According to Ye Si-yi and Song Yun-lu’s “Digital Game Design and Digital Game Design Intellectual Rights”, the definition of Serious Game “takes digital gaming and applies it to specialized fields other than just leisure and entertainment. For example, education, medical treatment, religion, politics and military affairs.” For  cultural organizations hoping to cooperate with the gaming industry so as to promote the organization, increase the value of products and increase revenue, while also hoping to maintain a certain cultural environment, Serious Game is truly a choice worth thinking about for cultural organizations.

 How should we regard digital gaming? It can be expected that different generations have totally different views. According to the young generation, video games of all types have played a very important role early on in their lives. In playing “The Legend of Sword and Fairy” and “Xuanyan Jian" series, players become very emotionally involved, even to the point of shedding tears at times; it is likely there is more than one author. According to older citizens, video games are almost always linked to violence, pornography, gambling and crime; especially in to traditional Chinese culture, in which it is believed "indulgence in trivial things prevents people from making progress." This type of Confucianism thought is constantly going through the minds of educators. Remember that during daily morning meetings in elementary schools, the principal or person giving training is constantly encouraging faculty members to be studious and to avoid becoming obsessed with video games. Moreover, in its early years, game company magazines (for example, Softworld and Softstar) published the feelings of people who were on the cutting edge of the gaming industry and the animosity felt by mainstream society in Taiwan towards video games at the time was obvious. Gaming companies had to retaliate by saying that "playing games doesn't corrupt youth" and "Designing video games is not a dead-end job ", in hope that through this they could win over the trust of parents and society.

 Along with the growth of the gaming generation, children who surreptitiously played video games in those days became parents, and the gaming industry gained a new status in society. According to a Central News Agency report, Industrial Development Bureau, MOEA evaluated the output value of Taiwan's gaming market in 2010 to be at NT$42.2 billion,  20% growth on 2009’s NT$35.4 billion (http://tw.news.yahoo.com/article/url/d/a/110210/5/2m6oy.html). An even more surprising trend took place worldwide; the industry estimated that the output value of the widely-defined digital entertainment industry to be worth more than NT$6 trillion! This easily places it up as the "ninth art", even passing the movie industry. Also, digital gaming is widely used as a mass social communication medium and should have a lot of potential for growth.

 Returning to the history of digital gaming, as early as 1980 the famous Atari factory responded to a  request from the United States Department of Defense and, after making some changes to the best-selling game at the time "Battlezone Tank", provided it to the US army for use in armored vehicle training. This is seen as the origin of Serious Game. Down to the present, countries around the world are reducing the cost of military exercises and increasing the realness of training simulations war by using electronic simulation and even video games, thus allowing soldiers to gain actual combat skills through using video games.

 Yet compared with CAI (computer-aided instruction) – which was the rage of the 90's – the design of Serious Game is different in essence; it doesn’t only convey educational knowledge to students by means of simple games, with Serious Game, while having "fun,"  players enjoy themselves, and gain a sense of achievement and knowledge. The referendum of southern Sudan is now over and there is finally light at the end of the tunnel for the Darfur region. In fact, as early as 2006, a game called "Darfur is Dying" was circulated on the Internet. Players have to play as a young boy from Darfur who is in the desert with his synthetic water bucket and has to find a well in order to survive. At the same time he has to hide from armed militia. This seems like a simple game, but it has had a great impact in the US and Europe and played a role in western countries’ decision to intervene in Darfur and provide support for public opinion. This game can be considered the most influential Serious Game of the year.

Let's peer into the domain of business gaming. The famous (at the deity level) game designer Sid Meier frequently uses history and culture as the main subject material for his games. Meier was originally a history fanatic and according to the user manual of his computer game "Gettysburg Address", he recalls with emotion that when he was little, all of the American Civil War picture books, and the little action figure toys he had left a very deep and lasting impression upon him. In his game "Gettysburg Address", Meier, along with his design team was, able to accurately depict the Union and Confederate forces on the computer screen - even to the point of depicting the number of troops. Players can rely on war strategy and let General Lee win the war, changing history. They can also, in accordance with historical fact, play the role of General Meade of the Union and rely on unyielding perseverance to hold the line.

The video game recreates the key clash of the Battle of Gettysburg: " Pickett's Charge launched by the southern army" allowing players to take part in the standoff between the greatest generals in America’s history; could that not make people excited?

