It's the challenge, stupid!

Once again Gee has regaled us with his musing on the value video games contribute to the learning process. And, once again, I’m not completely convinced about his premise. As Gee states, he believes it “is something about how games are designed to trigger learning that makes them so deeply motivating.” He proceeds to say that “the designers of many good games have hit on profoundly good methods of getting people to learn and to enjoy learning. They have had to, since the games that were bad at getting themselves learned didn’t get played and the companies that made them lost money.”

Clearly, Gee believes that “learning” is intentionally built into every game by game designers who are only satisfying a demand by game players to learn. Being an avid gamer myself, I would disagree. I have a vast collection of games – Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Empire Earth, the Medal of Honor series, the Call of Duty series, numerous Star Wars games, Halo, Space Empires,  my newest and as yet unplayed acquisition, Sins of a Solar Empire – just to name a few. Some of these games I play regularly and repeatedly – Castle Wolfestein, Call of Duty and Empire Earth, for example – while others have been played once and forgotten – Halo (yes, Halo) and Space Empires. After reading Gee, I asked myself why I keep come back to my favorites. Is it because of the learning experience? No. Is it because I like taking on the persona of another person or projecting myself into another time and place? No! It’s because of the “challenge.” I would argue that it is not learning that the video game developers are striving for, but the challenge factor.

While challenging and learning are not mutually exclusive (I think you can learn through the challenge of the game), I don’t believe learning is what designers are striving for. It’s the challenge factor – this is what sells games. Although Empire Earth is a very rudimentary military strategy game, it is challenging to build and deploy armies around the battlefield and devise a strategy to combat your opponent, the computer. Granted you learn which strategies work and which ones don’t, learning is not the motivation behind the game. And, while Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and other first person shoot-em up games may lack historical content (thank you Niall Ferguson), they still pose interesting tests to the player, especially when playing in the multi-game mode with people over the internet. Challenges like stalking your opponent, finding a good place to snipe a player, finding a good place to hide. Surely you can learn something from these tactics, but learning is not the fundamental draw to these games either. This speaks to another allure of games that have on-line components, such as Call of Duty. They allow the player to play with people from around the world, to be immersed in a “global” “imagined” community.

Having said this, I would tend to disagree with Ferguson in some respects. Sure, Medal of Honor lacks the historical accuracy of Axis and Allies, but the two games are completely different and pose completely different challenges. He’s comparing and drawing conclusions about very dissimilar types of games. (Besides, I tend to find some historical relevance in Medal of Honor and Call of Duty in that they have the potential to inspire people to learn more about WWII). I’ve played Axis and Allies as well as a whole slue of other games in that genera and I do agree with Ferguson in that it's fun to walk down the counterfactual path. Yet another challenge.

So, what about Myst? Unfortunately, I was unable to locate Myst IV, but was able to procure Myst V. After about 45 minutes of play, I came down with a bad case of motion-sickness (something that occasionally happens when I play first person games). But, I played long enough to want to go back to the game. So, a post for another day.

Comments

[Carl Young]

Jeff -

I think you have hit the nail on the head. I don't know the Benedict Anderson would agree with your version of his "Imagined Community" but then again, he might.

As will be revealed in my blog this week, the learning that occurs in the game is absolutely secondary. You are correct in saying that the designers are all about the experience that sells. It is a secondary effect that they have to make learning the new game simple enough to be accomplished while challenging enough to be interesting.

CAY

[John Aiken]

sorry for the late comment, but I couldn't agree with you more. The challenging aspect that you bring up gave words to what I was feeling as I played Myst and Call of Duty again. Although I also agree that there can be some benifit (albeit strictly in an entertainment sense) of having kids motivated to learn about topics they plan in video games. However, as you agreed on your comment I wouldn't push video games on a student population.

BTW if you have a PS2 I can give you my copy of the new Wolfenstein from a few years back. It's pretty sweet. :)