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Edutainment Games
Games are, on the whole, made for entertainment purposes... Well, that and for the developers and publishers to make a fat wad of cash :-) Anyway, that’s what they are there for, to provide enjoyment for the people who play them. However, like every other form of media, sooner or later they begin to branch out into other fields.
There have been games made that were educational. Two that spring to mind are “Donkey Kong Jrs Math” and “Mario Is Missing”... And then of course there’s those PC ‘games’ that are simply there to take advantage of a successful TV franchise (The Tweenies and the Tellytubbys have had a ridiculous amount of Edutainment games published). The two main problems with Edutainment games are…:
1) Most gamers are between the ages of 11 and 25, ergo: By and large, they don’t actually need educating. At least not at the level that Edutainment games offer.
2) They’re usually crap.
I have only ever played one Edutainment game that was actually any good, and that was “Mario Is Missing”. That game rocked! I would spend literally hours playing on it. You were in a level/world and to progress you had to get questions right. To get the answers to these questions, you had to go around the world visiting information points. The thing was; you could do a lot of other stuff too! I realise that that doesn’t really sound very appealing but trust me MIM was fantastic fun. And do want to know the best thing about it? It actually DID teach me stuff!
Donkey Kong Jrs Math was simply a ‘game’ where you worked out sums. Gee… Great. MIM on the other hand wasn’t all education; it had the essence of Mario games with it, which is what made it so playable. That’s what seems to be the main problem with Edutainment games. They’re ALL education and NO entertainment, which is rather bad for games that are supposed to be a hybrid of the two! What people have got to do is get the right balance between education and entertainment, not go for one over the other.
Many people, would argue that the education should be left to special TV programmes, books and teachers, and that entertainment should be left to TV programmes, films and games, and on the whole I would agree with them. If they’re not going to get the game right, then they shouldn’t blight our consoles/PC’s with them... However, if they do get them right then it IS a good platform for children to learn from as not only do they enjoy themselves but they also LEARN, which can’t be a bad thing.
The thing that annoys me the most about Edutainment games however, is the fact that usually they are produced to make a hell of a lot of money from gullible, well-meaning parents. It’s simply not right to cash in on parents who want to take advantage of the fact that their (young) child plays videogames.
Really, I have no objection to developers trying to educate people using consoles and games... if they do it right, but it’s when they rush out a ‘game’ with a franchise slapped on it, promising to educate our nations youth, aimed solely at parents who want to help their child’s learning in the form of something they actually might enjoy doing... It’s then when I begin to think education should stay as far away from the games industry as Limp Bizkit and Slipknot should from a recording studio.
Cheers for reading.
RBS
Games are, on the whole, made for entertainment purposes... Well, that and for the developers and publishers to make a fat wad of cash :-) Anyway, that’s what they are there for, to provide enjoyment for the people who play them. However, like every other form of media, sooner or later they begin to branch out into other fields.
There have been games made that were educational. Two that spring to mind are “Donkey Kong Jrs Math” and “Mario Is Missing”... And then of course there’s those PC ‘games’ that are simply there to take advantage of a successful TV franchise (The Tweenies and the Tellytubbys have had a ridiculous amount of Edutainment games published). The two main problems with Edutainment games are…:
1) Most gamers are between the ages of 11 and 25, ergo: By and large, they don’t actually need educating. At least not at the level that Edutainment games offer.
2) They’re usually crap.
I have only ever played one Edutainment game that was actually any good, and that was “Mario Is Missing”. That game rocked! I would spend literally hours playing on it. You were in a level/world and to progress you had to get questions right. To get the answers to these questions, you had to go around the world visiting information points. The thing was; you could do a lot of other stuff too! I realise that that doesn’t really sound very appealing but trust me MIM was fantastic fun. And do want to know the best thing about it? It actually DID teach me stuff!
Donkey Kong Jrs Math was simply a ‘game’ where you worked out sums. Gee… Great. MIM on the other hand wasn’t all education; it had the essence of Mario games with it, which is what made it so playable. That’s what seems to be the main problem with Edutainment games. They’re ALL education and NO entertainment, which is rather bad for games that are supposed to be a hybrid of the two! What people have got to do is get the right balance between education and entertainment, not go for one over the other.
Many people, would argue that the education should be left to special TV programmes, books and teachers, and that entertainment should be left to TV programmes, films and games, and on the whole I would agree with them. If they’re not going to get the game right, then they shouldn’t blight our consoles/PC’s with them... However, if they do get them right then it IS a good platform for children to learn from as not only do they enjoy themselves but they also LEARN, which can’t be a bad thing.
