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Games have been renowned for being fun and exciting. They involve gamers participate in some kind of activities and basically they help people relax and forget about their worries at least for a few hours. So it does come as a surprise that some games are not only beneficial to us in a way that they distract us and involve us in their storylines, but they also help us acquire certain knowledge on the topics touched in the game. Now people may argue that many games only give us knowledge that is only really relevant within the concerned game. All RPG's and most adventure games provide the player with heaps of information about the dark forces, magic, background stories and the like. Basically there would be no use for that information at work, in school or at home (unless you want to be a know-all and run a help desk at lunchtimes so your mates can get help on games). But there are titles that prefer to stick with factual records and events to create a more believable environment.
It is pretty straightforward to understand that there is no need for educational games on consoles for two reasons A) there is specific PC software for that and B)Its going to attract less customers than a half-rushed Army Men Game...Games are supposed to be fun; people do not want to be reminded of studying or engaging their brain in any way. They just want to switch their thinking devices off and simply stare at the silver screens for the duration of the evening. This is probably why games that try to incorporate educational methods pretty much without having any storylines or action to it, get big fat scores of 1 from magazines.
But what about the games that are originally based around a winning formula and then try to take account of certain issues that are likely to teach the gamer something without actually making them throw a game in the bin. Admittedly, this is not an easy thing to do and at times things can go horribly wrong for the developers. If they decide to go for too much information and for little gameplay, the game will become a sort of an interactive book. If it has too much action and not enough information, people will complain about a weak plot and little facts to work with. So the balance needs to be exactly spot-on in order to avoid gamers getting confused and overwhelmed with the information at hand.
Info (be it real or totally fictional) can be passed on to the gamer in a number of ways. This may be done using a narrative, which can consist of FMVs or some ways of character interaction (Codec in MGS2). This is naturally the most popular way of moving the story forward and making the gamer aware of the plot. This is basically when the player does not get a chance to shape the plot the way he would like to. He may be left guessing what is going to happen next and imagine the following scenes but he hasn’t actually got an upper hand in what is about to happen. It is like watching a film after reading the book of the film. A film only portrays the director’s view of events; you may think that the scene at hand happened in a different place in different circumstances. This is why some films may disappoint fans of books.
Another way of presenting the information is just having it there. This could be achieved by just providing the player with a brief, a location and then the player is welcome to shape the story in any way he likes. Presently, this only works well with strategy games, where players are able to choose what kind of a player they will be-will they be the all-conquering pirate type, or the friendly ambassador type? The player does not just play a chunk of a pre-set code and watches another predictable cut-scene. Developers are now trying to incorporate similar features into their games and try and relate them to real-life issues.
Now you may think I went off-topic there, but infact I was contemplating that the types of presenting the data can make for a totally different game. Lets look at the popular Civilisation series…The game provides the player with a number of options which in itself are pretty useful to look into. The games featured a short profile on every playable character that provided the gamer with useful information on their personality, tactical knowledge in the like. The player had to read the info to be more successful at the game, and at the same time memorised the interesting facts that were presented to him. In similar fashion, the game taught the player about different terrain types and ways of producing goods. Whereas it was essential info in the game itself, who says it cannot come in handy during a geography lesson in school. And the best thing about it all was, that the information never seemed to be pointless and boring. The player was quite happy to sit through tutorials or discover more relevant facts because it benefited the gameplay and didn’t take any fun out of it.
Games like this are not entirely based (meaning they have not been edited so that they look more like documentaries) around the facts of the real world. They are games that fall under certain genres and the information used to either educate or inform the players is of course optional. On the other hand we have games such as Dynasty Warriors series. They are based in environments that require certain background knowledge in order to achieve the required effect. The game is totally based around factual events and again the research done by the development team has been input into the game. Ok there are a number of cut-scenes to help the story rally along but the top-notch action manages to balance out the information on the dynasties involved in the war and numerous tactical plans.
