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The Senate recently discussed and passed a bill (the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science Act) in which money would be available to education and technology that would include serious games.
"Serious games" is a term used in an article in FCW that is associated games that are developed for training purposes, such as in the military or medical professions and could be a more successful way to train staff than with traditional texts:
When students learn information only from books, they don't get the deeper training that they need... Students must master information so well that it becomes instinctive knowledge... Researchers are studying the role of video games in learning. The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) released a report in 2006 that identified skills that researchers found students could learn better from playing games than from conventional training. Those skills included the ability to make fast decisions in critical, high-stress situations.
Another example noted is how some gamers experience how to work well in a community. In World of Warcraft, people learn how to work together in organized groups in which members have specific roles and responsibilities. To be able to learn not only the skills of a trade but communication as well through a game could be in invaluable resource for companies, but because of the current cost it takes to produce a game, the industry has remained a profit-making one. Hopefully, with this bill, developers will take more of an interest in making serious games.
