The words "serious" and "games" do not exactly go hand in hand: the former is to do with disasters and global warming, the latter being associated with things like fun, excitement and pleasure.

Despite this, the term "serious games" has become a catch-all term for software which uses videogame design principles to deliver educational and training experiences. Typically bespoke, they are designed to run on standard PCs or games consoles, immersing players within a virtual environment where they must perform a series of objectives in a similar fashion to a mainstream videogame.

"Learning through play is a well established educational principle," says Mary Matthews at TruSim, the serious games division of independent video games developer Blitz Games. "The fact that it's now being applied to adult learning should not be a surprise to anyone. Look at roleplaying: nobody bats an eyelid at that as a valid form of training. Transferring that to videogames is the automatic next step."

Yet sometimes association with the word "games" prevents serious games being taken, well, seriously. "Generally, awareness is not what it should be," says David Wortley, director of the Serious Games Institute. "And it's not what it should be simply because 'serious' and 'games' don't go together."

Recognition

Despite this he, still believes the name is appropriate. "It's the fact they go beyond simulations. They use some of the techniques in games that make you want to go back and play again. That's the key thing: you get rewarded for doing better. So 'games' is important in the definition."

According to Jim Piggot, chief executive of TPLD, a Dundee-based developer of serious games, the name is now starting to win recognition and acceptance. "In the early days when we were pitching this to organisations it was either as game-based learning, serious games or simulation. Now the industry seems to have settled on the 'serious games' terminology."

Serious games are often developed using widely available videogame engines such as Crytek's CryEngine, which was used for the PC game Far Cry. "There are over 400 different game engines," says Professor Robert Stone, director of the human interface technologies team at the University of Birmingham. "For example, a submarine spatial awareness project we're currently involved in uses the Ogre3D engine, which is actually free."

Although serious games can be used in areas such as education, culture and heritage, business and the environment, they are particularly popular with the military and healthcare sectors as they allow them to explore high-risk scenarios safely.

TruSim is working on a prototype which explores a process called triage sieve, the first evaluation of casualties that medical personnel make when they arrive at the scene of a major incident.

The prototype works by simulating an explosion in a generic-looking European city centre using data provided by the Manchester Royal Infirmary to generate injuries. If someone suffers a stomach wound, for example, the symptoms that are visually displayed to the "player" - or trainee - such as the level of respiration, panting, heartbeat, sweating and eye focus are all medically accurate.

Casualties are randomly generated for each playthrough and decay in real time, so if you arrive five minutes, half an hour, or even longer after the explosion has happened, the situation will have changed significantly.
The serious games market is still a fledgling one. In the 1990s virtual reality promised to revolutionise education and training, only to flounder when it did not live up to the hype.

"They [virtual reality developers] were professing that by the end of the 1990s we were all going to be wearing headsets and gloves and interacting in these wonderful virtual worlds, but of course it didn't happen," Stone says. "There's a bit of a problem now in that some people think serious games are the second coming of virtual reality."

However, Matthews believes the situation today is sufficiently different to prevent the market imploding. "I think with virtual reality it was very much technology-led and now we are working and living in a different era," she says.

"The average gamer is 33. These people have grown up with games, understand how to play, how the technology has developed in that time and the possibilities." Custom-built simulators and virtual reality systems are vastly more expensive to develop or purchase when compared to serious games.

"We're using technology that's off the shelf and fits with everyday use, whereas simulators or virtual reality required dedicated pieces of hardware," Piggot says. "It's a price point that people can afford, it's technology that they can use and it gives them the experience they require."

Hard evidence

Academic research into the effectiveness of serious games in achieving training and learning goals is lacking at present, something Wortley hopes will change soon.

"A lot of people are sceptical about serious games and they're looking for hard evidence as to why they are better than traditional e-learning or simulation techniques," he says. "One of the missions of the Serious Games Institute is to provide that evidence."

Although there is still a long way to go before serious games are considered an integral part of an organisation's training and development plans, those involved in their development are committed to proving their validity as a medium.

"There is no cowboy industry," Matthews says. "The companies who are working in this area at the moment are doing absolutely the right thing."

The Guardian