Serious Game - History

History

Gaming has been used in educational circles since at least the 1900s. Use of paper-based educational games became popular in the 1960s and 1970s, but waned under the Back to Basics teaching movement. (The Back to Basics teaching movement is a change in teaching style that started in the 1970s when students were scoring poorly on standardized tests and exploring too many electives. This movement wanted to focus students on reading, writing and arithmetic and intensify the curriculum.) With the proliferation of computers in the 1980s, the use of educational games in the classroom became popular with titles that included Oregon Trail, Math Blaster, and Number Munchers. Though these games were popular among teachers and students, they were also criticized due to the fact that they did not provide the player with new kinds of learning, and instead provided a "slightly easier-to-swallow version of drill-and-practice" learning.

In the 1990s, newer games such as the Incredible Time Machine and the Dr. Brain series were introduced to challenge kids to think in new ways, apply their current skills, and learn new ones, but these games were unpopular among teachers because it was difficult to map these newer games to their curriculum, especially in a high school setting where in-class time is at a premium. The 1990s also saw the Internet being introduced to schools, which with limited computer resources took precedence over playing games.

The early 2000s saw a surge in different types of educational games, especially those designed for the younger learner. Many of these games were not computer-based but took on the model of other traditional gaming system both in the console and hand-held format. In 1999, LeapFrog Enterprises introduced the LeapPad, which combined an interactive book with a cartridge and allowed kids to play games and interact with a paper-based book. Based on the popularity of traditional hand-held gaming systems like Nintendo's Game Boy, they also introduced their hand-held gaming system called the Leapster in 2003. This system was cartridge-based and integrated arcade–style games with educational content.

In 2001, Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies and Randy Hinrichs, Group Research Manager for Learning Science and Technology group were co-principal investigators working on a project known as Games-to-Teach. Games-to-Teach inspired the serious gaming initiatives that followed. The partnership between MIT and Microsoft developed conceptual prototypes for interactive serious gaming, with Kurt Squire, now professor at University of Wisconsin as principal PhD candidate working on the project. The MIT iCampus project lasted for six years. During this time, serious games were created with several faculty members using role playing techniques, mobile technologies, physics based racing games to teach physics, and other experiences. Topics included media in science, engineering education, education in media, complex system dynamics, and collaboration. Hephaestus was a massively multiplayer XBox online mechanical engineering game. Environmental detectives used handheld PCs to investigate health problems in the city of Boston. Biohazard was codeveloped with Carnegie Mellon University, MIT and Microsoft Research. Players worked collaboratively with first responders to a chemical attack in a subway. This was a multiplayer RPG designed for the PC/Xbox in which sources of epidemic outbreaks were investigated to determine how to control crowds and deliver decontamination treatments and manage resources efficiently. Hinrichs began the award winning company 2b3d.net to build serious games in health, business, education and created the first Certificate in Virtual Worlds at the University of Washington to build curriculum around how to engage avatars in serious game environments. Henry Jenkins joined USC as Professor of Communication, Journalism, Cinematic Arts and Education. Jenkins has played a significant role in demonstrating the importance of new media technologies in educational settings.

In 2002 another movement had started outside of formal educational sector that was coined as the "serious game movement," which originated from the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, where David Rejecsk and Ben Sawyer started the initiative. The primary consumer and producer of serious games is the United States Military, which needs to prepare their personnel for enter a variety of environments, cultures, and situations. They need to understand their surroundings, be able to communicate, use new technologies and quickly make decisions. The first serious game is often considered to be Army Battlezone, an abortive project headed by Atari in 1980, designed to use the Battlezone tank game for military training. Two other well known serious games that were commissioned by the Army are America's Army (2002) and Full Spectrum Warrior (2004).

Outside of the government, there is substantial interest in serious games for formal education, professional training, healthcare, advertising, public policy and social change. For example, games from websites such as Newsgaming.com are "very political games groups made outside the corporate game system" that are "raising issues through media but using the distinct properties of games to engage people from a fresh perspective," says Henry Jenkins, the director of MIT's comparative media studies program. Such games, he said, constitute a "radical fictional work."1