Serious Games

Mechanisms and Effects

Ute Ritterfeld, Michael Cody, Peter Vorderer, Ute Ritterfeld, Michael Cody, Peter Vorderer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415993708
• eBook ISBN: 9781135848903
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Technology

Serious Games provides a thorough exploration of the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained and transferable to the real world. "Serious games" is defined herein as any form of interactive computer-based game software for one or multiple players to be used on any platform and that has been developed to provide more than entertainment to players. With this volume, the editors address the gap in exisiting scholarship on gaming, providing an academic overview on the mechanisms and effects of serious games. Contributors investigate the psychological mechanisms that take place not only during gaming, but also in game selection, persistent play, and gaming impact.

The work in this collection focuses on the desirable outcomes of digital game play. The editors distinguish between three possible effects -- learning, development, and change -- covering a broad range of serious games' potential impact. Contributions from internationally recognized scholars focus on five objectives:

• Define the area of serious games
• Elaborate on the underlying theories that explain suggested psychological mechanisms elicited through serious game play, addressing cognitive, affective and social processes
• Summarize the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of serious games,
• Introduce innovative research methods as a response to methodological challenges imposed through interactive media
• Discuss the possibilities and limitations of selected applications for educational purposes.

Anchored primarily in social science research, the reader will be introduced to approaches that focus on the gaming process and the users' experiences. Additional perspectives will be provided in the concluding chapters, written from non-social science approaches by experts in academic game design and representatives of the gaming industry. The editors acknowledge the necessity for a broader interdisciplinary study of the phenomena and work to overcome the methodological divide in games research to look ahead to a more integrated and interdisciplinary study of digital games.

This timely and singular volume will appeal to scholars, researchers, and graduate students working in media entertainment and game studies in the areas of education, media, communication, and psychology.

Part I
Serious Games
Explication of an Oxymoron

Chapter 1
Introduction

Ute Ritterfeld, Michael Cody, and Peter Vorderer

Over the past few years, serious games have become a hot topic at international conferences, conventions, and symposia. Interest in using games to educate, motivate, and change behavior has grown tremendously in a brief period of time, and by a truly international group of practitioners, civic leaders, health and human rights advocates, educators, gamers, and researchers. Ben Sawyer facilitated this movement when he launched the “Serious Games Initiative,” which was followed quickly by the creation of important spin-off interest groups and Web sites like “Games for Health” and “Games for Change.” A number of listservs and other discussion lists were initiated and have been successful in attracting an increasing number of game designers, educators, and academics alike. Indeed, as discussed in the chapters in this volume, an increasing number of disciplines are drawn to the topic of serious games, including health advocates, social advocates, immigration experts, political scientists, and others.

This vivid history is reflected in the term serious games that we have adopted for this volume. However, the term itself may easily be criticized for its literal meaning, which is an oxymoron: Games are inherently fun and not serious (Newman, 2004). Despite this apparent contradiction, many scholars and practitioners see serious games as involving fun, as well as being educational, engaging, impactful, meaningful, and purposeful.

When the video games industry began decades ago, few would have predicted its phenomenal success in profits and size. Who would have predicted that gaming would become bigger than the film industry? No one would have anticipated that digital games would one day be seen as a new educational tool that could fundamentally change learning, teaching, and training for upcoming generations. With new technologies at hand that allow for high resolution and 3D video and audio, social collaboration or competition, detachment from stationary equipment, and sensory-based input control, both genders and all age groups are now increasingly attracted to play (cf., Vorderer & Bryant, 2006). The evolution of digital games is clearly driven by entertainment purposes and interests, and their success is heavily associated with their entertainment value (Vorderer & Ritterfeld, in press).

Ideally speaking, serious games are building on this entertainment value, but they also add value through an educational component (Allen, 2004; Amroy, Naicker, Vincent, & Adams, 1999). In this respect, they represent a genre that was purposefully designed to be more than “just” fun (Dumbleton & Kirriemuir, 2006). At the same time, the educational value associated with serious gaming went beyond the academic purposes pursued by so called edutainment applications. Edutainment, at least in the beginning, was a rather unsuccessful attempt to involve play elements in more traditional curricular activities (Ritterfeld & Weber, 2006). Their focus was primarily on skill practice, and the entertainment value diminished substantially during exposure. The more recent serious games initiatives, however, refocused on deeper learning in the context of an enjoyable experience and on broader educational issues outside the school setting (Jenkins, 2006; Kline, 2004; Linderoth, Lindström, & Alexandersson, 2004).

In serious games we assume that the gaming element is prevalent; that is, the game is used as a toy (Goldstein, Buckingham, & Brougère, 2004). Using digital games as toys implies that the activity itself is intrinsically motivating because it provides fun (Vorderer, Steen, & Chan, 2006). Intrinsically motivating play implies deliberate selection of the toy, deliberate persistence of playing, and a high likelihood of repetitive usage (Oerter, 1999). Such forms of activity resemble what is known as enjoyment and entertainment (Vorderer, Klimmt, & Ritterfeld, 2004). The source of enjoyment, however, can be manifold and depends heavily on the user and the situation. While some consider challenges or competition as most enjoyable, others find enjoyment in role playing, creative work, or repetitive and low challenging activities.

