| A New Approach to Training in 3D Environments |
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Are serious games better, or just different? Many of us have passed our design plans to a supervisor, who, in contrary to your 10 hour design, rips it to shreds after a 5 minute review. It's hard to tell when firmly vested in your concept, if your supervisor has added value, or just made it different.
Those who employ serious games are often progressive thinkers, searching for the new (virtual) silver bullet. But we often overlook and/or misapply the biggest advantages of using a virtual 3D environment. A flash card in 3D is still a flash card. Many serious games applications overlook some of the most useful aspects of 3D interactive media. The list includes: Immersion Visual Acuity Applicability to young thinkers Immersion The most incorrectly applied aspect is immersion. Walking though a 3D hallway in order to view a 3D flash card is hardly immersive. There are two types of immersion. The most popular is visual immersion. Your eyes are the eyes of the surgeon as you clamp the aorta and apply a graph. But that is not the only type of immersion. I had to repeat a story to a friend three times yesterday before receiving the automatic response, "I'm sorry, I'm listening". Obviously they were not. Ok, so my story about my day was not as immersive as SVU, but it illustrates a point. Immersion is not a trait that is unique to 3D. Also, it is important to illustrate that immersion is not a trait unique to first person shooter games. There are websites dedicated to the adventures of individual's Sims experiences. Would you suggest a lack of immersion in their worlds? One example I've seen that illustrates the usefulness of an immersive environment is foreign language trainers. The best way to teach Spanish is to leave someone in Spain. They will learn or go hungry. It would be an anxious affair, especially since the locals can not always be overly helpful to outsiders. In a 3D world, you can experience immersion without the fear of sleeping on a bench because you aren't sure how to ask for directions. Visual Acuity Now that we've determined that books, TV, or even a story can be immersive, let's move to those applications that truly exploit the usefulness of 3D the things that books, TV, and stories cannot do. They cannot display dynamic interactive visuals cues. The National Fire Academy and US Forest Service understand the importance of training with visual acuity. They both have student/instructor stations that enable an instructor to change parameters such as wind direction. I've read some pretty dynamic choose your own adventure books, but you can hardly read a book fast enough to train split second decisions. Applicability to Young Thinkers Are serious games only for training? Not necessarily. America's Army employed the concepts of serious games for advertising. Over 3 million people, many within the Army's core demographics, completed America's Army's basic training. Food Drop, a game that creates awareness for the UN has had over 2 million downloads in over 6 months. According to GameAdvertising.com, 60% of all gamers are 25 to 44. Those are key commercial demographics. Microsoft has plans to tap into this market with the Xbox 360's ability to update game content automatically. Conclusion Serious Games have serious issues with misapplication. Over time we will find out what works and what doesn't. There will be those who continue to shoehorn the wrong application into the wrong media. My guess is that they will follow a similar path to those who tried to shoehorn a business plan into a web site in the late 90's. A request: Don't choose serious games because of the "cool" factor. Adapt, adopt, and embrace the strengths that 3D interactive games provide other wise, please move on. You are making it hard for everyone to take serious games seriously. |