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Abstract

Background

Videogames can be useful tools for teaching and learning. To plan educational uses, potential benefits and possible problematic aspects of specific titles need to be critically assessed by teachers and school leaders prior to implementation.

Theory and Method

Based on game ontological models, we identify salient areas of inquiry in games research and use these to structure a template for evaluation. This way we operationalize foundational games research and put key insights to practical use in the planning and preparation of videogame-based teaching sessions.

Aims

We develop a template for the evaluation of videogames as tools for and objects of teaching and learning to facilitate critical uses of these technologies in schools and other educational settings.

Results

We present a template for critical evaluation to facilitate the use of videogames for educational endeavors. The template distinguishes between videogames as tools for and objects of teaching and learning and is structured along the game ontological dimensions of 1) sign system, 2) rules and mechanics, 3) materiality and 4) players, and includes aspects of both representation and simulation. This way, we disentangle a complex phenomenon and make its components amendable for critical analysis and constructive intervention.

Discussion and Conclusion

We offer illustrating examples for how the template can be used to assess the usability of specific titles in education and discuss advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we suggest steps for implementation and further improvement.

Keywords

videogames education game ontology cybermedia model representation simulation evaluation

Introduction

In this article, we develop a template for planning and evaluation of videogame-use in teaching humanities and social science subjects in upper-secondary classrooms. To structure our endeavor, we operationalize the game ontological model by Aarseth and Calleja (2015) to identify four salient areas for critical assessment and intervention – sign system and representation, rules and mechanics, materiality, as well as players. We enrich the evolving template with insights from Pötzsch and Šisler (2019), Bogost (2006), and McCall (2011, 2016) regarding media specific aspects of game-use in education and otherwise. Finally, we offer brief analyses of the commercial title Assassin´s Creed: Valhalla (Ubisoft Montreal, 2020) and the free browser game Survive the Century (Beckbessinger et al., 2021) to illustrate the applicability of the template. We summarize key categories in a table and discuss potentials for further implementation.

Background

Games, including videogames, are well-suited to explore both contentious and difficult issues in a reflective manner (Apperley, 2010; Flanagan & Nissenbaum, 2014; Jørgensen & Karlsen, 2018; Sicart, 2009). This makes them potentially useful tools for teaching and learning (Apperley, 2010; McCall, 2011, 2016; Pötzsch, Holt Hansen and Hammar, 2022), yet also poses the question of how to adequately evaluate the efficacy of specific titles for given educational purposes.

In this article, we draw upon Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) cybermedia model, Pötzsch and Šisler’s (2019) representation and simulation model, Ian Bogost’s (2006) concept of procedural rhetoric, and Jeremiah McCall’s (2011, 2016) idea of games as interactive problem spaces to develop a template that can facilitate the planning of game-use in humanities and social science subjects in upper-secondary classrooms. After introducing the template, we demonstrate its applicability through brief analyses of the commercial title Assassin´s Creed: Valhalla (Ubisoft Montreal, 2020) and the free browser game Survive the Century (Beckbessinger et al., 2021). Finally, we summarize key categories in a table to facilitate critical assessments and evaluation of other games and suggest steps for further implementation.

In this article, we distinguish between three main approaches to the games-education nexus: 1) Teaching with games, 2) teaching through games, and 3) teaching about games (Pötzsch, Holt Hansen & Hammar, 2022). The first type – teaching with games – uses specifically designed educational titles to facilitate learning in certain subjects. The second type – teaching through games – focuses on off-the-shelf commercial titles as potential conveyors of knowledge about certain subjects. Thirdly, teaching about games makes both commercial and educational games objects of critical scrutiny in classrooms. We argue that, given their massive use and current economic, societal, and even political valence (Kerr, 2017), games also need to be taught about in schools, i.e. they need to be treated not only as means but also as objects of teaching and learning. It is our contention that the aspect of teaching about games, so far, has received too little attention in discourses about games and education.

Our article draws upon earlier attempts to develop frameworks for the evaluation of educational potentials and applicability of videogames. Previous studies have highlighting specific issues ranging from game literacies and competences among teachers and students (Marklund, Rouse, and Holloway-Attaway 2020) to design challenges (Linderoth, 2010; Marklund and Romin, 2020), classroom practices (Westera, 2015; Marklund, 2015; Marklund and Taylor, 2016), and player identities (Klevjer 2021). Other approaches tried to combine singular elements into overarching frameworks for evaluation. Becker and Gopin (2016), for instance, have brought together a series of factors across the dimensions of game, teacher support, educational content, and general attitudes to assess the applicability of specific titles in educational settings. In Norway, the publicly funded advisory institution Kulturtanken (2021, 8) has issued a list of criteria to guide game selection for school use. While these frameworks have great merits and practical use-value, they lack a distinct game-theoretical foundation that could align them to conceptual developments in the field. As a consequence, they retain blind spots regarding some important aspects that are made palpable by game ontological models (e.g. political economy and sustainability of game use and production or the importance of laws and regulations for media use in schools). Our approach attempts to offer such a theoretically founded comprehensive approach for the evaluation of commercial and educational videogames as both tools and objects of educational practices.

