The top five reasons why computer game designers should care about serious games

For those people getting excited about Harrisburg University of Science and Technology's Learning and Entertainment Evolution Forum (LEEF), here are the top five reasons why game designers and publishers should care about serious games:

1. Many of the most successful computer games ever, such as Roller Coaster Tycoon and SimCity, have been serious games. (See Big Skills as a game design challenge, and even Middle Skills.)
2. Serious games are making significant progress around artificial personalities, including dialogue, body language, and belief systems, that traditional computer games need. (See Creating Artificial Personalities, not necessarily Artificial Intelligence.)
3. Much as current movies are borrowing heavily from documentaries (shaky-cam, anyone?), so can computer games borrow from serious games (including virtual products) new interfaces and game-play models to add realism to experiences.
4. Serious games are developing new genres of interfaces, goals, and gameplay that can be evolved into either completely new computer games or additions to existing genres (See Genres). Because serious games designers are not trapped by the conservative design required of huge budget productions, they can explore faster.
5. Adopted and supported games used in classrooms is maturing into a long-term, stable source of revenue that circumvent the three-month hit-or-failure current computer game model. (See Top Ten Serious Games and Educational Simulations used in College Classrooms.)