What do you think when I say, "game? " Maybe you remember the fun and relaxation of playing outside when you were a kid, or maybe the pleasure of playing a board game with your family, or the excitement and frustration of playing video games with your friends. Games can be all that fun, relaxing, pleasurable, exciting, or frustrating. Games are not only there to pass our time in a pleasant way. Games can also teach us certain things. For example, when you play a video game, you train your hand-eye coordination. A game of chess helps you develop your strategic abilities. Since you're having fun or are being challenged, maybe you won't even notice that you're, actually, in the process of learning. Some games are deliberately designed with an educational goal in mind. For example, there are games informing you about environmental issues, or confronting you with the dangers of texting while driving, or teaching you how to deal with a particular disease, such as diabetes. We call those games serious games. Although, it's a great idea to learn something while playing a game, there are also still a lot of unanswered questions. What exactly are these games? Why do we enjoy playing them? How exactly do they affect our behavior? An increasing number of researchers are analyzing serious games. They try to uncover what characteristics they have, and how and why people play them. They also attempt to uncover the impact of serious games, which is a complex issue. In this course, you'll learn the ins and outs on a topic of serious games. Let's get things straight. We will not instruct you how to design a game, we're not game designers. But you'll increase your expertise on the underlying mechanisms of serious games and encounter some of the latest theories and research on, for example, the enjoyment of playing, the persuasive properties of serious games, and impact issues. The coming weeks, you will become more knowledgeable in this area, which might help you if you are, for example, a professional interested in the possibilities these game offer or if you want to know more about the impact serious games can have. Maybe you are thinking about implementing a serious game yourself. If you are a student and you're considering to study media such as serious games, this will be an interesting introductory course for you. In any case, we will be happy to share our knowledge review. Our course is divided into six weeks. Each week, we offer you theory about serious games in short video lectures. You'll see us in these videos and also some of our colleagues from Erasmus University Rotterdam. They are doing research on the topic of serious games and all have their own expertise. At the end of each week, we also offer you additional sources, so you can deepen your knowledge if you wish, by reading articles and books on the topic. But this is of course, voluntary. You will not be tested on that knowledge. To help you understand the content of this course better, every week, we show you a practical case study in which the theory is applied. We have some very interesting examples lined up for you, some international games, some games developed by game developers in Rotterdam. Of course, we'll also invite you to play some serious games yourself. It will be easier to grasp the ideas that we discuss, if you have some experience playing. Let's not forget, that it's also fun. On a more serious note, we will test your knowledge throughout the weeks by offering assignments. These are good ways for you to check if you have mastered the most important concepts and theories. We know from experience that we have many different types of learners in this course. Some of you will go through the whole course step-by-step and complete all assignments, much like games, completing all levels of the game. Of course, we think that's great. But that's not the only way. Some of you will be more casual learners. In that case, you just cherry pick the topics that you're interested in, such as persuasiveness, or impact issues, or maybe you only want to check the case studies. In that case, use our course as a restaurant menu that you choose from. We will now show you the most important topics that we discussed throughout the week, so you're better-informed when you want to select particular topics from our menu. If you are interested in what serious games are, how you define them, and what sets them apart from other media products, check the first week. We recommend everybody to use this week as a starting point, because it provides a solid base for understanding the rest of the course content. We also have an interesting case study that week, discussing a serious game that you can also easily check out yourself. After these introductory week, we'll dive deeper in the psychology of playing games in week 2, so if you're interested in the answer to the question, why we like to play games, check out that week. We take both our philosophical and psychological perspective. The case study in this week is a game that is developed by a game company from Rotterdam, convincing people to leave their cars at home when they commute. As you can imagine, there are many different types of serious games. Do you want to understand the variety of the field and the possibilities that serious game offer in these different sectors? Take a look at our third week. We will explain that there are many different types of serious games. From very simple elements of gaming in an educational context to full fledged simulations of professional training simulations. They all require different skills from game developers, as well as from gamers. To illustrate this, we do not offer you only one case study, but three. In the first three weeks, this course offers you basic knowledge of what serious games are, their characteristics, some game theory, and the different types of serious games that are out there. If you want more in-depth understanding, are not afraid of theory, and are interested in how games actually convince us to change what we think or do, week 4 is a week for you. We dedicate this week to the persuasiveness of serious games. Also in this week, we offer you plenty of case studies to make it easier to understand the theory. After four course weeks, you will probably wonder what impacts serious games can have. Do they actually work? Do they convince us to change our mind about something? How can we actually research that? This is one of the more complex topics of this course, and we will address it in week 5. To help you grasp the difficulties that researchers faced when studying impact, and to show you what we, actually, know about the impact, we have asked our colleagues working in games studies to come to the studio. In a talk-show setting, they will explain the most pressing issues to you. In the final module, it's time to look back and forward. We will connect all the dots are the previous weeks and go over the lessons learned with you. We will close this course for the sneak-peek into the possible future of serious games by telling you something about two newer technologies that are used for games, augmented reality and virtual reality. This was our serious games menu. Hopefully, this video has given you enough insights to make your personal choices which weeks to dive into. Have a great time. If you have any questions or issues you want to discuss, please feel free to do so on our forum.
