Sure, it might be possible in principle to pick an educational topic and intentionally build a solid game around it that teaches it. Thing is, I have never seen this work so far and the video game industry (including indies) isn’t exactly getting more creative recently. Outside view tells me to have very little faith in that happening.
At best, even if it can be done, it still seems to be a really inefficient way to do it. I suspect an underlying fallacy here is a lack of a proper Theory of Change.
the video game industry (including indies) isn’t exactly getting more creative recently.
This is the big stopping block. And there’s a number of pressures for that. Triple-A companies sticking with the safe IP and churning out sequels and clones that sell well. Indie companies not having the capital to fully flesh out their creative vision before tanking.
This is why it’s important to talk seriously about games. Sure, they’re not the most efficient way to learn if you’re set out to learn a specific topic, but that’s the same as beating you over the head with The Point of a movie. If you want to learn something, I agree, go learn it.
What games CAN be good for, is overcoming akrasia.
Yeah, I learned who Huayna Capac was from Civ4, too.
Were you taught in-game entirely? Or did the game get you interested, and you went out to explore yourself? I think making a game entirely based on educating on a single topic would fall flat, but educating in addition to engagement could be useful.
And as someone hoping to go into the gaming industry… I’ll take the Theory of Change into advisement.
What games CAN be good for, is overcoming akrasia.
How so? For the last 15 years or so games have been one of my major sources of akrasia, or rather the stuff I do instead of what I want. Not that I blame them, but except for inspiring me to “be awesome” occasionally, I don’t see how games could possibly help here.
Were you taught in-game entirely?
In this specific case, yes. The only cases where games inspired me to learn something on my own were themselves about art, so for me it’s all memetic incest.
[...] educating in addition to engagement could be useful.
It might be possible to essentially embed a solid mechanic in kinda-realistic fluff, like in Civ, which would work in any arbitrary universe, but by basing it on actual history, you pick up some stuff. I agree with you that it would be really neat if this worked, but I think given current technology and production costs that ain’t gonna happen without killing the game in the process.
Also, the level of teaching (of non-trope material) you can put into the background like that is very superficial. My impression is that this really only spreads some basic references and common myths, but nobody actually walks away with a real, even if only introductory, understanding of anything.
(Being more and more proficient in all kinds of topics is the main reason I can barely stand fiction anymore. Did Not Do The Research is one of my Berserk Buttons.)
(Also personally, I find it really interesting when a game silently embodies a certain paradigm. Civ for example follows Jane Jacobs’ idea of taking cities as the fundamental unit of macro-economics, not nations. Or DwarfFortress and Minecraft, which are “losing is fun” and “why not—the game!”, respectively. Though I strongly doubt that this really affects the audience much.)
What games CAN be good for, is overcoming akrasia.
How so? For the last 15 years or so games have been one of my major sources of akrasia, or rather the stuff I do instead of what I want. Not that I blame them, but except for inspiring me to “be awesome” occasionally, I don’t see how games could possibly help here.
I believe the idea—which I have seen brought up elsewhere—is that you can use game mechanics to get yourself to do things that you really should be doing. Essentially you build a game around the actual task that needs getting done. Here’s a TED talk about it.
Well there’s that, yes. That’s more like very basic Gamification of dull activities (more specifically this). (1)
But that’s working from a task towards something more game-like. Rather than designing a game experience from the outset. That seems a suboptimal way to do it. And yeah, the current state of education-in-games, there’s only going to be referential tidbits here and there that a few might look into. But if you’re designing a game and have a topic of interest you enjoy, it wouldn’t likely take much extra development time to incorporate it, especially if you really are interested.
Facilitating education is the goal, I guess. Rather than providing an in-depth education of whatever topic.
(1) I am going to reference Extra Credits a lot when discussing games. I can’t recommend it enough. EC and this textbook are my main influences and sources of knowledge on games and game design, aside from the regular expected amount of game-playing.
Sure, it might be possible in principle to pick an educational topic and intentionally build a solid game around it that teaches it. Thing is, I have never seen this work so far and the video game industry (including indies) isn’t exactly getting more creative recently. Outside view tells me to have very little faith in that happening.
At best, even if it can be done, it still seems to be a really inefficient way to do it. I suspect an underlying fallacy here is a lack of a proper Theory of Change.
This is what I’m counting on.
This is the big stopping block. And there’s a number of pressures for that. Triple-A companies sticking with the safe IP and churning out sequels and clones that sell well. Indie companies not having the capital to fully flesh out their creative vision before tanking.
This is why it’s important to talk seriously about games. Sure, they’re not the most efficient way to learn if you’re set out to learn a specific topic, but that’s the same as beating you over the head with The Point of a movie. If you want to learn something, I agree, go learn it.
What games CAN be good for, is overcoming akrasia.
Were you taught in-game entirely? Or did the game get you interested, and you went out to explore yourself? I think making a game entirely based on educating on a single topic would fall flat, but educating in addition to engagement could be useful.
And as someone hoping to go into the gaming industry… I’ll take the Theory of Change into advisement.
How so? For the last 15 years or so games have been one of my major sources of akrasia, or rather the stuff I do instead of what I want. Not that I blame them, but except for inspiring me to “be awesome” occasionally, I don’t see how games could possibly help here.
In this specific case, yes. The only cases where games inspired me to learn something on my own were themselves about art, so for me it’s all memetic incest.
It might be possible to essentially embed a solid mechanic in kinda-realistic fluff, like in Civ, which would work in any arbitrary universe, but by basing it on actual history, you pick up some stuff. I agree with you that it would be really neat if this worked, but I think given current technology and production costs that ain’t gonna happen without killing the game in the process.
Also, the level of teaching (of non-trope material) you can put into the background like that is very superficial. My impression is that this really only spreads some basic references and common myths, but nobody actually walks away with a real, even if only introductory, understanding of anything.
(Being more and more proficient in all kinds of topics is the main reason I can barely stand fiction anymore. Did Not Do The Research is one of my Berserk Buttons.)
(Also personally, I find it really interesting when a game silently embodies a certain paradigm. Civ for example follows Jane Jacobs’ idea of taking cities as the fundamental unit of macro-economics, not nations. Or DwarfFortress and Minecraft, which are “losing is fun” and “why not—the game!”, respectively. Though I strongly doubt that this really affects the audience much.)
I believe the idea—which I have seen brought up elsewhere—is that you can use game mechanics to get yourself to do things that you really should be doing. Essentially you build a game around the actual task that needs getting done. Here’s a TED talk about it.
Well there’s that, yes. That’s more like very basic Gamification of dull activities (more specifically this). (1)
But that’s working from a task towards something more game-like. Rather than designing a game experience from the outset. That seems a suboptimal way to do it. And yeah, the current state of education-in-games, there’s only going to be referential tidbits here and there that a few might look into. But if you’re designing a game and have a topic of interest you enjoy, it wouldn’t likely take much extra development time to incorporate it, especially if you really are interested.
Facilitating education is the goal, I guess. Rather than providing an in-depth education of whatever topic.
(1) I am going to reference Extra Credits a lot when discussing games. I can’t recommend it enough. EC and this textbook are my main influences and sources of knowledge on games and game design, aside from the regular expected amount of game-playing.