Theory and Method

Operationalizing models from game ontology and game studies, we identify salient aspects of games that need to be scrutinized prior to using specific titles in educational settings. We develop categories and structure our template in correspondence with the introduced models and demonstrate its applicability by way of concrete examples.

Game Ontology: What Are Games and Why Does It Matter?

A comprehensive understanding of what games are, how they operate, and how they implicate players in diegetic worlds and transmedial contexts, is key to developing viable practices for using these technologies in teaching and learning. While previous research has advanced a variety of different game definitions (Juul, 2005; Fernández-Vara, 2014; Sicart, 2013; Salen & Zimmerman, 2004), we focus here on the game ontological approach by Aarseth and Calleja (2015).

Aarseth and Calleja’s model, distinguishes the phenomenon game into four distinct but closely interrelated aspects (figure 1); 1) rules and mechanics, 2) sign system or representational layer, 3) materiality, i.e. the matter needed to play and the material context of development, distribution, and use; as well as 4) players constantly interpreting and potentially reconfiguring the three aspects outlined above. The first three dimensions of the model constitute the game as a static cybermedia object, while the fourth – players – adds a processual dimension. Through their interactions with cybermedia objects players continuously create new and unprecedented configurations of the first three components and thus give rise to constantly evolving cybermedia processes. All four dimensions are important lenses that each enable unique perspectives on how games can (or cannot) be used as facilitators for or objects of teaching and learning. Studying these aspects and their contingent configurations requires specific methods that will be described below.¹

Figure 1.

The four dimensions of the cybermedia model (from Aarseth & Calleja, 2015, n.p.).

The component of sign constitutes the representational dimension of games as static cybermedia objects. At this level, game worlds, characters, and stories become conceivable to players through audial, visual, and haptic signals that are processed through their perceptual apparatuses and decoded based on acquired habits and game literacies. To enable meaning-making, the representational sign-layer issues cues to players allowing them to create and test hypotheses as to what is going on, who is who, and what norms or ethical obligations might be at stake in the diegetic universes presented to them to then decide if and how they want to engage with the presented world as players. As such, this dimension can be studied with methods drawn from literary and film analysis – first and foremost narratology, formal analysis, rhetorical analysis, and semiotics (Fernández-Vara, 2014). Naturally, also the political messages and ideological contents of specific game titles can be addressed at this level that therefore becomes important for teaching about games, but also emerges as salient for the planning and implementation of teaching with and through games.

The second aspect of the cybermedia model, the mechanical system, contains the rules and procedures that pre-structure how players can act in and interact with game worlds and their characters. While the sign-level presents the world and sets the stage, the mechanical layer regulates what actions and performances are possible in a game and which are ruled out. Analyzing the mechanical layer as such requires different methods that are often taken from cybernetics or game design (Salen & Zimmerman, 2004). A specific strain of formal game analysis focuses on the analysis of rule systems (Eskelinen, 2001).

As Ian Bogost (2006) has shown, the politics of games are not only reproduced at a representational layer (sign system), but also at the level of rules and procedures. He coined the term ‘procedural rhetoric’ to conceptualize how game mechanics can reproduce ideological positions by enabling certain player actions and performances in game worlds while hampering others. Also, the selection of variables to be included as relevant for specific simulations, and the way these variables are processed by the system, can have both intentional and unintentional ideological effects that can be captured by Bogost’s term. Procedural rhetoric has become a key concept for critical game analysis and emerges as an important area of focus for the planning and implementation of game-based teaching and learning (see also Apperley, 2010).

There are cases when the components sign/narrative and mechanical system are in apparent disconnect since the potentials for meaning and practice invited by each seemingly contradict one another. Such cases have been termed ludo-narrative dissonance (Hocking, 2007) and it has long been an accepted truth in game design that, for the sake of consistency, such cases should be avoided. However, recently scholars have pointed to the artistic potentials of tensions between narrative and rules that can have estranging and therefore engaging implications for players and audiences of gameplay (Murphy, 2016; Backe, 2018; Grabarczyk & Walther, 2022). Such possible tensions can be an important area of inquiry when preparing game-based teaching sessions.

