I came across this news article as I was going along the news page. Basically, the general gist of the article is that Square is going to make Serious Games, in addition to their usual stuff. To my surprise, the response from Gamespot users in the comments is overwhelmingly negative. This shocked me, greatly. To be clear, from what I understand, "Serious Games" aren't games with a serious plot, or games with mature themes, or games deliberately made to be Artistic. In the industry (IIRC), Serious Games is practically a technical term, referring to games meant to address a social issue, such as disaster relief, or protecting refugees in Darfur, or similar situations. The key idea here is that a Serious Game does social commentary. This does not mean that "Kuma/War" is a Serious Game either. Kuma/War is simply taking the Law & Order "Ripped Straight From The Headlines" approach to game design. There isn't anything wrong with that, necessarily - nor is there anything wrong with kind of games we have now. However, by making Serious Games, and making good ones, and calling attention to them, you can build up the idea that Games are something to take seriously as a medium rather then just a genre. The game industry needs it's Maus (which recounted his father's experiences during the Holocaust), it's Safe Area Gorazde (a piece by a journalist who recounted his experiences covering the war between Bosnia and Serbia during the early 90's). Those comics provided credibility and clout to the medium of comics and graphics novels. Serious Games can do the same thing for video games.