[game_preservation] Fwd: FW: [socialissuegames] Serious games repository or reference list?

[Devin Monnens]

Hi folks,
I believe this discussion is significant for everyone on this list - after
all, it deals with cataloguing and archival! An archive focusing on serious
games would be fantastic.

-Devin

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Marc Prensky <marc at games2train.com>
Date: Tue, Sep 29, 2009 at 1:46 PM
Subject: FW: [socialissuegames] Serious games repository or reference list?
To: Discussion of games addressing social issues <
socialissuegames at listserver.dmill.com>


 Hi all.



Given the interest, I have decided to bring my list back to life, revising
and updating it both going forward into the present (and future, if games
are in development), and backward (I had once made a list of 500 historical
serious games.)



In order to make this possible, I’d appreciate your sharing any lists you
have.  I will, as quickly as possible try to get them into one easily
accessible and searchable (and updated) place, open (without enrollment) to
all.



You can send things to marc at games2train.com.   Any suggestions for making
the www.socialimpactgames.com  site better or easier to use are welcome as
well.



Many thanks.



Best,

Marc





*From:* moses.wolfenstein at gmail.com [mailto:moses.wolfenstein at gmail.com] *On
Behalf Of *Moses Wolfenstein
*Sent:* Thursday, September 24, 2009 11:31 PM
*To:* Discussion of games addressing social issues
*Subject:* Re: [socialissuegames] Serious games repository or reference
list?



First off, to those of you who have pointed me towards some of the existing
resources, you have my heartfelt thanks. The gamesforchange database is an
awesome starter (one I really should have checked before asking the list)
and it looks like Marc Prensky's list, while it seems to be less current,
also covers a lot of ground.

At the same time, Brian makes a really good point here. I actually didn't
mean to suggest that there was an actual genre of "Serious games" with this
question, rather there are clearly numerous game genres (or variants of
genres) which can be considered under an umbrella category of "serious"
based on the intention of the designers. In fact, the topic of game genres
is actually an extremely sticky one even without this serious question, but
I'd like to just ignore that for now. If anyone really wants to unwrap the
Pandora's box of genre, start a new thread and I'll be happy to weigh in
with my 2¢

The point I'm getting at is that while Civ (and more recently WoW for that
matter) have certainly been utilized as tools for learning, the primary aim
of the designers was to make a game that was fun. As a result the fine folks
at companies like Firaxis and Blizzard/Activision are operating under a
fundamentally different rubric for game design because they're not directly
concerned with learning. Now that learning objective might be for
training,consciousness raising, or even meeting instructional standards, but
designing games for any learning objective becomes a fundamentally different
task than designing a game strictly so that it will meet success in the
commercial market . . . and yes, there are the Peter Molyneux's and the
Jonathon Blow's of the commercial games industry who are also making art
(yet another sticky topic), but as long as they work within the commercial
games industry there's a bottom line which is not tied to whether or not the
audience is learning.

Is it actually correct to use the term Serious games to denote a category in
a manner that excludes commercial games (let alone mods of commercial games)
that can be utilized effectively for learning? That's not a question I
really have an answer for. After all, my current dissertation work is
looking at guild leadership in WoW, so clearly I don't draw a hard and fast
line in that respect, However, as a designer I needed some way of throwing
this question out to the list in a manner that would turn up some resources
for the sort of games we're looking for here in this current project at UW
to understand what has and hasn't worked in the development of games that
have a primary aim of representing concepts for the player in a meaningful
way as we consider making new games of this sort. That is, we are looking at
how other folks have answered questions like which commercial genres seem to
be amenable for different topics, and how have these sorts of attempts
succeeded or failed previously?

At any rate, I welcome further conversation on the topic, and if someone
hasn't weighed in yet with a list or database that covers ground that hasn't
otherwise been covered, I know that I'm not the only one on this list who
would be happy to hear about it ; )

Thanks again,
-moses


-- 
Moses Wolfenstein
Doctoral Candidate
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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