Serious Games
Nuno Ferreira 1
1
MAP-i Doctoral Program in Computer Science
Distributed Computer Graphics
Universidade do Minho, Braga, Portugal
[email protected]
Abstract: for a long time, games have been a form of entertainment for
humans. With the development and popularization of powerful computers,
with hardware accelerated graphics, average user has the ability to execute
in its home computer graphic applications that go beyond the scope of
games and enter the domain of serious applications. This kind of
applications leaves the domain of entertainment and enters the serious
business, leaving behind a trail of sharing the graphics engine, some
directives of interaction and even in some cases, the fun.
Keywords: serious games, games
1 Introduction
Games have always interested people, providing them with entertainment and joy.
Game developers have tried, along time, to create new, fun and visual and intellectual
appealing games. Due to the expansion of computers and graphics hardware, games
have become each and every time more visual accurate, providing a sensation of
reality to the player. From this ability that games have to mimic reality, some
developers started to use normal fun games’ engines to create another kind of
applications, a more serious one. Those applications can be used to train, educate,
simulate, and so on, as if in students (or players) where living them in real life, with
added advantages.
In this paper we plan to present an overview of the serious games theme, and to
provide to the reader an introduction to some of the areas that use this kind of games.
We also present some of the engines used to deliver that.
2 Games
A game, formally defined, is a goal-directed and competitive activity that involves
some form of conflict [1], conducted within a framework of agreed rules [2]. It is
played by an individual or group of individuals who take the role of decision makers
in that context [1].
By form of conflict it’s understood the set of obstacles that the player has to
overcome in order to succeed. Rules mean the set of guidelines that describe the
relationship between the player and the environment [3]. Traditionally, players have
to learn the rules before starting to play, but nowadays there is a tutorial quick-start
manner to initiate game playing. This game play is the set of actions that the player
has conditioned by the script of the game.
Goal of a game is the predetermined end-state giving the player the notion of
victory by reaching the objectives.
There are mainly two kinds of games: fun games, where the fundamental design of
games is of less importance and consumer-driven games, where the designer takes in
close consideration the audience’s preferences [3]. Ideally, a game would offer a
continuous, intelligent, smooth and seamless experience to players.
3 Serious Games
Games are known to entertain people, but their function lays far away that small
objective. If they usually seen as trivial without educational worth beyond eye-hand
coordination and something from which educators, parents, and politicians must
rescue children and distance themselves. Yet video game literacy demands mastery of
significant cognitive skills [4]. Players need to figure out the rules of the game by
various strategies and a process of hypothesis testing. Teenagers create dynamic
mental representational systems as they work out how the consol buttons and screen
symbols, icons, and images act individually and in unison. Video games require the
player to attend simultaneously and selectively to a number of different pieces of
information displayed on the screen; that is, to develop the skill of parallel processing
or multiplex thinking.
Games are used now and everyday more to other means than pure entertainment.
The serious games concept is introduced.
According to [5], serious games are applications of interactive technology that
extend far beyond the traditional video-game market, including: training, policy
exploration, analytics, visualization, simulation, education, and health and therapy.
In [6], we can see that “serious games” has led to “serious play”. This may seem a
contradiction, but it can be clarified if we consider the task of play in its normal
context but with an additional emergent property that leads to outcomes in a specified
discipline [7].
Serious games subject has been subject of study for some years now and originated
some conferences and networks in the area, like Computer Games Conference,
Serious Games Summit, Game Developers Conference, Digital Games Research
Association [8], amongst others. There are also many non-ludic games based on 3D
videogame engines [9], like the Mountain View Interface [10], digital libraries access
[11] or initial architectural education as demonstrated in [12].
This kind of approaches reveals some advantages in opposition to real-world
approaches. The audience denotes more attention to the issue; the learning is implicit
and fun, taking less time to achieve the same results.
Game engines denote a degree of accuracy that fulfills entirely that need in
applications that require faithful maintenance of game objectives. Even in simulations
requiring high levels of accuracy usually present only in top-of-the-line simulators,
game technology has proven being able to manipulate 3D data, networking,
synchronization and driving hardware accelerated graphic boards [3, 5, 13].
4 Serious Games Application Areas
Besides being used for entertainment purposes, games are also used in a wide variety
of areas, in several aspects of common life, like Education [14-17], Project
Management [7, 18], Weather Forecast [3], Military [3, 18], Healthcare [19], Virtual
Reality [14], Archeology [9], Simulators [20], amongst others.
4.1 Simulators
There are many usages for games in serious simulating subjects. We can find
simulators on driving [20], military issues [3, 18], training, education, and so on.
In the military field, for instance, there are many usages for games technologies.
They can be used as simulators [3, 14] to help train personnel and also for recruitment
purposes.