Some games manage to do something much more important than passing on certain facts about something or another. They introduce a different culture to the players in other parts of the world. The best example of that is definitely the Madden, NHL and NBA series. Considering that neither American footie, ice hockey or basketball can exactly be considered UK’s national sports, they more or less introduce the activity to the players. In my opinion the people of the world should not be slagging games like that for “stealing” their children from them, because these games may encourage youngsters to take up new sports. Yes after playing a basketball game, there is every possibility of the child saying “Ah, that look pretty cool. I think I will have a go at that”. For all we know games may help raise Olympic champions and celebrities. Same goes for music and rhythm games. They also may introduce the culture of a country to our homes. Not only do we find out about the given country, but we get introduced to various fun and exciting things to do!
So after all games are not bad for us. Maybe some titles could corrupt young kids or scare them to death, but there games are supposed to bring fun to our homes. And if the developers also consider the needs of gamers, thinking about their education and that by making a fun game they can also pass information along that may come useful in one situation or another. Games can teach us a lot just like books and documentaries do. If adults just move away from an image of games being evil, brain-shattering, conscience-corrupting types of media, we can all live happily knowing that games are good for us in more ways that one.
It is pretty straightforward to understand that there is no need for educational games on consoles for two reasons A) there is specific PC software for that and B)Its going to attract less customers than a half-rushed Army Men Game...Games are supposed to be fun; people do not want to be reminded of studying or engaging their brain in any way. They just want to switch their thinking devices off and simply stare at the silver screens for the duration of the evening. This is probably why games that try to incorporate educational methods pretty much without having any storylines or action to it, get big fat scores of 1 from magazines.
But what about the games that are originally based around a winning formula and then try to take account of certain issues that are likely to teach the gamer something without actually making them throw a game in the bin. Admittedly, this is not an easy thing to do and at times things can go horribly wrong for the developers. If they decide to go for too much information and for little gameplay, the game will become a sort of an interactive book. If it has too much action and not enough information, people will complain about a weak plot and little facts to work with. So the balance needs to be exactly spot-on in order to avoid gamers getting confused and overwhelmed with the information at hand.
Info (be it real or totally fictional) can be passed on to the gamer in a number of ways. This may be done using a narrative, which can consist of FMVs or some ways of character interaction (Codec in MGS2). This is naturally the most popular way of moving the story forward and making the gamer aware of the plot. This is basically when the player does not get a chance to shape the plot the way he would like to. He may be left guessing what is going to happen next and imagine the following scenes but he hasn’t actually got an upper hand in what is about to happen. It is like watching a film after reading the book of the film. A film only portrays the director’s view of events; you may think that the scene at hand happened in a different place in different circumstances. This is why some films may disappoint fans of books.
Another way of presenting the information is just having it there. This could be achieved by just providing the player with a brief, a location and then the player is welcome to shape the story in any way he likes. Presently, this only works well with strategy games, where players are able to choose what kind of a player they will be-will they be the all-conquering pirate type, or the friendly ambassador type? The player does not just play a chunk of a pre-set code and watches another predictable cut-scene. Developers are now trying to incorporate similar features into their games and try and relate them to real-life issues.
Now you may think I went off-topic there, but infact I was contemplating that the types of presenting the data can make for a totally different game. Lets look at the popular Civilisation series…The game provides the player with a number of options which in itself are pretty useful to look into. The games featured a short profile on every playable character that provided the gamer with useful information on their personality, tactical knowledge in the like. The player had to read the info to be more successful at the game, and at the same time memorised the interesting facts that were presented to him. In similar fashion, the game taught the player about different terrain types and ways of producing goods. Whereas it was essential info in the game itself, who says it cannot come in handy during a geography lesson in school. And the best thing about it all was, that the information never seemed to be pointless and boring. The player was quite happy to sit through tutorials or discover more relevant facts because it benefited the gameplay and didn’t take any fun out of it.