The third component of the triangle forming Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) static cybermedia object is materiality. This dimension contains the socio-economic, physical, technological, and environmental infrastructures required to produce and play games. Using materiality as a lens enables attention to technical components such as game consoles, digital networks and controllers, and the issues of availability, affordability, and accessibility these factors imply (Apperley & Jayemane, 2012). All these aspects have repercussions on how and with what implications games can (and should) be used as devices for teaching and learning.

Drawing on Stuart Hall’s (1977) understanding of materiality in cultural communication, we argue that the dimension of materiality in Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) model needs to be expanded to also include wider contexts of political economy, business models, labour conditions in the games industry in relation to both software development, use, and hardware production (Kline et al., 2003; Kerr, 2017; Sotamaa & Švelch, 2021; Tulloch & Johnson, 2022; Hammar & Pötzsch, 2022). In such an extended understanding of materiality, issues such as working conditions for developers and manufacturers, data security for users and players, energy and resources required for production and play, e-waste disposal, pace of obsolescence, as well as the growing environmental footprints of server centers and streaming services move center stage. They are also crucial for attempts to adequately evaluate the suitability of specific games for formal educational settings.

The component of materiality requires specific methods to gain the insights necessary for a conscientious planning and implementation of game-based teaching and learning. Analyses of technological affordances and conditions can give indications about the advantages and disadvantages of certain types of consoles, computers, and controllers for specific constituencies of players (disabilities and neurodiversities, possible differences between genders, cultural sensitivities, purchasing costs, hardware requirements, monetization techniques, tacit data gathering and profiling, and more). Methods from political economy and critical sociology can assess business models and production cycles to avoid using and buying unethical, ecologically harmful, or too expensive products and to identify potentials for tacit advertising and clandestine data collection and monetization often enabled in commercial games (Light et al., 2018; Mosco, 2009). At this level, school regulations restricting access to specific content (e.g. violence) and technological limitations (e.g. quality of Internet connections) can be addressed, and the benefits and drawbacks of videogames compared to other available teaching tools such as books can be critically interrogated.

Having described the static components of games as cybermedia objects above (sign systems, mechanics, and materiality), we will now turn to players and their activities thereby drawing attention to the processual ontology of games as cybermedia processes that form constantly evolving contingent configurations of their constitutive elements. Games must be played to exist and without players they remain empty shells void of meaning (Aarseth, 2001). Play practices always happen in context and correspondingly offer situated experiences. To account for such aspects of sociality and diversity in game play, we refer to Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) player component in the plural as players.

To assess how players engage with games in contexts and understand what they draw from these processes, various methods from the social sciences become relevant. Interviews, surveys, participant observations, and play diaries offer empirical insights into how players temporarily arrest cybermedia processes in contingent meaning-producing configurations. In this perspective, players can become co-researchers (Jørgensen, 2012, 2020) who offer new and often unexpected perspectives to scholars. Alternatively, the processual dimension can be explored by studying the play practices of others available in the form of Let’s Plays, walkthroughs, and other genres of recorded game play. By using this method, the different possibilities for action offered by the game space can be assessed and compared thus bringing forth the tacit limitations game mechanics put on possible player performances (de Smale, 2019a, 2019b). This last method can be productively used by teachers when preparing game-based sessions to gain an overview over variations in play practices and possible forms of counter-play.

As we have shown above, disentangling the complex phenomenon of digital game with help of the cybermedia model makes visible a series of contingencies and potential pitfalls that need to be taken seriously when planning to use games in teaching and learning. The model also highlights the importance of teaching about digital games to make students critically reflect about their production, content, use, and the ideological positions they offer. Different players play games differently and in doing so activate various possibilities for meaning and meaningful action. The scale of such play practices ranges from careful exploration of narratives and fictional worlds and characters to purely instrumental goal-oriented forms of engagement (gamer mode; see for instance Frank, 2012).

This inherent contingency of play practices needs to be considered by teachers who cannot simply rely upon their own play experiences when planning and implementing teaching with, through and about games. As many scholars have pointed out earlier, to make sense, game-use in educational settings needs to be carefully planned and tightly integrated in other classroom practices and curricular activities by game literate teachers (Linderoth, 2010; Westera, 2015; Becker & Gopin, 2016; Marklund et al., 2020; Marklund & Romin, 2020; Marklund & Taylor, 2016; Klevjer, 2021). Such requirements regarding teacher competences and overall integration need to be critically assessed prior to commencing with game-focused teaching sessions.

