Journal of Education & Social Policy

Serious Games and Education: Lessons from South Korea
Juhyung Shin

Abstract
Taking the example of Korea, this paper argues that Serious game should not be considered as purely educational and fundamentally functional, without taking into account that they also need to be fun. This neglect of the importance of fun, which has led to the failure of the educational use of serious games in Korea, is due to the fact that fun is generally seen as the opposite of what is educational and functional and to the Korean government's efforts to respond to social criticism of games as addictive and harmful. Analyzing one successful Ki-neung-seung (Serious game in Korean) I inquire into the characteristics that made it successful compared to other games. In conclusion, I argue that, beyond this particular example, the conception of games is fundamental to policy making and for social attitudes towards digital games and how we should conceive of serious games for wider applications in broader contexts.

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