These Are NOT Serious Games!

These Are NOT Serious Games! Recently I’ve been consulting with a customer on the design of a series of digital learning games for sales training. Most clients have done their research online about serious games, and find the whole gamut of samples, demos, etc. Clients typically have some thoughts about what they feel are serious games and whose game-play and mechanics they intended to emulate. Just one look at their collated ‘portfolio’ was enough to tell me that none of the content in the portfolio was really a serious game. What followed was the diplomatic squashing preconceived ideas about what serious games were in their (client’s) training context.

So what really makes a ‘serious’ game?
A lot of casual game solutions available in the elearning development market claim to be ‘serious’ games. Are they?

Here are five clues to what serious games are NOT:
1.	Games that use multiple choice questions are rarely serious games. They can be looked on more as casual games that re-purpose existing question banks or assessments. If the game contains a multiple choice question, its a casual game.
2.	Games that provide discrete and not continuous feedback are not serious games. A game must provide continuous feedback to the learner; this is in contrast with feedback as a part of question/answer interaction, which is typical of discrete feedback.
3.	Games that do not provide user immersion. Serious games are immersive, and provide sophisticated user experience and engagement. Casual games do not aim for high immersion, but are rather focussed on a simpler environment and mechanics.
4.	Games that do not promote discovery of the game mechanics and environments. Games inherently promote a discovery type of learning, this learning happens through the staged progression of skills. In gamer terms, these are called ‘levels’. To advance through the game, one must demonstrate mastery of skills, leading to the discovery of further game-play attributes and mechanics.
5.	Games that have a single repeatable path to victory. These aren’t ‘serious’ games, but puzzles. You don’t really play and win with such ‘games’, rather you ‘solve’ them. Interesting in themselves, but not serious games.

A game will typically include the following elements:

1. Environment

2. Objects

3. Rules

4. Rewards/Punishment

5. Luck/Chance

The game-play and mechanics are a combination and result of these elements. If you are evaluating a learning game ask if it contains all of these elements and how they interact with each other; the more complex the interaction the more the game veers from casual to serious. You can read more about casual games in our whitepaper, download it here. In follow-up posts I’ll be exploring more aspects of casual and serious games.

Tags: Casual Games DGBL Serious Games

Comments ( 20 comments )

Ailon August 8, 2009 at 6:34 pm

Couldent more truely agree with you.
I beleive that the lack of real life examples of serious games creates the illusion that every game that has more than one option can be introduced as a serious game.
games August 9, 2009 at 6:12 pm

it brings the reality but sometimes create illusion
April Hayman August 9, 2009 at 8:04 pm

While this isn’t a defining characteristic of serious games, it seems to me that they take longer to design and develop which means that one company may have trouble producing a large variety to choose from.

Excellent post on the defining characteristics of serious games (both on the plus and negative sides).
Archana Narayan August 10, 2009 at 10:11 am

Really interesting post! Thanks for sharing this. I think another major distinction between ‘casual’ and serious games is that serious games work on the logic of cause and effect. The decisions the learners make during the game decides the path. Therefore, every decision has a positive or a negative effective It could however, be more gray than complete black and white. It also gives you opportunities to rectify a wrong decision.

Looking forward to more posts on serious games!
Abhijit Kadle August 11, 2009 at 9:47 am

April: that’s spot on. Serious games do take much longer to develop, cost far more and are multidisciplinary development efforts. Its not just a team of eLearning developers, but involves far more people. Building ‘serious’ games does involve a lot of collaboration with individuals outside your company or business.

Archana: You make a valid point; ‘gray’ areas rather than ‘black and white’ decisions are what are required of learners in serious games. Life as we know if never black and white, and simulation/games must be able to replicate that grey area in game play and mechanics. In that sense, there is no wrong decision only undesirable outcomes. The beauty of the game/simulation is that the learner can realize the factors that influence the outcomes and their manipulations – that’s true learning.
Chaim Krause August 12, 2009 at 7:19 pm

Abhijit,

How does a “game” differ from a “serious game”? Intended use.

I am going to disagree with you. Some may claim that I am simply splitting hairs and that it is simply a matter of semantics, however there is currently no agreed upon definition for “game”, “simulation”, or “serious game”, even by the industry producing this applications.

I don’t disagree that the items you have listed will make for a more effective serious game, but I don’t think they define/identify serious games.

I believe the difference is one of purpose. Although a “simulation” often has a connotation of having more fidelity than a game, no one would deny that a “flight simulator” is very often played as and classified as a “game”. Chess might be called a “game”, but it is a “serious game” when used as a tool to teach about long-term planning, and second- and third-order effects.

There is also a secondary argument that, along with intended purpose, context is also a determining factor. In my previous example of chess, a cluefull instructor and a set of supporting instructional materials would most likely be required to be effective. However, a lunchtime game of chess between friends, would just be a game.

In short, a “game” is something that is played for fun and a “serious game” (or “simulation”) is something that is played with the intent of learning (or increasing or enforcing prior learning).

I would appreciate anyone’s feedback on this.
Abhijit Kadle August 12, 2009 at 8:09 pm

Chaim; you make some valid points and offer constructive arguments.

” there is currently no agreed upon definition for “game”, “simulation”, or “serious game”, even by the industry producing”

That’s spot-on, simulations vs. games is dangerous territory and lots of hair splitting does exist. I personally dont see a difference between a game and simulation. All games are simulations with varying levels of fidelity.