Games like this are not entirely based (meaning they have not been edited so that they look more like documentaries) around the facts of the real world. They are games that fall under certain genres and the information used to either educate or inform the players is of course optional. On the other hand we have games such as Dynasty Warriors series. They are based in environments that require certain background knowledge in order to achieve the required effect. The game is totally based around factual events and again the research done by the development team has been input into the game. Ok there are a number of cut-scenes to help the story rally along but the top-notch action manages to balance out the information on the dynasties involved in the war and numerous tactical plans.
Some games manage to do something much more important than passing on certain facts about something or another. They introduce a different culture to the players in other parts of the world. The best example of that is definitely the Madden, NHL and NBA series. Considering that neither American footie, ice hockey or basketball can exactly be considered UK’s national sports, they more or less introduce the activity to the players. In my opinion the people of the world should not be slagging games like that for “stealing” their children from them, because these games may encourage youngsters to take up new sports. Yes after playing a basketball game, there is every possibility of the child saying “Ah, that look pretty cool. I think I will have a go at that”. For all we know games may help raise Olympic champions and celebrities. Same goes for music and rhythm games. They also may introduce the culture of a country to our homes. Not only do we find out about the given country, but we get introduced to various fun and exciting things to do!
So after all games are not bad for us. Maybe some titles could corrupt young kids or scare them to death, but there games are supposed to bring fun to our homes. And if the developers also consider the needs of gamers, thinking about their education and that by making a fun game they can also pass information along that may come useful in one situation or another. Games can teach us a lot just like books and documentaries do. If adults just move away from an image of games being evil, brain-shattering, conscience-corrupting types of media, we can all live happily knowing that games are good for us in more ways that one.
Well done on the GAD. A great post.
Cheers for the replies guys-first GAD since last November-its been a while....
Anyway, I think that games will get more educational in the future but the trick is not to give the gamers an impression that they they are just being given a lesson in history or anything similar. The experience needs to flow along nicely and the gamer should be thinking "Ah thats a relevant bit of info there" not "Why the hell do they think I would want to know this".
I do not personally want my games to teach me stuff that is either irelevant or totally useless-I want to play the game and be taught something in the process-but that something needs to be relevant to the gameplay and maybe even influence your behaviour in certain parts of the game..
Anyway, I think that games will get more educational in the future but the trick is not to give the gamers an impression that they they are just being given a lesson in history or anything similar. The experience needs to flow along nicely and the gamer should be thinking "Ah thats a relevant bit of info there" not "Why the hell do they think I would want to know this".
I do not personally want my games to teach me stuff that is either irelevant or totally useless-I want to play the game and be taught something in the process-but that something needs to be relevant to the gameplay and maybe even influence your behaviour in certain parts of the game..
Well, for a start, a lot of games that come out these days are inadvertantly educational. The manner of game that we can come across now, in their attempts to be a "clever" game, almost inherently contain information that users can pick up.
The makers of Shogun: Total War for example, built the game around the concept of "The Art of War" by Sun-Tzu. And in effect, in order to become good at the game, the player must really utilise the principles laid down by Sun-Tzu himself. Needless to say, The Art of War is a useful principle not just for warfare, but for life itself, teaching people assertiveness, patience, and the ability to judge surroundings and situations. This is taught to the player, along with, as many strategy games do, a sense of strategy, assumptions, and forward thinking. Playing games like these makes good use of your mind, and educates you in ways you wouldn't believe.
The there are the button bash games and such, which teach people reflexes, and hand-eye co-ordination. Games like these - high paced, and quick changing, where one doesn't get the chance to look down to see what your fingers are doing, teach you to instictively know where your fingers and thumbs are, and what they are pressing, without you having to look. Over time, you can do this faster and faster. This is a very handy skill, not just for gaming, but for anyone who works in, say, an office.
Almost every genre of game has something like this to offer, puzzle games offering mathematical logic, and problem solving, "Mystery" adventure games offering a more deductive level of clue management and problem solving, and sim and management games, offering a good level of "cause and effect" comprehension.
