Research for Presentation: Part 2

Having watched the video from extra credits "Video Games and Learning" i started to think about educational games differently. I thought about which games have taught me something, and what out of that i still remember. 

Looking at a wide range of "educational games" i think they can roughly be split into two camps, and that split is based on their objective as a game.  On the one hand there are those who set out to educate, using video games as a tool to engage their audience. Browser games like the Fantastic Contraption" a physics puzzle game: 

This game gives the player a variety of tools i the form of  different types of poles and wheels of different materials (the game constraints) to achieve the goal (to get the object into the target area). 

There are many other physics puzzle games like Fantastic Contraption, Tinkerbox from Autodesk is  another such example, similar but more robust variant, and is made for the iPad, a tool which in itself is an interesting way in which to facilitate learning through ply, and one that i intend to look at in more detail.

There are allot more examples of browser based educational games on the BBC Schools website, categorized by subject and age. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/games/

Their core purpose is education, and they simply use the medium of video games to facilitate that learning. This method is most commonly used in games aimed at younger audiences (though there are obvious exceptions, see the before mentioned "Brain Training" games), and often focuses on subjects that those players would otherwise find harder, or be less inclined to engage with. These are games that try to make learning fun. 

On the other hand are The games that do not set out to educate first and foremost but to entertain. These games are harder to find, without playing them, because one only really finds out their true value when you have, maybe even without realizing, been taught something by them. 

Games like these are almost more powerful tools of learning than games that set out to entertain as they carry the power of their audience being interested and wanting to play for the sake of the game and how interesting or fun it is. And people in general are far more inclined to learn about something they are interested in in the first place. 

One of the best examples of this type of game, in my eyes is the Age of Empires series. It is a historically based Real time strategy. The creators of the series did not intend it as an educational game as Bruce Shelly co designer says (at Leipzig Game developers conference 2007)  "The games weren't so much about history as about human experience"  (though designing a game with so much historical content doubtless required vast amounts of research.)

(Age of empires 1997)

(Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings)

(Age of Empires III)

What age of empires does is enabling learning, as Daniel Floyd stated. And this is a successful way that keeps the best of both worlds by making you want to learn more about a certain topic because the game has got you interested in it already. Fortunately Age of Empires had that covered too, with an in game index of historical information about the characters places, buildings and battled that the player see's in the game. 

(Cut scenes from AoE II had narration from the point of view of  observers various historical figures)

The Assassins Creed series is another good example of gaming facilitating learning. Though it is obviously a work of fiction, and its inclusion of real historical characters allongsid the fictional characters of the game is that also, the inclusion of certain historical figures within the franchise is enough to consider the game a source of passive learning. 

An example of this kind of exposure in assassins creed is the inclusion of the Borgia Family as antagonists in Assassins Creed 2 and Brotherhood. The Borgia's were a prominent house in renascence Italy who were suspected of many of the crimes and deeds implied in the Assassins creed games. Roderic Borgia also did as is shown in the games become Pope Alexander VI. Though the Link between the Borgia's and the disbanded order of the Knights Templar is a fallacy, the rivalry between them and the house of Medici is a slice of history worked into the fabric of the game, alongside the various locations. 

(Real Borgia flag)

(Borgia flag in the game)

Assassins creeds real power is through Tangential learning. by exposing players to certain degrees of historical events, characters and places, this teaches these things to the player, and facilitates their potential desire to find out the real history behind the franchise, which has often been a hot topic among players and fans of the series within the game industry. 

What does this have to do with Platform and distribution i hear you ask? well i think distribution is key here, because it seems to me that the problem with educational games in the industry is the way that they are distributed, the way that they are marketed, and the image they have in the eyes of players.