ABSTRACT
In earlier work, I argued that good commercial digital games provide players with good learning (Gee, 2003, 2005, 2007). By good learning I mean learning that is guided by and organized by principles empirically confi rmed by systematic research on effective and deep learning in the learning sciences (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Gee, 2004; Sawyer, 2006). This actually should not be surprising. Digital games are, at their heart, problem solving spaces that use continual learning and provide pathways to mastery through entertainment and pleasure. Not surprisingly, there has been a growing interest recently in so-called serious games that involve learning the sorts of domains, skills, or content that we associate with school, work, health, citizenship, knowledge construction, or community building, and not limited to pure popular form of entertainment (i.e., witchcraft, sorcery, fantasy war, etc.).
