Reading Response 4

I admit this is more a post in preparation for my lesson than anything else.

I have talked at work about creating a “video game culture” as a strategy for developing skills and advocating a specific kind of work atmosphere built on competition and teamwork. We sat down one day, as a management team, and played several popular video games that specific groups were familiar with (addicted to) and then broke them down to find their core (very semiotic, I might add – and it has to be said that I am a bit of an eccentric but utilitarian manager). Below (perhaps for your personal interest, if you have any) is what they came up with that would be necessary to produce a “video game culture”:

• Total Everything
• Running Total of All Stats
• Ranks
• Overall
• Per Game
• Gamer Name/Avatar
• Choose Level/Style
• Experience Points
• Individual/Team Stats – always available
• Character Choice
• Perks to Earn
• Multiple Objectives in 1 Game
• In-Depth Stats – End of Game Report
• Set Weapons/Techniques
• Tracking of Use
• Time Count
• Different Game Types
• Training
• Boosts
• Replay (all or last event)
• Team/Individual Challenge
• Audio Recognition

Now, these are “aspects” of ‘competitive play’ games (first person shooters or racing games) but what they address are the necessary components of what make a game both addictive and engaging for my management team. This, to me, is not unlike Squire’s article where he tries to decipher the nature of open-ended video games and then tries to link it to educational purposes. For this blog, I’m interested in putting out there some things that he says which are of interest or concern to me:

“We need rigorous research into what players do with games (particularly those that don’t claim explicit status as educational), and a better understanding of the thinking that is involved in playing them” (167). This is not unlike what my management team and I are trying to do: figure out what makes the best games work and then tie it into a framework that meets the needs of our particular learning context.

He later asks the question that I believe is the crux of the article: “How to create spaces that ultimately exist for people to do interesting things?” After which, he says, “Good games are vehicles for player expression” and then wraps up the thought with a very poignant thought: “A potential paradox arises as educators seek to reconcile game players’ multiple ways of and reasons for being engaged in games, with the divergent learning outcomes that are likely to occur as a result” (178). In other words, how do we get learners to like doing it, be innovative in the process, and learn exactly what they need from the experience in order to fulfill core curriculum (or get results)?

Gaming, to me, is a strategy that can do a lot but it will take even more than that to design it appropriate for successful learning and skills acquisition that makes student and the state happy.