What are serious games? If you use social networks like Linkedin you’ve probably heard of serious games, but do you really know what they are?
You have probably already realized that you are learning better or at least that you are memorizing more information learned while having fun. This is why the fields of training, marketing and communication are constantly innovating to gain in quality and influence. Inspired by video games, board games or escapes games, serious games are games that deviate from the purely entertaining interest.
A game is defined as a system in which the player must feel that his actions influence the changes in the game in a controlled way. In addition, the player must be emotionally attached to the observed results. It is around these two principles that a game is defined and that determines what is a good serious game.
The various existing serious games have very varied objectives. Some aim to raise awareness of political issues when others were created to train bus drivers. Serious games are of all kinds but they have in common to be useful games and to have an impact on real life in addition to being entertaining.
Some people did not wait for the invention of serious games to take advantage of video games as a playful tool. Video games such as «Civilization» or «Simcity» are used for educational purposes but are not considered serious games but rather serious gaming.
Guardiola & al have defined classification criteria for serious games in order to differentiate them according to their objectives. These criteria are as follows:
- Analyze the player
- Raise awareness
- Understanding a situation
- Learn to adapt to a situation
- Convince
- Heal
Thus, we can distinguish several types of games according to the classification of Julian Alvarez and Damien Djaouti (2010). These types of games are:
- Advertisers
- Ludo-educational
- Marketing
- Engaged
- Training and simulation
In the end, serious games can be very different but they all have in common to use the game in order to influence the player and change his behaviors or his opinion in the real. Personally as a future psychologist I would pay special attention to serious games and the use that I could make of them to train myself as well as to train others and I invite my readers to do the same.
Bibliography:
- https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game
- Guardiola, E., Natkin, S., Soriano, D., Loarer, E. & Vrignaud, P. (2012). Du jeu utile au jeu sérieux (serious game): Le projet Jeu Serai. Hermès, La Revue, 62(1), 85-91.
- http://blog.seriousgame.be/definition
- https://www.pole-emploi.fr/region/reunion/candidat/outils-pratiques/quest-ce-quun-serious-game.html