Serious Games Discussion on what to call the "interactive part" of a serious game and the fate of competing realities

Clark Aldrich of Learning by Doing and Simulations and the Future of Learning fame has asked the following question over at the Serious Games listserv: "I am realizing that I don't have a good term for the "interactive part" of a educational simulation/serious game.  Before it is the briefing. Before
that is the introduction.  After it is the debriefing or after-action-review or post mortem. But what is the "interactive part" called?" Clark adds that "I am tempted to call it the simulation-proper or serious game proper, but I would greatly value better terms." Since the listserv's archives seem to be fritzing, I wanted to post a recap here.

There have been some reasonable responses such as Todd Mason's suggestion that "conduct" or "execution phase" is appropriate and Christopher Clark with "Instructional experience", Mal's "immersive, rapid e-learning experience", Tia's "Instructive immersion" but none of these resonated with me although David Allen's suggestions of "playable portion", "game arena", "core gameplay", "gameplay mode", or "play session" seemed tracking the right direction. 

Then I read William Crosbie. William asserted that he was  "going to plant my flag and argue that the proper and provocative term for the part in question is 'the game'. We need to stop tiptoeing around the term and start to claim that games in and of themselves are good and perfectly legitimate description of the task being performed.  It is not frivolous.  It is a legitimate
learning activity" and concluded with "My name is Bill Crosbie and I help people learn by producing games." Had we been at a conference, I might have stood up and cheered!

David Wilkins from Knowledge Planet amplified the point by saying "I think it has been suggested by William Crosbie that we call this what it is, namely "the game."  Assuming that the point of playing a serious game is to learn, then debriefing, pre-briefing etc are necessary, but they are not the meat.  The meat is the game itself.  The serious part is the intent, the context, the objectives, and the framing, but the game part is still the game part.  Calling it anything else only obfuscates and confuses what should be simple.  It will also likely be more restrictive than the term "game" which can apply to anything from marbles to World of Warcraft with no loss of descriptive clarity. In the spirit of William's post: say it loud and say it proud... ; )"

Finally Kent Quirk drove it home when he argued that "This message just clarified for me what's been bothering me about this whole exercise: it's the attempt to legislate jargon. It's not a bad idea to take jargon and document it -- to explain the words people actually use and record how they're used. That's the purpose of a dictionary, or of linguists, or people trying to introduce outsiders to a culture. But this seems to be the opposite -- attempting to define a set of unambiguous terms for a very ambiguous environment. It doesn't reflect the social reality of the space, and it constrains rather than enables discourse."

Dead on Kent, dead on. Now keep in mind I have the utmost respect for Clark, he has written two more books than me on this topic in general and I have just finished working with him and Clark Quinn, Jeff Johannigman and Steve Trexler on a soon-to-be-released report from the e-learning Guild which refers to the 'whole package' as an Interactive Learning Simulation. What it is coming down to is that there are (at least) three competing realities - there is the reality of the learning/industry which the Guild research will show, has a strong negative reaction toward the use of the word "game" and there is the reality of the academic world which can speak of ludology and narratology and there is the reality of the gaming industry which knows damn well that it makes games.

If we look at these as city-states, then we can realize that we all need to be able to share some common lexicon to be able to work together. What none of these three should do however is act like the other two might not already have well-defined terms and concepts around certain key words. We should not as Kent warns, attempt to "legislate jargon." That is not the same as reaching a common understanding or key principles...that is just one side saying, that the meaning and definition that the others have attached to something is wrong and they party of the first part will just move ahead unilaterally.

We don't need words and definitions that fail to extend meaning between these camps, we don't need new terms devoid of any connection to reality except that they sound palatable to people who don't understand what we do. We do need to find ways to honor the history and legacy of each camp's hard work and thought that have gone into the words and phrases they use...perhaps we can become bi or tri-lingual and enrich ourselves and our own native camps.