Jeux sérieux : exploration d'un oxymore

In: Revue des sciences sociales, Band 45, Heft 1, S. 158-167

Abstract

Serious games : exploration of an oxymoron.

The first decade of the 2000s has seen the success of the denomination serious games to designate computer applications for useful purposes using the scope of videogames. The term covers very diverse situations, such as game based educational software, simulation exercises for a given activity (driving a vehicle, surgical operations, company management), and the use of videogames for advertising, militant, informational and brain training purposes. All these applications have a point in common, in that they act as a vector for useful content by calling on motivations to play and playful mechanisms. From many points of view, the term of serious game seems to be new packaging for déjà-vu achievements, especially in terms of simulation exercises and game-based educational activities. By using a new terminology, it gives a more encompassing legitimacy to new, more controversial applications, in particular advertising, militant and ideological applications, but it also opens up new markets for the videogame industries. This article explores what is at stake with this new terminology and examines its relevance beyond simple marketing. In particular the expression "serious game" is only an oxymoron in a society which resolutely opposes "game" and "serious", stressing the value of work rather than amusement and therefore making it a paradox for the futile to become useful. The development of such games demonstrates that the frontiers of play have become blurred today, referring to a change in the status of games in our societies, which itself goes hand-inhand with the transformation of societies overall.