Sirius Games: for Fun and Profit

Being an unashamed lover of puns I selected the title Sirius Games for this blog that explores Serious Games. There are several levels of meaning. First: it's an ulta-obvious play on words. Second: Sirius, the dog star, is the brightest start in Northern Hemisphere's night sky and many believe the gaming industry is now the brightest star in the entertainment industry, though the claim that its profits now eclipse film and television is debatable. What is not debatable is how popular video games are and how much influence they have today especially on the latest generations who grew up with them. Harnessing this power for K-12 education and industry is has up to now been elusive. There have been a few successes and some popular entertainment games have educational aspects. But, unfortunately, the most profitable still seem to cater more to our "lesser angels," especially violence. This is where the Sirius metaphor has a third meaning. Sirius is a binary and perhaps even a trinary system. This dog star has a tail, a dwarf star, symbolizing the dwarfed educational aspect of video games. This blog will document my explorations in how to make the serious use of games shine bright.

I found the video about the Serious Gaming at http://www.seriousgames.org/index2.html to be a good overview of where things are now in this area as well as an inspiration. What was encouraging was its mention of how some of the better game designers are incorporating education into thier games. However, it did mention that the entertainment gaming industry avoids the education label at all costs because of the fear that it could make sales plummet. Based on my experience this fear has some merit. Three years ago when I was teaching video production at MVAS High we entered a contest where my students made a video about video gaming and its influence on academics. During their interviews more than one student specifically mentioned that they no longer want to play educational games since they are for little kids. How can we overcome this stigma? How can we make educational gaming cool?