The thing that annoys me the most about Edutainment games however, is the fact that usually they are produced to make a hell of a lot of money from gullible, well-meaning parents. It’s simply not right to cash in on parents who want to take advantage of the fact that their (young) child plays videogames.
Really, I have no objection to developers trying to educate people using consoles and games... if they do it right, but it’s when they rush out a ‘game’ with a franchise slapped on it, promising to educate our nations youth, aimed solely at parents who want to help their child’s learning in the form of something they actually might enjoy doing... It’s then when I begin to think education should stay as far away from the games industry as Limp Bizkit and Slipknot should from a recording studio.
Cheers for reading.
RBS
Solskjær wrote:
Or maybe you should try using an Emulator ro save
> wasting some money.
Yup, that would be the sensible option :-D
Or maybe you should try using an Emulator ro save
> wasting some money.
Yup, that would be the sensible option :-D
I heard the SNES version was better than the NES, which I had for that 1 day. Maybe you should get the SNES version, with better graphics it might be ok!?? Or maybe you should try using an Emulator ro save wasting some money.
Protoss wrote:
> Well thats certainly true of Solskjær.
Heheh :-D
> Well thats certainly true of Solskjær.
Heheh :-D
RastaBillySkank wrote:
> Heh, get it on the SNES if you can. I warn you though, it's certainly
> not everyone's cup of tea.
Well thats certainly true of Solskjær.
> Heh, get it on the SNES if you can. I warn you though, it's certainly
> not everyone's cup of tea.
Well thats certainly true of Solskjær.
Protoss wrote:
> It would be great to mix education and entertainment but I think the
> two just don't mix, as we can see from many a crap edutainment game.
>
Yup. They are usually tosh. But if the company did get it right, it would be fantastic for children to learn from something they enjoy doing.
> Though this Mario game you speak of...sounds intriging, I'll have to
> play it.
Heh, get it on the SNES if you can. I warn you though, it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea.
> It would be great to mix education and entertainment but I think the
> two just don't mix, as we can see from many a crap edutainment game.
>
Yup. They are usually tosh. But if the company did get it right, it would be fantastic for children to learn from something they enjoy doing.
> Though this Mario game you speak of...sounds intriging, I'll have to
> play it.
Heh, get it on the SNES if you can. I warn you though, it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea.
It would be great to mix education and entertainment but I think the two just don't mix, as we can see from many a crap edutainment game.
Though this Mario game you speak of...sounds intriging, I'll have to play it.
Though this Mario game you speak of...sounds intriging, I'll have to play it.
Solskjær wrote:
> Mario is Missing sucked!!
I hasten to disagree, it rocked! But that's my opinion.
> Mario is Missing sucked!!
I hasten to disagree, it rocked! But that's my opinion.
Mario is Missing sucked!!
I had it on the NES and completed it in the day I got it!
And then took it back that day after.
But i've never even heard of Donkey Kong Jr.'s Maths or whatever, let alone played it!
Apart from that, I also agree that Edutainment games suck.
There's no real fun in education (like school) and so games become less fun when infected with it.
But it would make school more interesting if we did have games like Mario is Missing a school.
I had it on the NES and completed it in the day I got it!
And then took it back that day after.
But i've never even heard of Donkey Kong Jr.'s Maths or whatever, let alone played it!
Apart from that, I also agree that Edutainment games suck.
There's no real fun in education (like school) and so games become less fun when infected with it.
But it would make school more interesting if we did have games like Mario is Missing a school.
I've heard that schools are starting to use games more in teaching as children learn quicker when they are having fun. It's getting the balance between fun and educational value. They need to be fun and educational to acheive it's purpose.
Edutainment Games
Games are, on the whole, made for entertainment purposes... Well, that and for the developers and publishers to make a fat wad of cash :-) Anyway, that’s what they are there for, to provide enjoyment for the people who play them. However, like every other form of media, sooner or later they begin to branch out into other fields.
There have been games made that were educational. Two that spring to mind are “Donkey Kong Jrs Math” and “Mario Is Missing”... And then of course there’s those PC ‘games’ that are simply there to take advantage of a successful TV franchise (The Tweenies and the Tellytubbys have had a ridiculous amount of Edutainment games published). The two main problems with Edutainment games are…:
1) Most gamers are between the ages of 11 and 25, ergo: By and large, they don’t actually need educating. At least not at the level that Edutainment games offer.
