County Sun Investigates Serious Games, Sawyer

A new report by the San Bernardino County Sun investigated the serious games market, and also spoke with individuals such as Serious Games Initiative's Ben Sawyer, who are contributing to the field. Sawyer, who is also the co-founder of software development company Digitalmill, noted in the report that while his organization is concerning with producing games, that is only half of Serious Games Initiative's underlying goal. "That's about 50 percent of what we achieve here," he said. "Game technology is being used, but it doesn't always necessarily lead to a game -- it's just that without this technology, certain things wouldn't be possible." The report also highlights the concern that serious games lack the potential to generate significant revenue, given that many games are freely downloadable, while others are not available through traditional retail chains. However, Sawyer noted that companies spend $66 billion dollars on training workers, and that a fraction of that money could be put into serious games developed for training purposes. Sawyer also noted in the report that in general more serious games need to be built without “waiting for some kind of benefactor." "The more we have ready-made solutions instead of the ‘will work for food' approach, the better off we'll be," he said.