Serious Games Interactive: the Danish studio behind Global Conflicts

Serious Games Interactive describes itself as an award-winning, research-based game company in Copenhagen, started in 2006. Its core idea is to use people's natural fascination with games for purposes beyond entertainment, and it says its focus is the user experience instead of technology or ideas alone.

In April 2010 the company relaunched its corporate website. The new site gave more company information and project examples, including streaming game-play videos of earlier client projects for LEGO, the National Museum and Novo Nordisk. Its two production series, Global Conflicts and Playing History, moved to dedicated sites, the Global Conflicts Portal and the Playing History website.

The relaunched site organized the company's work in four areas of expertise: corporate education, academic education, cultural education and market education. What ties them together, according to the company, is a strong focus on integrating game and learning experiences.

The company's website at seriousgames.net is online and opens in English at www.seriousgames.net/en/. Its banner calls the company an expert in educational and serious games, promises to decide with the client between a digital game, a physical board game or something in between, offers English and Danish versions, and groups its work by digital, blended and physical formats. The case list names Active Avatars for Sønderborg Kommune, Groundhog Day for Ørsted, Immune Patrol for WHO and Licence To Recruit for Maersk. A notice on the page mentions a sister company, Gametools.dk, that focuses on board games.

Its about page speaks of a Copenhagen office and a research foundation, and says the team combines game design, game technology, instructional design and psychology, working with a process refined over 15 years. Two case pages show the range. Immune Patrol is a blended learning platform made for the World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, for pupils aged 10 to 12, combining digital simulations, arcade-style play and physical classroom activities on PC and tablet. Active Avatars is an app for group programs for adults with intellectual disabilities in Sønderborg Municipality and other Danish bodies, built around missions, a level system, skills and a personal avatar, on web, Android and iOS.

The old production sites are in different states. The Playing History site at playinghistory.eu still loads, with About, Learning material and Login/Play links. Its front page is a Flash application, so the game cannot be confirmed as playable.