Discuss whether it is possible for a serious game to be successful on two levels: both in terms of its goals as a game (creating meaningful play and engagement/flow), and as a serious game (achieving specific learning objectives, conveying a political message, or other non-entertainment objectives).

I tried playing both McDonald's videogame and Racing Academy and am really lost! Haha~ fine maybe I'm just stupid... I tried to run Mc using the dirty method *ahem* and ended up with fines, mad and sick cows and having to bribe the officials etc and still ended up BANKRUPT! If i tried to run it the good way I couldn't keep up the production and also ended up bankrupt. So the lesson I learnt was that Mc sure has a bunch of smart management to be able to earn much $$ regardless of which method they chose to run Mc.

The parts about ruining the rainforests and unethical method in increasing food production to satisfy the customers can be easily understood and I thought that another msg would be to tell us that we can choose to stop destroying 3rd world countries' environment to cont to support our "fast food lives". Thought that it was quite successful as a serious game in this aspect. However, it failed to show clearly enough how Mc could be such a profitable biz by running it unethically so players are unable to catch this main point easily as they'll personally feel it equally frustrating that the game failed no matter what... or at least this applied to me =p

It provided some meaningful play for me as there was a clear goal and local agency helped me see if the decisions I made were helpful/correct and the challenges of running Mc w/o running into deficit was a tough challenge but interesting still. The only thing was that I was quite lost in the midst of the game cuz I just couldnt find the way to stop Mc from going bankrupt! >.<

Racing Academy on the other hand was a total disaster to play with cuz I couldnt figure out anything at all.. probably cuz I dont know how to drive in the first place? Thought that it looked like a sim that's trying to teach how to choose engine and tyres but there's no tips to guide me along the way and I had to play around to find out for myself. However, my patience wore out at level 2 as i really couldnt find the key to win it. Thought that this game is quite erm... actually totally unsuccessful in what they're trying to teach. In fact I'm not even sure if I've interpreted the game correctly.

I really couldn't think of RA as a meaningful play as there was insufficient cues to teach me how to proceed in the game and also to understand the goal in this game.