Slate has a fun (and scathing) article up on 'the problem with
serious games' - with companies like Persuasive Games getting quite a lot of press recently,
newsgames and 'serious games' have also been getting an increasing amount of press. The problem, Justin Peters says, is that "making games educational is like dumping Velveeta on broccoli. Liberal deployment of the word
blaster can't hide the fact that you're choking down something that's supposed to be good for you." Peters concedes there are games like
Civilization - fun
and educational.
Not content to let such accusations about boring games and what amounts to not-very-educational content, Ian Bogost (Persuasive's founder) says over at Water Cooler Games that he thinks "the idea of making games more alluring to people who don't love games is actually something of a noble goal, in my mind, especially as those who do love games become ever more narrow-minded about what a game experience needs to be." I very much doubt the
NYT cares one way or another if 'gamers' think
Food Import Folly is fun or not, but Peters has a point depending on which part of the market a designer wants to meet. No, not every game needs to be
Civ, but it couldn't hurt to have more games like that flittering around.
World of Borecraft: Never play a video game that's trying to teach you something [Slate] &
World of Borecraft [Water Cooler Games]
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