Serious v. Educational Games
[Disclaimer]: In addition to my regular schoolwork, I am also working on my MFA thesis at the moment, and keeping a blog to catalogue its progress. In the interest of privacy and security I can’t go into too much detail, but I can say that I’m working on a problem that involves producing a serious game. The other day I wrote the following as part of my mental exploration of the subject, and I thought it would prove interesting to the readers here.
Part of my concern in developing this game is treading the minefield that is “serious game” development. By common understanding, serious games are play experiences that put the message above all other concerns. They are mechanisms to inform and indoctrinate the player to a certain point of view. This, I believe, is why many serious games fail or are condemned by critics: they aren’t much fun. A classic pitfall seems to be that serious game developers get so caught up embedding their message that they forget to create meaningful play, and the result is that people who are not already sympathetic to the message are unwilling to play long enough to become so: they quit out of frustration, boredom, or hostility towards an overtly didactic tone. There are, of course, notable exceptions: the McDonalds Game is a good game regardless, but also one that teaches players about the horror of the McDonalds global industrial practices.
That, I submit, is the key difference. The McDonalds Game does not preach. Players are not forced to listen to a cutesy character whine about the treatment of cows or the bulldozing of rainforests while engaging in some inane, disconnected activity. Instead, players poison those cows and bulldoze that rainforest themselves, and the game rewards them for it. It approaches the question from a reverse-psychological perspective, and it uses the fun of running this “evil corporate empire” (via classic empire builder gameplay) to gently and subtly point out the awfulness of the system. This game educates players about McDonalds’ practices—it does not lecture about them.
The result is a uniquely effective “serious game.” Indeed, it can only be categorized as a serious game because it has a clear and discernible ethical lesson, but it is in reality what I would call an educational game because of the way the actual “game” portion is structured and the methods it employs to deliver the lesson. Civilization is another excellent example of this sort of hybrid, without necessarily intending to be. By allowing players to play the roles of history and engage in the noble and despicable acts that form the fabric of our society, the game teaches players about history and the importance of these acts when they have occurred. Playing history translates to learning about history, which translates to caring about it in a way that no “lecture” game could ever achieve.
This, then, will be my mantra: make a game that educates players about my lesson, not lectures on it. Make an educational game, not a serious game.
Although a lot of educational games fail because they also lecture.
The good ones don’t, but… many do.
That’s an excellent approach, not to say that it is also very efficient. And just to cite another educational title you might not know, Wrath of The Gods. I borrowed it from my cousin, back on the Windows 3.1 days, and loved playing it, and what made me love the game was the knowledge of Greek Mythology I had to have in order to advance on the adventure. The funny thing is that recently I’ve remembered about it and went on the web, trying to find it as abandonware, but to my surprise it isn’t available as abandonware, but it’s still being sold as a resource for history teachers. I may say this one is the most successful educational game I know. If you’re curious, here is the URL:
http://www.mythweb.com/teachers/learning/wrath/index.html