Meier's games always depict a historically accurate setting. This is the concluding film after the Gettysburg game ends and the Union Army has won a decisive victory.

 In reality, Meier read extensively on other history books other than the war between the north and south. His early work, "Sword of Samurai," was also meticulously based on history, allowing players to experience the Japanese warring states period, 17th century Caribbean and the 19th Century American West. After entering the 1990s, Meier's "Civilization" and "Colonization" series also allow players to warp thousands of years back to lead an entire race from the Stone Age all the way to the age of space travel, or from establishing a new colony of people from the Mayflower to separating from the mother country. The Technology Tree system that Meier uses in his Civilization series (for example your civilization must first have steam power technology in order to develop the combustion engine, and with this technology you can have railways and cars etc to upgrade your country's construction efficiency and national power and compete with rival civilizations) not only allows players to receive the enjoyment of competition and upgrading, but even more so let's players gain knowledge of the evolution of civilizations that they were previously unaware of.

 The video game recreates the key clash of the Battle of Gettysburg: " Pickett's Charge launched by the southern army" allowing players to take part in the standoff between the greatest generals in America’s history; could that not make people excited?

Meier's games always depict a historically accurate setting. This is the concluding film after the Gettysburg game ends and the Union Army has won a decisive victory.

Through kendo duals and leading soldiers to fight each other, Sid Meier's “Sword of Samurai” gives players an opportunity to be the Shogun of Medieval Japan.

Sid Meier's 1987 "Pirates” faithfully demonstrates 16th and 17th century competition in the Caribbean between England, France and the Netherlands.

With regards to the Asian market, Japan's Koei historic simulation series has also played an important role in Serious Games. Although in recent years Koei games have gradually shifted towards emphasizing dashing men and beautiful women, however in the 1980's when "Romance of the Three Kingdom's", “Suikoden", and "Nobunaga's Ambition" Series first came out, the games set off a history craze among gamers in Asia. At that time, in order to understand the strength of military leaders in the game, and how to unify the country, many adolescents began reading up on Romance of the Thee Kingdoms and other related famous classic books.

 In Civilization 5, players must pay close attention to construction, diplomacy, trade, and conquering other civilizations; they must be a knight in shining armor for his/her people.

The first of the Three Kingdoms video game series began to be distributed in the 1980s. The series can be considered as the founding father of highly strategic games.

The foundational structure of "Suikoden", which was released by Koei, is very similar to the first and second Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

An evaluation review film of "Nobunaga's Ambition" series done by players.

 In Taiwan, regardless of whether or not it has been commercialized, we already have some excellent examples of Serious Games. For example, the Evergreen Maritime Museum set up a computer with games on it in Taiwan's maritime development  historic exhibition. Players get to play East India Company managers, moving the company’s ships between East Asia and the Netherlands, conducting commercial activities and trying to make the greatest profit for the company. Players not only become familiarized with local products and the trading process of 17th century East Asia, but they also have to consider the monsoon season, typhoons and other geographical factors so as to avoid delay. As information technology advances by leaps and bounds, computer simulation can almost pass-off as real life. Both Evergreen and Yangming Marine Transport Corporation have, in different ways, provided ship piloting simulation (Serious) games in their museums. Aside from learning how to control a ship and enjoying the "thrill of driving", players also deepen their understanding of the industry and brand names by "playing as Captain X of Company Y" as well as identify with the museum.

 In a comprehensive survey of the development of Serious Games, we have found that Serious Games are on a completely different level than CAI. Getting pleasure out of video games is really the main reason why players are so willing to dive into the world of games. Currently, as the gaming industry is flourishing and developing, cultural organizations using Serious Games to promote their brand and products is not an impossible task. However, cultural organizations and the gaming industry each have very different organizational cultures; how does one balance the amount of pleasure people get from playing with a core value, developing games that people like and are happy to be educated by? This is a big challenge faced in the development of Edutainment and Serious Game in Taiwan. During the process of playing video games, through participation and playing a role, a player gains knowledge, experience and even gets emotionally involved. What are the differences with this and channels for disseminating knowledge in the past? These are topics that cultural museums should pay attention

reference website sources:
Darfur is dying
http://www.darfurisdying.com/
Wikepedia Serious Game
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game