Government Likes Serious Games

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The Korean government made a blueprint for sponsorship of the serious game market. It plans to input 80 billion won (US$63.52 million) to develop and spread these games in order to grow the market to 500 billion won by 2012.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that it will invest 80 billion won in the functional game field to kick-start the strategy. Yu In-chon, minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said: “The functional game market is at an early stage, but the market is an emerging blue ocean. The government is going to give support to prompt private investment in that field.”

The strategy was proposed by the Serious Game Forum. The forum was sponsored by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Etnews.  It was managed by the Korea Culture and Content Agency and the Serious Game Institute under KAIST.

The Ministry and Etnews joined forces to launch the forum on July 9 last year, in order to maximize the best functionality of games.

Serious Games are not for just fun, they have special goals. They use the skills of education and national defense to improve job skills. There are educational games, military simulation games, and medical games.