However, does this mean that there isn't room for more? No. There always is. If Shogun can fit in half of The Art of War and some of the Hagakure, then some other game can easilly throw in some machiavelli, or Socrates, a bit of Shakespear here and there, and yes, even a little pythagoras. By not directly implicating the learning, but making the learning a good way to increase the gamers skills, game designers can not only put out games which require a little extra from gamers, but also do their bit for mankind while they're at it.
Bring on the learning.
IB
The makers of Shogun: Total War for example, built the game around the concept of "The Art of War" by Sun-Tzu. And in effect, in order to become good at the game, the player must really utilise the principles laid down by Sun-Tzu himself. Needless to say, The Art of War is a useful principle not just for warfare, but for life itself, teaching people assertiveness, patience, and the ability to judge surroundings and situations. This is taught to the player, along with, as many strategy games do, a sense of strategy, assumptions, and forward thinking. Playing games like these makes good use of your mind, and educates you in ways you wouldn't believe.
The there are the button bash games and such, which teach people reflexes, and hand-eye co-ordination. Games like these - high paced, and quick changing, where one doesn't get the chance to look down to see what your fingers are doing, teach you to instictively know where your fingers and thumbs are, and what they are pressing, without you having to look. Over time, you can do this faster and faster. This is a very handy skill, not just for gaming, but for anyone who works in, say, an office.
Almost every genre of game has something like this to offer, puzzle games offering mathematical logic, and problem solving, "Mystery" adventure games offering a more deductive level of clue management and problem solving, and sim and management games, offering a good level of "cause and effect" comprehension.
However, does this mean that there isn't room for more? No. There always is. If Shogun can fit in half of The Art of War and some of the Hagakure, then some other game can easilly throw in some machiavelli, or Socrates, a bit of Shakespear here and there, and yes, even a little pythagoras. By not directly implicating the learning, but making the learning a good way to increase the gamers skills, game designers can not only put out games which require a little extra from gamers, but also do their bit for mankind while they're at it.
Bring on the learning.
IB
Welld one on the GAD
Very good read. Nice one!
Congrats on the win didn't actually read it but i'm sure it's good may read it later.
Nah. I'd have shot Sniper anyway.
Games have been renowned for being fun and exciting. They involve gamers participate in some kind of activities and basically they help people relax and forget about their worries at least for a few hours. So it does come as a surprise that some games are not only beneficial to us in a way that they distract us and involve us in their storylines, but they also help us acquire certain knowledge on the topics touched in the game. Now people may argue that many games only give us knowledge that is only really relevant within the concerned game. All RPG's and most adventure games provide the player with heaps of information about the dark forces, magic, background stories and the like. Basically there would be no use for that information at work, in school or at home (unless you want to be a know-all and run a help desk at lunchtimes so your mates can get help on games). But there are titles that prefer to stick with factual records and events to create a more believable environment.
It is pretty straightforward to understand that there is no need for educational games on consoles for two reasons A) there is specific PC software for that and B)Its going to attract less customers than a half-rushed Army Men Game...Games are supposed to be fun; people do not want to be reminded of studying or engaging their brain in any way. They just want to switch their thinking devices off and simply stare at the silver screens for the duration of the evening. This is probably why games that try to incorporate educational methods pretty much without having any storylines or action to it, get big fat scores of 1 from magazines.
But what about the games that are originally based around a winning formula and then try to take account of certain issues that are likely to teach the gamer something without actually making them throw a game in the bin. Admittedly, this is not an easy thing to do and at times things can go horribly wrong for the developers. If they decide to go for too much information and for little gameplay, the game will become a sort of an interactive book. If it has too much action and not enough information, people will complain about a weak plot and little facts to work with. So the balance needs to be exactly spot-on in order to avoid gamers getting confused and overwhelmed with the information at hand.
