A series of mini-games introducing the potential applications and benefits of serious games.

While the UK’s serious games market is just beginning to gather momentum, the US’s serious games market is moving fast ahead. The main issue holding back the UK market is a lack of understanding of what Serious Games are, how they can be successfully applied to an issue, and how to measure the return.  There remains a ‘fear’ of serious games.  While the innovators are trying and testing the concept quietly, they are only putting a small proportion of their findings into the public domain.  This means that the ‘fear’ is not going away.   By contrast, much of the success in the US has been down to educating the market about uses of games in diverse applications across a whole host of sectors.

What We Did

The Serious Games Squared series is designed to answer the question “What are serious games?”  PlayGen has developed a series of innovative scenarios to introduce and entice people into the world of serious games whilst having fun.   Each 2-3 minute simulation demonstrates why serious games are used, how they can bring new light to a subject and what the benefits can be.

The mini games draw on real-life scenarios across 6 sectors:

Development of Serious Games: Cook'em Up - Explains how to make Serious Games and what makes them a success.

Emergency services: The London Crisis – Demonstrates how games can be used to improve reactions in an emergency.

Education Sector: Afterlife - Vividly shows how Serious Games can bring a subject to life for students.

Defence/Military Sector: Battlefield Awareness - A simulation that test responses in a high risk situation and enables players to learn from mistakes.

Health Sector: Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery - Breaking a complex procedure down step by step to reduce risk in the real world.

Corporate Sector: Interview Sim - This simulation shows how practice can make perfect when it comes to making good business decisions.