Other field of usage is driving simulators [20]. Potential advantages of using this
kind of simulators are, for example, traffic education, where students can face
situations that usually don’t appear in normal traffic. The simulator presented in the
paper [20] uses common off-the-shelf hardware and software to build a driving
simulator.
Figure 1: The driving environment [20]
Using seven screens, the simulator can impersonate a real world situation, using
window-projection, computed from the driver’s perspective.
Simulators have been used for many decades now [3] and each day they tend to be
more and more common [20]. In the past they where very expensive and only certain
organizations, like the military could afford such expense [3]. Nowadays average
computers have the necessary processing and graphics power in order to process the
required data needed for simulation engines. Applications of computer simulation
have gained an increasing acceptance in the commerce, industry and to the military.
This has allowed a growth in their development and nowadays simulating technology
designed for both high-end and for end-consumer can co-exist on similar operating
platforms. This functionality crossing led to the emerging of similar products both for
serious purposes and for home entertainment [3].
In the past years, simulations where mainly used to study how a system behaves in
respect to time changes. Before the simulator was build, a model of the system had to
be developed, concerning the basis of the system’s operation under various
circumstances.
Simulators are classified according to the simulation model they adopt [3]:
1. Monte Carlo – uses the state sequencing with no explicit representation of
time;
2. Discrete event model – specify discrete changes at discrete points of time;
3. Continuous simulation – state changes as continuous over time;
4. Combined discrete event and continuous models: both techniques applied
within the same simulator;
5. Hybrid simulation model – incorporation of an analytical sub-model within a
discrete event model.
Simulation in recent years is being used in entertainment, and also in more serious
simulations. So, according to [3], the difference between simulator and game
simulator is that the last uses more game mechanics that contribute to a fun and
entertaining application than the first. Now, the difference between a simulator and a
game resides in the degree of accuracy of the application related with a real life
scenario. For instance, Microsoft Flight Simulator has most characteristics of a
regular flight simulator, but has some others that don’t exist in real-life, like landing
auto-pilot. Its classification is arguable, since despite providing some skills
development, they aren’t complete.
Serious simulators associated with games are likely to carry on their way into the
future due to the competitive benefits that game technology offers over simulation
technology.
4.2 Education
There is a new vision concerning games in education, where they can de adopted as
learning technologies, where players can be presented a serious learning opportunity
[17]. The main drawback of this situation is the educators’ mentality due to their
reluctance in understanding a game as an educational artifact. The same author refers
in [14] that a game allows players to develop a variety of strategies and skills in order
to win, thus giving to the game a privileged role in the paper of teaching agent. This
leads to edutainment, a mix between education and entertainment, focused on games
artifacts and educational principles.
An important issue arises when people start wondering if will computers change
the way we learn. They are already doing that [21] and we can see that just by
observing video games. They aren’t going to replace schools, but instead they provide
us with a new way we might use to teach in a much more powerful way.
Video games aren’t mere entertainment. They allow the development of a series of
skills in students that otherwise couldn’t be developed. For instance, in schools,
students usually work alone. Gamers work in community, searching actively for new
information, posting FAQs, discussing in forums and criticizing information they get
[21]. There is an active and increasing competitiveness amongst them, thus
developing their awareness to real activities and social practices. This participation in
social practices, mainly due to virtual words, where people virtually interact with each
other offers a great opportunity to teach and educate many real life aspects.
There are a set of values being developed by playing games, like management
decisions, area expertise, and many others [21], values that are not normally given in
a formal education. This leads to a new model of learning [21]. Nowadays everyone
one with an internet access PDA can use world’s libraries and all the internet-based
social networks. People can now create in as unprecedented way their own learning
trajectories. The future of learning may pass thru simulated worlds.
Despite video games usually do not transmit any learning, being used the correct
way, they can be a very powerful tool to pass on information. There some cases,
however that do transmit some educational information. It’s the case of [22] ITEmperor, a web-based educational game where university level students work in a
virtual production company as trainees. The game development followed a set of rules
that define the content, rules and activities that drive its course.
Figure 2: Screenshot of IT-Emperor [22]
One of the main requirements is the need to simulate corporate reality with the
most accuracy possible. The consumer demand and industry-driven content were
major guidelines in the game development. Also, in the test phase, the game had to
pass from an industry jury that analyzed its accuracy. The game objectives where
evaluated in real environments as a teaching method and, generally, results indicate
that students have positive attitudes about the utilization of games in education [22].
One other example is Metalloman, a three-dimensional immersive learning
environment [23], in the area of bioscience. In relation to advantages of such
platform, preliminary studies [23] to assess learning outcomes were outlined and it
was shown that all subjects’ learning outcomes increased following the completion of
the games’ missions.