Info (be it real or totally fictional) can be passed on to the gamer in a number of ways. This may be done using a narrative, which can consist of FMVs or some ways of character interaction (Codec in MGS2). This is naturally the most popular way of moving the story forward and making the gamer aware of the plot. This is basically when the player does not get a chance to shape the plot the way he would like to. He may be left guessing what is going to happen next and imagine the following scenes but he hasn’t actually got an upper hand in what is about to happen. It is like watching a film after reading the book of the film. A film only portrays the director’s view of events; you may think that the scene at hand happened in a different place in different circumstances. This is why some films may disappoint fans of books.
Another way of presenting the information is just having it there. This could be achieved by just providing the player with a brief, a location and then the player is welcome to shape the story in any way he likes. Presently, this only works well with strategy games, where players are able to choose what kind of a player they will be-will they be the all-conquering pirate type, or the friendly ambassador type? The player does not just play a chunk of a pre-set code and watches another predictable cut-scene. Developers are now trying to incorporate similar features into their games and try and relate them to real-life issues.
Now you may think I went off-topic there, but infact I was contemplating that the types of presenting the data can make for a totally different game. Lets look at the popular Civilisation series…The game provides the player with a number of options which in itself are pretty useful to look into. The games featured a short profile on every playable character that provided the gamer with useful information on their personality, tactical knowledge in the like. The player had to read the info to be more successful at the game, and at the same time memorised the interesting facts that were presented to him. In similar fashion, the game taught the player about different terrain types and ways of producing goods. Whereas it was essential info in the game itself, who says it cannot come in handy during a geography lesson in school. And the best thing about it all was, that the information never seemed to be pointless and boring. The player was quite happy to sit through tutorials or discover more relevant facts because it benefited the gameplay and didn’t take any fun out of it.
Games like this are not entirely based (meaning they have not been edited so that they look more like documentaries) around the facts of the real world. They are games that fall under certain genres and the information used to either educate or inform the players is of course optional. On the other hand we have games such as Dynasty Warriors series. They are based in environments that require certain background knowledge in order to achieve the required effect. The game is totally based around factual events and again the research done by the development team has been input into the game. Ok there are a number of cut-scenes to help the story rally along but the top-notch action manages to balance out the information on the dynasties involved in the war and numerous tactical plans.
Some games manage to do something much more important than passing on certain facts about something or another. They introduce a different culture to the players in other parts of the world. The best example of that is definitely the Madden, NHL and NBA series. Considering that neither American footie, ice hockey or basketball can exactly be considered UK’s national sports, they more or less introduce the activity to the players. In my opinion the people of the world should not be slagging games like that for “stealing” their children from them, because these games may encourage youngsters to take up new sports. Yes after playing a basketball game, there is every possibility of the child saying “Ah, that look pretty cool. I think I will have a go at that”. For all we know games may help raise Olympic champions and celebrities. Same goes for music and rhythm games. They also may introduce the culture of a country to our homes. Not only do we find out about the given country, but we get introduced to various fun and exciting things to do!
So after all games are not bad for us. Maybe some titles could corrupt young kids or scare them to death, but there games are supposed to bring fun to our homes. And if the developers also consider the needs of gamers, thinking about their education and that by making a fun game they can also pass information along that may come useful in one situation or another. Games can teach us a lot just like books and documentaries do. If adults just move away from an image of games being evil, brain-shattering, conscience-corrupting types of media, we can all live happily knowing that games are good for us in more ways that one.
It is pretty straightforward to understand that there is no need for educational games on consoles for two reasons A) there is specific PC software for that and B)Its going to attract less customers than a half-rushed Army Men Game...Games are supposed to be fun; people do not want to be reminded of studying or engaging their brain in any way. They just want to switch their thinking devices off and simply stare at the silver screens for the duration of the evening. This is probably why games that try to incorporate educational methods pretty much without having any storylines or action to it, get big fat scores of 1 from magazines.
