What are Serious Games?
Serious games, or Social Impact Games, are a (relativity) new sub genre of video games that are designed in which they “do not have entertainment, enjoyment or fun as their primary purpose” (Michael & Chen, 2005). It is an umbrella term for games used by industries like defense, education, scientific exploration, health care, emergency management, city planning, engineering, and politics. The coining of the term “serious games” is often credited to Clark Apt in 1970 when he published his book Serious Games, even though games that fall into this category can be found before this date. During WWII, the US Military used “war-games” for training purposes (Djaouti, Alvarez, Jessel, Rampnoux Origins of serious games). HUTSPIEL is a good example of that. Created in 1955, this two-player game allowed soldiers to experiment with the impact of nuclear weapons on a global battlefield. Serious games were also adapted to an educational setting such as with Lemonade Stand in 1973, about business management, and The Oregon Trail in 1974, which educates players on American colonists. This genre of video games increased in popularity throughout the decades and now is it's own field of study. This was a brief history on serious games. This article, this article and this one too all give a more in depth history and taxonomy of serious games.
Although it is classified as a video game, That Dragon, Cancer, is more of an interactive video that allows the user to witness two parent's journey through caring for the son with terminal brain cancer.
Now to Empathy Games
Within the last decade, a new sub-genre of games has emerged called Empathy Games. The purpose of these games, as implied by the name, is to foster empathy within the player. These games cover a wide variety of topics such global conflicts, social stigmas and prejudices, immigration , global warming, ect. The reasons for their creation differ as well depending on intent of the creator. Some games have an explanatory or educational purpose with the hopes of reaching an audience who might not have been aware of certain issues. At times, the educational games are also seeking humanitarian aid. These games hope to educate the player and elicit these emphatic reactions in hope of motivating them to action. An example of this is the game Darfur is Dying which was created in response to the genocide happening in Darfur and used the game as a way to have people learn about what was happening in Darfur and to provide actions the players can take such as donation or sending a letter to President Bush. Other games are more about the cathartic release for the creators themselves, an example being That Dragon, Cancer an interactive simulations creator by two parents dealing with this son having terminal cancer. There are many other reasons, but the point here is that this category encompasses a wide variety of games.
The term, Empathy Games, is problematic due to complexity of defining empathy, as I explained on this page, and this complexity can lead to different interpretations of the purpose of the game. An example of how this can become problematic is with the game Dys4ia, created by Anna Anthropy, a tranwoman, as a way to express her confusing and frustrating experiences with gender dysphoria. The game was labeled an empathy game and got wide spread attention but the reactions from many of (cisgendered) players claiming to now understand what it is like to be a trans person infuriated Anthropy. Her reaction, which can be read in more detail here, was that she never intended this game to be an empathy game because there is no way for a straight, cis-gendered person to actually understand what it is like to be a transperson.
This example highlights the problematic use of broad categories. Especially broad categories with vague terms such as empathy. Each game is unique and certain criteria should be examined when playing the same such as (1) who made the game, (2) who is the creators intended audience, (3) what is the story/message the creator is conveying, and most importantly (4) what is the emphatic response of the player supposed to achieve?