2) They’re usually crap.
I have only ever played one Edutainment game that was actually any good, and that was “Mario Is Missing”. That game rocked! I would spend literally hours playing on it. You were in a level/world and to progress you had to get questions right. To get the answers to these questions, you had to go around the world visiting information points. The thing was; you could do a lot of other stuff too! I realise that that doesn’t really sound very appealing but trust me MIM was fantastic fun. And do want to know the best thing about it? It actually DID teach me stuff!
Donkey Kong Jrs Math was simply a ‘game’ where you worked out sums. Gee… Great. MIM on the other hand wasn’t all education; it had the essence of Mario games with it, which is what made it so playable. That’s what seems to be the main problem with Edutainment games. They’re ALL education and NO entertainment, which is rather bad for games that are supposed to be a hybrid of the two! What people have got to do is get the right balance between education and entertainment, not go for one over the other.
Many people, would argue that the education should be left to special TV programmes, books and teachers, and that entertainment should be left to TV programmes, films and games, and on the whole I would agree with them. If they’re not going to get the game right, then they shouldn’t blight our consoles/PC’s with them... However, if they do get them right then it IS a good platform for children to learn from as not only do they enjoy themselves but they also LEARN, which can’t be a bad thing.
The thing that annoys me the most about Edutainment games however, is the fact that usually they are produced to make a hell of a lot of money from gullible, well-meaning parents. It’s simply not right to cash in on parents who want to take advantage of the fact that their (young) child plays videogames.
Really, I have no objection to developers trying to educate people using consoles and games... if they do it right, but it’s when they rush out a ‘game’ with a franchise slapped on it, promising to educate our nations youth, aimed solely at parents who want to help their child’s learning in the form of something they actually might enjoy doing... It’s then when I begin to think education should stay as far away from the games industry as Limp Bizkit and Slipknot should from a recording studio.
Cheers for reading.
RBS
Games are, on the whole, made for entertainment purposes... Well, that and for the developers and publishers to make a fat wad of cash :-) Anyway, that’s what they are there for, to provide enjoyment for the people who play them. However, like every other form of media, sooner or later they begin to branch out into other fields.
There have been games made that were educational. Two that spring to mind are “Donkey Kong Jrs Math” and “Mario Is Missing”... And then of course there’s those PC ‘games’ that are simply there to take advantage of a successful TV franchise (The Tweenies and the Tellytubbys have had a ridiculous amount of Edutainment games published). The two main problems with Edutainment games are…:
1) Most gamers are between the ages of 11 and 25, ergo: By and large, they don’t actually need educating. At least not at the level that Edutainment games offer.
2) They’re usually crap.
I have only ever played one Edutainment game that was actually any good, and that was “Mario Is Missing”. That game rocked! I would spend literally hours playing on it. You were in a level/world and to progress you had to get questions right. To get the answers to these questions, you had to go around the world visiting information points. The thing was; you could do a lot of other stuff too! I realise that that doesn’t really sound very appealing but trust me MIM was fantastic fun. And do want to know the best thing about it? It actually DID teach me stuff!
Donkey Kong Jrs Math was simply a ‘game’ where you worked out sums. Gee… Great. MIM on the other hand wasn’t all education; it had the essence of Mario games with it, which is what made it so playable. That’s what seems to be the main problem with Edutainment games. They’re ALL education and NO entertainment, which is rather bad for games that are supposed to be a hybrid of the two! What people have got to do is get the right balance between education and entertainment, not go for one over the other.
Many people, would argue that the education should be left to special TV programmes, books and teachers, and that entertainment should be left to TV programmes, films and games, and on the whole I would agree with them. If they’re not going to get the game right, then they shouldn’t blight our consoles/PC’s with them... However, if they do get them right then it IS a good platform for children to learn from as not only do they enjoy themselves but they also LEARN, which can’t be a bad thing.
The thing that annoys me the most about Edutainment games however, is the fact that usually they are produced to make a hell of a lot of money from gullible, well-meaning parents. It’s simply not right to cash in on parents who want to take advantage of the fact that their (young) child plays videogames.
Really, I have no objection to developers trying to educate people using consoles and games... if they do it right, but it’s when they rush out a ‘game’ with a franchise slapped on it, promising to educate our nations youth, aimed solely at parents who want to help their child’s learning in the form of something they actually might enjoy doing... It’s then when I begin to think education should stay as far away from the games industry as Limp Bizkit and Slipknot should from a recording studio.
Cheers for reading.
RBS