Serious Games
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Serious Games Somia Hosseini 1615408 Abstract In this essay, I will discuss about the difference between Casual Games and Serious Games, and will describe the need, benefits and challenges of Serious Games. Casual Game Casual Game is video game that is purely for entertainment. It is intended for children and adult. Casual games are available in many platform formats: PC, game console, and mobile. Examples of Casual Games are Pogo, Bubble Shooter, Ice Age Village etc. Serious Game Serious games are games with purpose beyond just providing entertainment. (Serious Game Master’s program at Michigan State University) Player of serious games expects to improve some specific aspect of learning, and it can be used in education, emergency service training, military training, in health care and many other sectors of society. There are miscellaneous game genre, complexity and platforms for serious games just like in casual games. “Play an important contributor to human development, maturation, and learning, is a mandatory ingredient of serious games.”[1] Achieving serious measurable sustained changes in performance and behavior is the main purpose of serious games. Serious games designers focus on changing, the morals, the beliefs, skills, and behaviors of the players, while experiencing the game. Good example of serious game is Pulse, The Flight Simulator For Medical Training. Why Serious Game works? Nowadays the serious games as non-entertainment games for education and policymaking is of growing interest in many areas. The transition from traditional learning to modern education, and the need to provide a future model of learning for the next generation with a high quality studies and more collaboration emerge the powerful role of gamification and serious games. Games provide the opportunity to experiment and take risks we perhaps wouldn’t in the real world, receive immediate feedback and try alternative choice to solve the problem. “According to Forrester report, up to 75% of users do not complete an e-learning course, whereas users of PIXELearning Serious Games re-ply on average 4.3 times.” [2] This means that the game provides an appropriate environment for active, critical learning. According to Mary Jo Dondlinger, number of distinct design elements, such as narrative context, rules, goals, rewards, multisensory cues, and interactivity, seem necessary to simulate desired learning outcomes of serious games. [3] When there are no more patterns to discover it stop teaching, and when a game stop teaching we get bored. Collaborative experiences, new modes of learning and training, Encourage exploration, Challenge us, Develop our skills, Engages with our emotions, Blending virtual and real experiences (e.g. Mixed reality) The benefit of serious game is engagement in fun, motivating, immersive learning experiences that present safe challenges & generate effective learning. A serious game is cost effective, safe, and meaningful to today’s learners, produce deep, long-term learning, and produce a confident, effective workforce. Games are often used for training and teaching interpersonal and intercultural communication principles and skills. Social simulation and computer-based role-playing games can help adults explore skills, methods and concepts rapidly within an engaging nonthreatening environment ripe with experiential and behavioral learning components. [4] Serious Games, Issues & Challenges There is a challenge concerning the design of serious game. According to Niels Hendrik Helms didactic design is basically about giving form to learning - where gaming could be one of the means to achieve learning, whereas game design is about giving form to a game people do learn through gaming, but it is definitely not the purpose. If it is a bad game-design no one will use the game or the players will try to transform the non-game into a game, and if it is a bad didactic design people will learn, but probably something else, [5] for example the teenagers who were going into their school with a gun, and killed their classmates. So violent video games and movies can increase the urge to misbehave. Serious Games may change moral and behavior of player positively, by games such as WWO(World Without Oil) where the player explores the planet without oil. According to Stefan Olsen, the best way to change the future is to play with it first. It will change the people life, e.g. they decide to walk more, driving less, turn off the lights, and recycling. [6] Conclusion Serious Games are rapidly growing industry, and many social sectors are enjoying the positive effects of serious games on their organization’s learning wishes. To avoid the misbehavior of players through the game, the game designers and learning designers must collaborate to provide effective learning experience. Reference 1. http://www.adobe.com/products/director/pdfs/serious_games_wp_1107 .pdf 2. http://www.pixelearning.com/Resources/White%20Papers/Why%20Ga mes%20work%20for%20learning%20and%20development.pdf 3. Dondlinger, M.J., “Educational Video Game Design: A Review of the Literature.” J. of Applied Educational Technology 4(1):21-31,2007. 4. http://www.sandia.gov/adaptive-training-systems/papers/p1733- raybourn.pdf 5. http://www.slideshare.net/helms/serious-games-challenges-and- potentials 6. http://ethics-games-cinema-depaul.com/uploads/Serious_Games.pdf .