As a remark, there are some studies that where made which say that learning from
games is largely unproven [24, 25] but they where based on commercial-of-the-shelf
made games, not in education-specific games. By education-specific games should be
understood games that where specifically developed for educational purposes. In a
more recent work [15], it is shown a survey about the perception of users of serious
games with the objective of skill-improvements related to learning. The results
showed that students where more engaged by games and simulation than by the
traditional approach to learning and also they had fun doing it. The introduction and
use of games and simulations demonstrates the potential for increasing learning
processes traditionally associated with higher-order learning such as analytical and
conceptual skills. In summary, some key advantages of serious games applied to
learning [15]:
1. Increased motivation levels for learners: learners prefer games has a studyaid than any other method, keeping them motivated;
2. Increased learner completion rates through engagement and enjoyment:
learner retention may be improved through the introduction of simulations
and games to support traditional learning and teaching methods;
3. Potential for widening participation: a student excluded from a group due to
language and writing difficulties can again be a member;
4. Use of collaborative learning: if learners are learning in groups they all share
the same collaborative software (game) and thus they can collaborate and cooperate;
5. Efficacy of learning through experience: simulation thru “drill and practice”
can help reduce learning times.
Despite the interest in educational/learning games is growing, there are some
questions that must be answered about this theme [21]. Questions like what is the
underlying body of research associated with educational game development? How to
create a safe and compelling virtual world, adequate for learning? How to teach and
learn in complex domains? According to the author, the most important question of
them all is how the leveraging of knowledge must be made in order to build games
that create the basis for future valuable members of our society.
4.3 Health
Application of serious games in health related issues include, amongst others,
physical fitness, education in health/self-directed care, recovery and rehabilitation,
and diagnosis and treatment of mental illness/mental conditions [18].
The increasing visibility and upcoming opportunities in this sector has led to the
creation of a series of conferences and projects, like Games for Health [26]. Patients
that undergo treatments are motivated, distracted and rewarded thru games [14].
There are also some cases where games itself are the treatment for certain diseases,
like phobias, anxiety of physical therapy. There are nowadays some game gadgets
that interact with users thru movements and that kind of interaction is beneficial to
their health condition.
One of the organizers of the Games for Health conference, Ben Sawyer of the
Serious Games Initiative, says there are two sides to games for health [26]: personal
treatment and professional practice. The former includes treatment, disease
management, physical therapy, exer-gaming (or gaming that promotes exercise),
mental health treatment (VR/psychotherapy), cognitive learning (Brain Training for
the Nintendo DS is an example), and other applications that people personally
purchase. The latter includes health messaging, modeling, simulation, and training.
Other usage of this kind of technology can be seen in [19], where a virtual world
was created and filled with real situations with which nurses can train. The
student/nurse can interact with objects and persons from the virtual world and ask for
specific information that only that person/object can offer.
Figure 3: Interacting with an obese child [19]
When, for instance, the user encounters and obese child and interacts with her, he
can learn valuable information regarding obesity and diet with respect to the
community. After assessing the community and their problems, they can identify
several strategies to help address those community specific health problems. After
that assessment is done, a report is generated that allows teachers to analyze students’
behavior and provide them with some feedback. The community can be regenerated
with specific problems and students can try several approaches until they reach the
desired result.
There are other uses for serious games in health. The initial treatment of diabetes
[27] can be made, in a fun way, with games. Type-1 diabetic children have not
appreciated traditional learning methods since they rarely contain the elements of fun
and interactivity, so, the authors provided them with three games, two on PC and one
on GameBoy Advance. All games were designed to educate patients about
relationships among food (carbohydrate), plasma glucose level, exercise, and insulin
dose. At the end, the great majority of users (especially children) agreed on
continuing to use that method instead of the traditional one.
Other use can be seen in Ben’s Game [28], where one of Lucas Arts developers
created, for free, a game that explained to young kids with leukemia, how the fight
against the disease is made. He used an analogy of a small boy in a skate board that
fights cancer cells.
Figure 4: Ben's Game [23]
The illness side-effects can’t be understood by children, so the game represents
thru monsters, seven of them: fire represents fever, q-balls are hair loss, “ro-barf” is
vomit, vampires represent bleeding, the tornado stands of rashes, snow monster are
colds, and the evil chicken represents chicken pox. This way the children feel relieved
when fighting the bad effects on a virtual word.
A more complete survey of health-related games can be found in [26].
4.4 Advertisement and services
Games can be used to provide information about products to the consumer without
him knowing. They can de used in such a way that consumers are so immersed in the
game reality like they would be in a real world advertising scenario [14].
There is a situation uses Quake II engine to create a virtual tour to an online
library, allowing users to browse the building and the book catalogs. The chosen
game is quit violent, to the developers had to remove all traces of violence from the
library interface. No enemies, no monsters, no guns and no saving the earth in the
end. The only so-called weapon is a harmless laser pointer used to indicate a book.