Children’s play is inseparably associated with learning. Children explore and acculturate the world through play, extend their skills and competencies, and experiment with possible selves. Only at a later point during elementary school do entertainment and learning start to drift apart. Older children may even associate play with being noneducational and learning with being anything but enjoyable. Media have long been considered to be a tool that would be able to reunite those two purposes: Educational radio or television shows, audio narratives, music, comic books, and more recently, digital, interactive media. There is considerable evidence from traditional media that such educational formats may work; that is, affect users by teaching them skills and content (see summaries in Singhal & Rogers, 1999; Singhal, Cody, Rogers, & Sabido, 2004), especially if the narrative transports the audience member into an emotionally involving and mentally stimulating, vivid world (Green, 2006; Green & Brock, 2002). But entertainment–education projects are often not as powerful as intended, and can be ineffective if sound social psychological theories are not appropriately applied. The successful educational outcome of embedding information in entertainment programming depends on a host of factors: capturing the attention of the users, making sure that the desired belief change or action to be adopted is discussed (repeatedly) or is visually shown (i.e., modeled), and reinforcing belief or behavioral changes by showing that there are rewards or advantages in adopting the changes. It is also important that the viewers are emotionally involved and affected by the entertainment story, identify with or have empathy for characters in the program, and are motivated to seek more information after viewing the entertainment program or discuss the program with friends. If some of these elements are missing, educational outcomes can be limited or nonexistent (see, for instance, a comparison of different storylines in Morgan, Movius, and Cody, in press).

Ritterfeld and Weber (2006) have differentiated three different models of entertainment education. They describe previous attempts as manifestations of a motivational and a reinforcement paradigm, respectively. The motivational paradigm suggests that entertainment features in a product elicit the specific selection of it by providing interesting, enjoyable add-ons. In a similar way, the reinforcement paradigm supports persistent usage by offering gratifications after successful completion of a task. Both models are most common in educational media formats. Although they may have some value, the full potential embedded in entertainment education has not been fully explored. In fact, entertainment and education still appear as two distinct, separate aspects of game play that follow each other and demand that the user shift his or her focus from one to the other. As such, the educational aspect of media use may be introduced or responded to by moments of enjoyment, but they themselves remain as bare from such experience as any other educational format that was not specifically designed for playful exploration. In order to blend educational purposes successfully with the entertainment experience, paralleled experiences are needed. The educational component needs to be enjoyable in its own right, and the entertainment component should be closely associated with education.

Since their emergence, serious games have been holding the promise to fulfill this requirement for three reasons: First, game play is intrinsically motivating. Second, the responsiveness of the game environment gives immediate feedback to the user. And third, the content has or can have the complexity that allows for ample learning opportunities. Possible educational impact is not limited to knowledge acquisition or skill practice; it also includes exploration, problem solving, or incidental learning.

However, ever since the implementation of serious games as a new promising genre, its promoters and critics have been struggling to find a consensus on the definition of the term itself. Unsatisfied with the generic but conflicting message of the label serious games, some turned to more specific alternatives, such as describing games for specific purposes (e.g., games for health, game-based learning, persuasive games) or proposed alternatives (e.g., meaningful games). But the inherent problem of defining a genre by characteristics of the media remains: What would be the features that turn a game into a serious game? Is it the purpose of the game, the intention of the content developer, or the goal of the user? Is an educational purpose a sufficient criterion to call a game serious? What if the effects of the game are not educational, and what if unintended effects are elicited? What about games that are designed from a pure entertainment perspective, but require substantial problem solving to be played? Are these games not serious because the publisher did not market them as such? Serious games can be customized digital games that were specifically and purposefully developed to educate (i.e., Math or Reading Blaster, Tactical Iraqi), or they can be over-the-counter games that primarily entertain its users while also providing educational opportunities (knowledge, skills) (i.e., World of Warcraft, The Sims).

Although advocates in the gaming industry often argue that game technology provides unique opportunities for deep, sustained learning (Michael & Chen, 2006), little systematic research is available to support this title. The central purpose of this book therefore is to examine critically the claim that playing games can provide learning that is deep, sustained, and transferable to the “real world.” This volume is devoted to continuing this discussion in recognition of available scientific evidence. As this book is primarily social science driven, the reader will hereby be introduced to approaches that focus on the gaming process and the users’ experiences more than on technological game elements.

To enter the discussion, however, we ask the reader to accept a fuzzy definition of serious games. As a starting point we define serious games as any form of interactive computer-based game software for one or multiple players to be used on any platform and that has been developed with the intention to be more than entertainment.

The second purpose of this volume is to provide a systematic overview of serious games research; that is, on theories that have been applied, on empirical evidence, and on methodological challenges. Although the development in this academic field is no doubt very impressive and there are a number of studies on the effectiveness of specific applications, we are still missing a comprehensive and systematic overview of the mechanisms that drive or don’t drive the expected effectiveness. With this volume, we try to fill the gap in providing an academic overview on the mechanisms and effects of serious games from a primarily social science perspective. That means that we investigate the psychological mechanisms that take place during gaming, but also in game selection, persistent play, and gaming impact. Although we are far from introducing one theory that fits all applications, we have assembled solid scientific knowledge that guides our understanding of serious game play from various theoretical perspectives. We are specifically looking at the educational impact on the individual and on societies at large, while exploring the complex interplay of entertainment and learning in serious gaming. We use the term educational for any desired increase in skills, knowledge, competency, and mastery, and favored changes in attitudes, values, or behaviors.

Throughout the book we also use the generic term digital games to include all interactive video and computer games played on any platform by one or multiple players. We further decided to differentiate between a player and a gamer throughout the book: The term player refers to an individual (e.g., a research subject) who is playing a game, whereas the term gamer is used within the context of gaming as a cultural phenomenon.

This book is the result of a collaborative effort on the part of a research group that was formerly situated at the University of Southern California (USC), Annenberg School for Communication where Ute Ritterfeld...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Foreword: From Virtual U to Serious Games to Something Bigger
• Editors
• Contributors
• List of Figures and Tables
• Part I: Serious Games: Explication of an Oxymoron
• Part II: Theories and Mechanisms
• Part III: Methodological Challenges
• Part IV: Applications, Limitations, and Future Directions