Game Education Summit North America

Paper Abstract:

The term “serious games” is commonly used to refer to the use of games for purposes other than entertainment. Although originally intended to describe games that “have an explicitly and carefully thought-out educational purpose” (Abt 1977), in recent years the field of “serious games” has come to include games that go beyond traditional education into areas such as the use of games for improving health and games as instruments for advocacy and change. In spite of the growing body of literature on and about “serious games” and their effectiveness, adoption rates are still surprisingly low. I argue that this is partly a problem of perception. The term “serious” in “serious games” carries with it connotations that imply “boring” and “not fun”, particularly among those not familiar with the field. This is problematic both for serious game designers and their target audiences, particularly children and young adults. My talk will propose the use of the term “applied gaming”, a term that I coined to refer to the use of games and gaming-related tools and techniques in domains beyond games, instead of “serious games”. Besides being non-judgmental, the phrase is also more intuitive to grasp. It encompasses everything within “serious games” and goes beyond to include activities like game-engine based simulation and visualization. The presentation will discuss the implications of this change for gaming research as well as games education.