by Dr. Holger Sprengel, Andrew Pomazanskyi (Nurogames GmbH)

The video game industry is doing better than ever before. What we used to think of as “children’s play” not too long ago has now grown into an industry with revenues of $81.5 billion in 2014 (1) which was more than twice that of the international film industry for the year 2013. As such, the number of different types of games has been steadily increasing.

One such type of video games are so-called “serious” games. But what is the defining quality that sets serious games apart from traditional games? Also, where do we draw the line between gamification, another relatively recent development of the gaming industry, and its serious game counterparts?

Read more