But what about the games that are originally based around a winning formula and then try to take account of certain issues that are likely to teach the gamer something without actually making them throw a game in the bin. Admittedly, this is not an easy thing to do and at times things can go horribly wrong for the developers. If they decide to go for too much information and for little gameplay, the game will become a sort of an interactive book. If it has too much action and not enough information, people will complain about a weak plot and little facts to work with. So the balance needs to be exactly spot-on in order to avoid gamers getting confused and overwhelmed with the information at hand.
Info (be it real or totally fictional) can be passed on to the gamer in a number of ways. This may be done using a narrative, which can consist of FMVs or some ways of character interaction (Codec in MGS2). This is naturally the most popular way of moving the story forward and making the gamer aware of the plot. This is basically when the player does not get a chance to shape the plot the way he would like to. He may be left guessing what is going to happen next and imagine the following scenes but he hasn’t actually got an upper hand in what is about to happen. It is like watching a film after reading the book of the film. A film only portrays the director’s view of events; you may think that the scene at hand happened in a different place in different circumstances. This is why some films may disappoint fans of books.
Another way of presenting the information is just having it there. This could be achieved by just providing the player with a brief, a location and then the player is welcome to shape the story in any way he likes. Presently, this only works well with strategy games, where players are able to choose what kind of a player they will be-will they be the all-conquering pirate type, or the friendly ambassador type? The player does not just play a chunk of a pre-set code and watches another predictable cut-scene. Developers are now trying to incorporate similar features into their games and try and relate them to real-life issues.
Now you may think I went off-topic there, but infact I was contemplating that the types of presenting the data can make for a totally different game. Lets look at the popular Civilisation series…The game provides the player with a number of options which in itself are pretty useful to look into. The games featured a short profile on every playable character that provided the gamer with useful information on their personality, tactical knowledge in the like. The player had to read the info to be more successful at the game, and at the same time memorised the interesting facts that were presented to him. In similar fashion, the game taught the player about different terrain types and ways of producing goods. Whereas it was essential info in the game itself, who says it cannot come in handy during a geography lesson in school. And the best thing about it all was, that the information never seemed to be pointless and boring. The player was quite happy to sit through tutorials or discover more relevant facts because it benefited the gameplay and didn’t take any fun out of it.
Games like this are not entirely based (meaning they have not been edited so that they look more like documentaries) around the facts of the real world. They are games that fall under certain genres and the information used to either educate or inform the players is of course optional. On the other hand we have games such as Dynasty Warriors series. They are based in environments that require certain background knowledge in order to achieve the required effect. The game is totally based around factual events and again the research done by the development team has been input into the game. Ok there are a number of cut-scenes to help the story rally along but the top-notch action manages to balance out the information on the dynasties involved in the war and numerous tactical plans.
Some games manage to do something much more important than passing on certain facts about something or another. They introduce a different culture to the players in other parts of the world. The best example of that is definitely the Madden, NHL and NBA series. Considering that neither American footie, ice hockey or basketball can exactly be considered UK’s national sports, they more or less introduce the activity to the players. In my opinion the people of the world should not be slagging games like that for “stealing” their children from them, because these games may encourage youngsters to take up new sports. Yes after playing a basketball game, there is every possibility of the child saying “Ah, that look pretty cool. I think I will have a go at that”. For all we know games may help raise Olympic champions and celebrities. Same goes for music and rhythm games. They also may introduce the culture of a country to our homes. Not only do we find out about the given country, but we get introduced to various fun and exciting things to do!
So after all games are not bad for us. Maybe some titles could corrupt young kids or scare them to death, but there games are supposed to bring fun to our homes. And if the developers also consider the needs of gamers, thinking about their education and that by making a fun game they can also pass information along that may come useful in one situation or another. Games can teach us a lot just like books and documentaries do. If adults just move away from an image of games being evil, brain-shattering, conscience-corrupting types of media, we can all live happily knowing that games are good for us in more ways that one.