Bernie DeKoven's FunLog

More fun, more often, for more people and other living things.

Thursday, April 20, 2006

Social Impact Games :: Entertaining Games with Non-Entertainment Goals

According to the promise on the front page of a website called "Social Impact Games," they have "now identified over 500 serious games."

You know about this Serious Game thing, I'm sure. There are, at least according to the newly indexed site:

Education + Learning Games
Public Policy Games
Political + Social Games
Health + Wellness Games
Business Games
Military Games
Advergames
Commercial (COTS) Games

That's enough games to make anyone want to take this new category of Serious Games very seriously, in deed. Like the people who run The Serious Games Initiative, for example. Look it up on Google for page after page of more examples of the seriousness of all this.

All I can say is that I hope it makes the world a little more fun, all this serious gameness. I know it can make learning more fun. And deeper. Pretty much despite what the serious gamers are learning about.

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Martin Booman said...: Hopefully the following assumption is not true: The more serious the game the less fun it becomes.

I had already made a link to Serious Games Initiative and to Social Impact Games. Your Google link however was very inspiring and fun. It was yet another playfull path to this subject.
Martin Booman said...: When following the Google path I found a new category of games on the Dutch site www.mindgames.nl that was very funny (at least I thought it was): Casual Serious Games.

I guess these games can not be to serious otherwise they are not casual enough. On the other hand these games can not be to casual because they are made with a purpose. Combining these two hypes seems strange and almost impossible. However it is a good marketing trick.
Bernie said...: In response to your earlier comment, your cautionary note about "the more serious the game the less fun it becomes"-assertion is well-noted. Ever since I first explored simulation (now called "serious" games, the games that touched me most profoundly were always those that were most fun to play. See, for example, Garry Shirts' games of Star Power and Bafa Bafa. Sadly, such games have become a dwindling minority, and, with the increasing din of commercial potential, seriousness seems to, for the most part, overwhelm the voices of fun.

Thank you for sharing this insight with us, Martin.