An example of which I’m currently enamored by is the Sims 3; a beautiful example of a social simulation or is it a game? Does it have great potential for learning? yes. In that case, I’d like to think of it as a great game.

If we were to repurpose The Sims to a learning game; wouldnt it be the content and context that would make it ‘serious’? That’s what makes it ‘serious’; if we were playing for fun, its a casual game, perhaps with some learning value.

These are my thoughts of the bat; I’d like to consider your comments some more…
April Hayman August 12, 2009 at 8:28 pm

An example of which I’m currently enamored by is the Sims 3; a beautiful example of a social simulation or is it a game?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but the difference between games and simulations is that a game has pre-determined outcomes, a defined purpose and ending if you will, whereas simulations are open-ended and can have many possible outcomes.

Purpose does play a great role in determining how games are used within a learning context. Then again, so does the scaffolding around the game as learning tool.
Abhijit Kadle August 13, 2009 at 6:56 am

April: I dont quite agree that games need to have predetermined outcomes; perhaps that’s more appopriate an attribute for serious games, in situations where you want to guide the learner towards an outcome.

I look at The Sims 3 as a fine example of a open-ended simulation. The context of recreational use and its content which is geared towards entertainment make it a game too. The Sims 3 is a simulation-game.

A Flight Simulator like Chaim mentioned is a great example of a simulation that’s a game in one context like microsoft’s flight simulator because of recreational use and a serious learning game if you are looking at what Boeing makes and sells for millions of dollars as flight simulators; the content is very similar, while the fidelity differs vastly.
Abhijit Kadle August 13, 2009 at 9:04 am

Update: Received a question on my email about this:

Are your saying that a casual game with multiple choice questions can be considered serious game if it is used for learning/training?
And are you saying the 5 clues you listed actually differentiate non-games from games rather than casual-games from serious-games?

My response:

No, a game that has multiple choice questions is necessarily a casual game – a puzzle even; because there is a single repeatable path to victory.

My comment “That’s what makes it ’serious’; if we were playing for fun, it’s a casual game, perhaps with some learning value.” was arguing that The Sims 3 is a serious game if it’s content/context were applied to learning. The Sims 3 is a hardcore simulation game; there’s no chance it will appeal to a casual gamer; simply because of the time and effort needed to master the simulation and its varied, perhaps infinite outcomes.
Don August 13, 2009 at 9:09 am

I would argue that all games must have a winning condition that may or may not be pre-determined. And, they may or may not be “serious.” If it doesn’t have a winning condition, it probably isn’t a game. That doesn’t mean it isn’t something we can play. Sims can be played as a game or not, depending on what you want to do. Line Rider on the other hand is probably not a game even though it’s great fun and you learn something by “playing” with it.
Abhijit Kadle August 13, 2009 at 9:43 am

Don: While I’d agree that games need to have ‘winning conditions’; if they are predetermined, and there is a single repeatable path to ‘solving’ the interaction, wouldnt that really make it a puzzle?

Thanks for the Line Rider tip.

Line Rider is definitely not a game, (no winning condition) its more a physics simulation that you can have lots of fun with; while discovering the underlying physics. Its casual, since it doesnt require time and effort to master.

Another game very similar to this one I like is Crayon Physics; its a physics simulation, but that has clear winning conditions – why I used the word ‘game’

The lines between simulation and games are getting blurred more each passing day. Your reference to ‘play’ is fundamental; its because we play that we learn; you could play a game or a simulation.
Don August 13, 2009 at 9:59 am

Yes, Crayon Physics has a goal which puts it clearly in the game category. Each successive level presents a new challenge. There are a lot of side scrolling platform games that have a single pre-determined path to the winning condition, but I would not call them puzzles even though they have puzzle-like qualities.

You can also play with toys, even though they are not games. I think you can also learn a lot from playing with toys.

@April: Speaking of the Sims, a very interesting talk with Will Wright is posted on TED in which he refers to Spore as a toy rather than a game. The talk is really worth watching:
http://www.ted.com/talks/will_wright_makes_toys_that_make_worlds.html
casual games downloads September 3, 2009 at 5:45 am

I dont quite agree that games need to have predetermined outcomes; perhaps that’s more appopriate an attribute for serious games, in situations where you want to guide the learner towards an outcome.
Don September 3, 2009 at 4:08 pm

The only thing that separates a “serious” game from a regular game is subject matter and development approach. The term serious games was created to lump all non commercial games into one category. This typically includes political games, advergames, teaching games, and a host of other types of games made for a reason other than commercial entertainment and profit.

The notion of predetermined outcome has no bearing on serious or other kinds of games.

But I’d even argue that a predetermined outcome is detrimental to a well designed game. It is one of the major flaws in the game tic tac toe for example- you know how it’s going to end before it’s over. That’s no fun.
Sandra January 6, 2012 at 6:53 pm

Hello,
I do disagree. Every game can be a Serious Game. It depends on the situation.
In the Area of games for health we are more open and we have lots of examples.
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Guy W. Wallace April 6, 2012 at 5:54 pm

Why should a learner – who in an Enterprise Learning Context is really a Performer (or wannabe) spend time learning “the game mechanics and environments” when that’s probably got “zero” to do with their on-the-job performance requirements? If this “serious game” isn’t 100% about serious performance authenticity – then it’s wasting time and money in both 1st costs for development and life cycle costs for deployment/access, administration and maintenance. Seriously – simulate the job performance as authentically as possible – and skip the other “noise” about the mechanics of playing the game.
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