Q&A video tutorials about serious games
Please check out current 26 videoclips below, about serious game topics that are somehow problematic. You will find clips dealing with learning, motivation, flow theory, fun, rewards, realism, games research and many more. It is my aim to address misconceptions and misunderstandings. It is all basic stuff. Still it is indispensable for everyone somehow connected to serious gaming: game designers, developers, teachers, assessors, evaluators, education managers, policy makers, game researchers, and of course, the end-users: those who play serious games.
These tutorials are copied in from my YouTube-channel Serious Games Questions & Answers.
Find your clip
| # | Title | Videoclip | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | What do you learn from these videos? | | Get to know about the purposes of serious games and what pitfalls and misconceptions to avoid |
| 2 | What is a game? | It is quite hard to tell whether or not something is a game. This video presents key characteristics of games as advocated by Ludwig Wittgenstein and explains how a game differs from real life. | |
| 3 | What is play? | Play is different from games, Games are at best enablers of play. This video goes into the origin of play and its role in human culture. | |
| 4 | What are serious games? | The term "serious games" may cause quite some confusion. This video reviews the terminology and clarifies the gaming landscape, including simulations, gamification, virtual worlds, simulations and games-based learning. | |
| 5 | What is gamification? | Gamification means using game principles to enhance motivation and promote behavioural change. This video explains gamification, while it distinguishes between two different types of gamification and presents examples. | |
| 6 | How big is gaming? | Over the last 60 years gaming has developed into the fasted growing media industry. Get to know more details about world spendings and usage of leisure games as well as serious games. | |
| 7 | Are games superior instructional tools? | For various reasons, an overall fair comparison between different instructional means is problematic. This video explains why we should be careful with unthinkingly accepting Randomised Controlled Trials as the ultimate providers of thruth. | |
| 8 | Are games motivating? | Games are recognised for the motivational potential. Indeed, games may provide penetrating learning experiences. But a general claim that games are motivating would be unjust. | |
| 9 | hat are the main teaching and learning principles? | The principal elements of teching (and learning) are universal and straightforward as such. This video explains the basic guidelines. | |
| 10 | What is meant with experiential learning? | The predominant paradigm for learning from games is "experiential learning". This video explains how this is supposed to work. | |
| 11 | How do serious games support the acquisition of tacit knowledge? | Tacit knowledge is the kind of knowledge that cannot be appropriately covered by books or lectures, because it is inherently linked with practical operations, for instance dealing with agression, providing comfort or any other social or communication skill. Games can do the job! | |
| 12 | Why do we keep on gaming? | The engaging motivating powers of games are undisputed. But the secret is not so much in the high resolution graphics or immersive 3D environment. The secret is in the process of continually matching task difficulty to player skill, thus avoiding both frustration and boredom. | |
| 13 | What is the main pitfall of experiential learning? | Games are excellent environments for learning from experience. But experiential learning is a risky approach, unless didactic precautions are taken. | |
| 14 | Shouldn't we avoid using rewards in serious games? | Rewards in serious games may easily affect the efficacy of learning. This video claims that rewards should best be used in the case of simple repetitive tasks/drils, e.g. vocabulary or arithmetic. | |
| 15 | How can rewards stimulate intrinsic motivation? | Rewards in serious games may easily affect the efficacy of learning. This video explains how to avoid rote learning and stimulate intrinsic motivation when including rewards. | |
| 16 | What is the role of 'fun' in serious games? | The concept of 'fun' is often mistaken for humour or jokes, which may be way off. This video explains the role of 'fun' and how it could function in serious games. | |
| 17 | Why should we distinguish between performance and learning? | Many serious games are using a learning-by-doing approach. This means that they are performance-oriented. But a performance context is not necessarily the best environment for learning: if one's performances are rated, anxiety and risk avoiding behaviours may take over. This video explains how to deal with this. | |
| 18 | What is the relevance of debriefing? | Arranging a debriefing session to discuss the game activities enhances the efficacy of the learning from the game. But for maximum benefit a debriefing (which is after the game) simply comes too late to allow players to apply the new insights. This video argues to incorporate multiple intermediate opportunities for reflection, that is, replace 'reflection on action' with 'reflection in action'. | |
| 19 | How realistic should game scenes be? | The call for realistic, high resolution graphics in serious games dubious. There are quite some reasons to expressly deviate from realism in serious games, which helps to reduce game development costs and efforts. This video discusses the principles of the media equation theory, the willing suspension of disbelief, our limited brain processing capacity and the uincaany valley effect, which all call for less realistic details. | |
| 20 | How serious is serious games research? | Results from serious games studies are often deceptive. A critical attitude is required to understand their significance. This video presents a quick overview of the flaws that may affect the results from game studies and experiments. Various confounding factors and effects are discussed, including efforts spent, positive bias, the novelty effect, the observer effect, and questionable statistics. | |
| 21 | What to address in serious games evaluations? | Evaluating serious games may sound simple and easy, but in practice it can be quite complex because of the many things to be evaluated. This video discusses various dimension targets from the Kirkpatrick 4-level model, which distinguishes 4 levelsof evaluation: 1) Reactions (responses) 2) Learning outcomes 3) Behavioural impact (effects on behaviour) 4) Organisational performance (e.g. benefits and costs) |
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| 22 | Can we improve our multitasking by playing games? | Occasionally, researchers claim that games help to enhance multi-tasking skills, that is, being able to do different things at the same time, e.g. driving and making a call. But these claims are highly disputed and overshadowed by research showing that we cannot. So, please forget the multitasking (does it exist at all?). Still video gamers are good at vision, attention, speed, accuracy, spotting irregularities and integrating new information, especially in the digital realm. | |
| 23 | How to measure the players' motivations? | Enhancing the learner's motivations is often the main motive for using serious games, because higher motivation means better learning. But motivation is a complex concept. In addition, it is hard too measure it properly. Mostly questionnaires are used, but these of notoriously unreliable. This video provides a quick overview. | |
| 24 | How to measure a game's usability? | For games, as is the case for any digital application, usability is key. But usability studies can have very differrent goals and scopes. Also there are many different measurement instruments available. Mostly questionnaires are used, but these can be deceptive. This video provides a quick overview. | |
| 25 | How to measure cognitive flow? | Games are excellent environments to induce cognitive flow, that is, players being completely absorbed in an activity. But the claims about cognitive flow are dubious, because cognitive flow is an ill-defined concept and it cannot be measured very well. This video discusses cognitive flow and how it is generally measured. | |
| 26 | What is meant with a game platform? | A game "platform" may refer to almost anything. To reduce the confusion this video distinguishes between three types of platforms: 1) Game development platforms 2) Game distribution platforms 3) Game target platforms Each platform type is then further subdivided and explained with examples. |