Jan Gejel describes some of the opportunities and challenges for educational games in an article entitled “You Got Game! Learning Games and Games in Learning” for the International Conference The Future of Education.  Gejel is the European project manager at Aarhus Social and Healthcare College in Denmark.   This article explores important questions related to the future of games in education, particularly; why there are not more of these games, how will these games be paid for, and how might young developers and educational institutions work together.  This article is helpful for understanding the serious gaming context in Europe, in general, and Scandinavia, in particular.
Here are some highlights (to read the full article following the link at the end).

“In Europe the interest in learning games emerged in the beginning of the last decade. Again, the interest in games was a result of the increasing interest in technology in education: internet, software, e-learning, etc. Nevertheless, the explosion of the video games market did not at all result in the creation of games for education, of learning games. Still in 2012 very few quality learning games have been developed in Europe and the worlds of video games and education are still not in any kind of dialogue – apart from very few exceptions.”

“The video game market of entertainment games has grown at an incredible speed throughout the last decades, now worth the double of the film industry.”

“. . . now researchers and game developers are discussing what learning potentials are included in the very activity of gaming itself, and thus in the very design of video games, serious or commercial.  It is being debated that the very design of computer games, no matter the content, represents a very powerful learning process, due to the basic design elements in video games.
The focus is thus shifted from the entertaining form of video games to the learning potentials of the gaming itself. This shift caused a tremendous upswing in the interest in learning games and for the first time in Europe educational players joined the discussions and they showed a serious interest in games for education.”

“Dramatic different business models must be developed, if education should exploit the learning potentials of gaming.
Real encounters between the game world and the educational world must be organized, on an ongoing basis, through which (young) game developers and teachers and institutions can meet and develop mutual platforms of collaboration.”

To read the full article, by Jan Gejel, click Here.