The 4th annual Games For Change Conference ended yesterday.  Other than eating way too many of the free cookies, the most important things I took away were 1, Most Serious (educational games) aren't effective because they take away most of the fun of playing games and 2, When you make a Serious Game you have to be very careful about what you're actually trying to convey and if the game is actually doing that the best.

Clive Thompson, a technology features writer for the New York Times and Wired Magazine,  went on a beautful rant about the lack of good Serious Games today.  I've always had the same feeling about Serious Games but Clive had a very rational reason why so many educational games aren't resonating with children; they take away all the fun parts.  Clive identified some of the basic thrills of games we grew up with; throwing, running, fighting, jumping, dodging etc..  These simple movements translated into the most classic video games of our generation, Donkey Kong, Super Mario Brothers, Street Fighter.  However when most Serious Game developer sit down to develop a game, their knee jerk move is to remove these "game" elements because they feel it isn't condusive to educating young people.  The result, very well crafted games that few want to play.  The answer according to Clive is to get back to the roots of gaming, to interject the same level of fun and rebellion that made us as children sit down to play space invaders until the joystick broke.  Which is a great idea, but drilling deeper is the question of how to put educational content in a game like Pac-Man without your message being drowned out.  I think it's very possible and there are a few models which we're considering but its certainly not easy.  I'm even more sold on the idea howver that the game we make on global poverrty and the MDGs needs to be fun first.

The other big takeaway for me was about the nature of gameplay itself.  A few of the speakers examined how to contruct games so the gameplay actually taught a message.  For example if you wanted to teach chlidren the need to delay immediate pleasure for long term gains a strategy game might be the best way to do this.  In a strategy game like Warcraft, you can immediatly build really cool buildings, or you can invest in building your resources, which is decidely not as cool.  As you play the game you will soon learn that building the flashy building in the beginning of the game will not lead to sucess as much as building your resrouces until you can afford those flashy buildings.  A Serious Game developer might have created a game purely on self restraint, but would that be the best method of teaching children?  So the big question in all of this is what are you actually trying to put across?  Are you just raising awareness or are you actually trying to teach a skill to people?  Are you trying to tell them just that HIV/AIDS is dangerous, or give them the skills to make proper life decisions to not engage in risky behaviour?  For the MDGs, the answer is even trickier.  We have a very complex series of Goals that we're trying to teach children as young as 8 years old.  There isn't a skill set in learning about the MDGs, but we are trying to message around the concept of advocacy being the tool in a campaigners kit to bring about real change.  But putting that in a game for children is not an easy feat. 

We'll keep thinking about it.  Any ideas?