Feature: 'SGS 2005: What's So Serious About Game Design?'

In another of today's main Gamasutra features, as part of this week's Serious Games Summit coverage, the second half of Monday's keynote at SGS DC was given by Doug Whatley, CEO of BreakAway Games. His address concentrated on some of the practical problems of developing serious games, given his perspective as someone who has worked with a number of different serious games customers from a number of different fields. In this keynote write-up, Whatley's context for his speech is outlined: "Whatley's talk, which discussed how to harness the game-related learning techniques that the game business has developed, but also made the important point that, although the entertainment business has forced us to look at the development pipelines in new ways, we shouldn't look at the "serious games" products that are produced as something that replaces what we've already done. In other words, "serious games" can and should let you play scientist. Whatley then made a reference to Peter Perla's previous talk, noting the importance of wargaming as a trailblazer for this concept, and pointing out that military culture has been very accepting of gaming for a long time. In military research, he noted, there's always a very specific problem to be solved, and much process has already been developed by following techniques from military wargaming. As is the case with many speakers, Whatley then went on to try to define "serious games," at least in his view, arguing that his definition of the phrase would be: "A product that is not specifically entertainment, but uses entertainment or the techniques and processes of the entertainment business to achieve a purpose." The important point here, he argued is that such products are not just a replacement for e-learning or books - they should "fundamentally change the way we train, educate, and interact with the real world."" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including more information on the intriguing keynote (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).