Figure 5: Browse the book catalogs [11]
Quake II game engine easily allows to add new virtual worlds thru maps. In a map
there are inhabitants of the world, its look, and special areas that trigger some effects.
Using the Worldcraft editor (now known has Valve Hammer Editor [29]), the authors
created in detail the entire virtual world. The engine distinguishes entities from
brushes. And entity can have an active and dynamic behavior while brushes are
always static. The authors added brushes, entities to the model, like computers, books,
and lockers. After the interface was made it was time to change the game logic. The
developers of Quake II engine’s allows to modify game logic by programming, in C,
a special extension that is interpreted by the engine.
When the application is done, users can browse the library, search for a specific
book and then, using the laser pointer, “shoot” at it, selecting him. This application
allows multi-player, a normal functionality of the engine that was used in the library.
4.5 Archeology
In archeology we can find videogames engines being used [9] to reconstruct virtually
sites that no longer exist. In the presented case they used a video game engine called
UnrealEngine2 from Epic Games. The following screenshot shows and output of the
reconstructed site:
Figure 6: A landscape view of the reconstructed Poseidonia-Paestum [9].
This kind of engine, usually used in entertainment videogames is publicly available
and provides specialized engines for physics, sound and world animation. Its core,
developed in C++ allows portability between platforms and it uses a scripting
language, called UnrealScript that allows programmers to develop many of the
required functionalities without the need to enter in the engine’s code. The actual
commercial version of the engine is Unreal Engine 3 [13]. There is the fourth version
coming, but not yet publicly available.
Game technology usage in archeology allows the creation of virtual tours to the
digging site in conjunction with real tours. This way, tourists can explore the entire
real site and, with a tablet PC they visit virtually the same place [9]. The same
concepts can be applied to other types of location-based visits that, with a GPS sensor
and a virtual map of the site allow visitors to explore the location.
4.6 Politics
In Virtual Worlds, like Sims Online [30], there exist a community with wellestablished rules, politics, towns and all the characteristics found in the game.
One of those towns, Alphaville, was electing their president [21]. There were two
contestants, Arthur Baynes, 21 years old and Laura McKnight, 14 years old. They
were immersed in a real politics dispute, despite being in a virtual world, and Laura,
soon learned how things work in that field. The debate grew outside the virtual word
and there was great discussion on the role of teenagers in ruling the virtual life of
thousands of virtual persons. They offered much more to their voters in a virtual
world than their real world experience could tell them in such young age. Their
political platforms showed great degree of understanding of the needs of the virtual
players. Such understanding isn’t taught in schools.
4.7 Project Management
In project management we can find use for games. There are three main principles in
learning from games and in each some key characteristic that can be observed and
imitated to improve performance in real world projects. This kind of principles are
[7]:
1.
Interactive Learning Principle, and its game-related characteristics are:
a. Forward-thinking design: certain video games only allow players to
advance to the next level after fulfilling some requirements and, as
they fulfill them there is some preview of what they will get at the
end. This encourages longer interaction and increases de desire to
achieve the end. This can be applied to project management as well.
Each phase could unveil some of the next and thus encouraging
managers to advance;
b. 2. Cooperative and collaborative media design: all media present in
a game work together for the same purpose. We have sound, video,
gameplay all cooperating to give to the gamer the greatest
experience possible. In a project management scenario this would
be accomplished if the team had an overall vision of the project and
not segmented ones. According to the author, this would require
improvements in communication in all phases of the project cycle;
c. 3. Distraction and misdirection through narrative: modern games
use pre-loading techniques to gradually load the next level into
memory as the player progress. This kind of non-distractive and
interruptive techniques could be applied in sustaining immersion
between transitions of phases.
Other principles are:
2. Attention-to-Detail, having as game-related characteristics:
a. Attention to detail analysis might allow improving communication
in rich graphics environments and thus succeeding where other
methods have failed.
3. Ethics Principle
a. Games provide a safe environment to experiment with delicate
ethic’s related questions. This kind of questions may lead project
managers to take action in one way or another when facing a
dilemma.
Taking close attention to some of these principles it’s possible to use their main ideas
in areas like project management. This can, in some ways, achieve better levels of
interest and accomplishment in the different phases of the project and so resulting in a
better outcome.
4 Conclusion
There are some characteristics and values that a set of expert players are developing,
like the enlightenment of risk taking [21], entrepreneurship and expertise. They are
also more willing to learn (and to teach) the subjects that are proposed to them.
Introducing games thematic in serious subjects like these ones brings benefits
especially to people who get their skills improved, don’t minding if we are talking
about education, military or health care personal.
There are many open issues in this area, giving researcher many things to think
about, entrepreneur have a chance to explorer a relatively new a promising market
and game developers can also think on all the new open possibilities and solutions.
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