIC.  http://www.agdc.com.au/04presentations/acad_andrew_stapleton2.pdf

 

Health Care Applications

this section will grow into its own page if it expands enough...

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Public Policy Applications

this section will grow into its own page if it expands enough...

Sawyer, B.  (2002).  Serious Games: Improving Public Policy through Game-Based Learning and Simulation.  Foresight and Governance Project,  Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.  http://wwics.si.edu/subsites/game/Serious2.pdf

 

Very useful websites: