Is there is any difference between e-Learning and serious games?

Serious games provides the learner with an opportunity to actually put the theory into practice in an environment that is realistic but where failure has no real life costs. As a wise man once said "Experience is like giving a comb to a bald man...it often comes too late!"

Serious Games could be argued to be just one way of using technology to enhance learning - eLearning is itself just a niche of this marketplace if one considers DVD, video and interactive whiteboards as technology-based learning resources. On the other hand, eLearning, if it is defined as web/internet-based learning content and delivery/collaborative applications, has become somewhat typecast in it's nature with an emphasis on delivering information (which few would consider to be interactive) albeit with a few ‘bolt on’ communication and shallow assessment instruments.

It is important to distinguish between what eLearning does well, which is providing you with information (the theory), and what it does not. The latter being the provision of rich, rewarding, relevant and multi-faceted environments in which one can actually put the theory into practise in a safe, simulated manner and to learn at a far deeper level as a result.

The design and development competencies of the eLearning developer and the game developer are quite different.