Syracuse Game Lab

Games are great educational tools, and I'm not the only one who thinks so!

Yes, there are others out there, and if you are looking for resources to make your own case for board games (or games in general), one possible starting point for you is the Syracuse Game Lab.

Thank you to Scott Nicholson for commenting on our earlier blog post sharing with us about his research project at Syracuse University, which is an initiative to increase the use of games and games events in the libraries.

There are also a number of publications on the topic at the Game Lab Web site, so head over and check it out!

Serious Games = Applied Game Mechanics?

Have we finally found a term for "applying board game mechanics?"!

I was "reading" on a German game Web site, spielegilde.org, and out of the cloud a term appeared.

"Serious Games"

It struck a chord, and I struck it back by doing a little research of my own.

Wikipedia describes a serious game as any game that is "designed for a primary purpose other than pure entertainment." Sounds like Pinebars to me. Here at the blog we seek to highlight as many different applications of board games as possible to everyday life, whether teaching or management or amazon farmers.

Dig a little deeper.

Seriousgames.org, a Web site I Googled, listed their objective as to find "uses for games in exploring management and leadership challenges facing the public sector." Seriousgames.org focuses on the application of video games, which seems to be the general focus of groups interested in serious games.

Apparently there is a Serious Games Summit (this year its held in San Fransisco) to discuss the development of serious games and related issues. I encourage you to check out their Web site.

Although focused on video games, aspects are inclusive to all gaming types. According to the Serious Games Summit Web site, the second major point of discussion at the summit will be "gamification," which is "[the] debatable term and sometimes questionable process of building game-like incentives into non-game applications, to address issues like productivity, health, marketing, and so forth."

Board game mechanics should not be left out of a discussion about gamification. Rather the incentives built into board games are probably stronger and more suited to gamification than video game mechanics. After all, board games mechanics are developed en lieu of technology and more closely focus on player decisions.

Perhaps all this goes to say is that applying board game mechanics already has an identity in the study of serious games.

Not the most insightful conclusion to a blog post I'm sure...though I hope not the most vapid either.

-Dennis