We will now develop a template for the critical evaluation of games as tools and objects for teaching and learning within humanities and social science subjects. Initially, however, we need to further disentangle some of the media specific affordances of games in comparison with other merely representational media such as films or novels.

Seeing and Doing: Games as Representations and Simulations

As Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) model shows, games operate as both representations and simulations. Consequently, one can study games with an eye on the cinematic means they employ to visualize and narrativize certain topics or one can explore how they allow players to maneuver through and interact with represented diegetic worlds and their characters. As we have argued above, the first focus area is mostly concerned with the sign level of cybermedia objects, while the second predominantly focuses on mechanical systems. Both these dimensions combined configure what McCall (2011, 2016) has termed an interactive problem space which players can engage with for educational or other purposes (see also Apperley, 2010).

Different games leave different degrees of freedom to players. Some have static pre-structured narratives that are driven forward by means of pre-scripted cutscenes and locked dialogue sequences. Others leave considerable freedom to players and allow them to autonomously develop characters and configure the narrative through their own choices. In relation to games with historical themes, this tension is encapsulated in Chapman’s (2016) distinction between realist and ludic simulation styles.

All games, however, demand player input.² The closed variant is well-suited to convey static knowledge about a certain topic and make them experienceable to players, while the open narrative structure facilitates free exploration and testing of a variety of available options for action and the consequences of these. For teaching and learning history, Uricchio (2011) and Chapman (2016) refer to the latter as affording players the opportunity to play with history and explore if and how things could have turned out differently – a strategy that invites critical reflection and includes counterfactual play. The interplay of representational and simulation aspects – including potential dissonances between them – is an important area of focus when determining if and how a certain title can be used for teaching and learning. Pötzsch and Šisler (2019) have developed a model that allows for a disentangling of the complexities of cultural communication of historical events in and through games.

To become intelligible and communicable, past events need to be articulated (White, 1980). Such articulations, again, with necessity imply mediation and a selection of what are perceived as the most salient features of a given subject highlighting some aspects while veiling others. This systematic reduction of complexity always happens in a certain context that inevitably colors the resulting cultural expression (Bogost, 2006; Uricchio, 2011). Attention to the choices of which variables to include into a certain representation or simulation and which to exclude is key to educational engagements with representations and simulations. All forms of realism are inherently selective and this selectivity is the core of their specific political bent and ideological valence (Pötzsch, 2017, 2022) that become important areas of critical interrogation also when planning the use of games for educational purposes.

In their model, Pötzsch and Šisler (2019) distinguish between representations and simulations of the past (see also Frasca, 2003). In representations, historical events are configured into a narrative that is then actively interpreted by situated audiences leading to a variety of different understandings framed by the formal properties of the work and the varying contexts of its reception. The resulting understandings feed back into historical discourse and memory politics that then influence later production and subsequent readings of these (figure 2).

Figure 2.

Historical representation (from Pötzsch & Šisler, 2019, p. 6).

In contrast to this, simulations introduce the additional segment of play between the components historical representation and interpretation thereby adding another layer of contingency – game mechanics and their pre-structuring of player input and performances. Regardless of how neatly configured a particular game is, player choices will always have a certain impact on how the story is told, unfolds, and can be witnessed by others, including struggles against an “implied player” (Aarseth, 2007) and transgressive attempts to cheat or break the game (Jørgensen & Karlsen, 2018). This fact is the very condition for McCall’s (2011, 2016) understanding of games as interactive problem spaces. It also constitutes the core of Pötzsch and Šisler’s (2019) model visualizing how constrained player actions lead to the emergence of different representations that are then interpreted to produce meanings that, ultimately, feed back into later acts of configuring, reconfiguring, and interpreting narratives (figure 3). In Chapman’s (2016) terms, this contingency upon player input enables historical games to function as arenas for metahistorical exploration and reflection.

Figure 3.

Historical simulation (from Pötzsch & Šisler, 2019, p. 7).

The models by Pötzsch and Šisler can be used when preparing game-based teaching sessions to raise awareness for media specific aspects of games and to alert to the various layers of contingency involved in representations and simulations. As such, the model can help to structure and focus educational endeavors and allows teachers to adequately balance own interventions and free student-driven exploration. It also allows for assessments of the interplay, tensions and possible contradictions between game mechanics and narrative (including ludo-narrative dissonances), and evaluations of how these might impact teaching and learning.

In the following section, we will show how insights drawn from the models we have introduced so far can be used to evaluate the suitability of specific game titles as both tools for and objects of teaching and learning.

Results: A Practice-Focused Template for the Evaluation of Games as Tools for and Objects of Teaching and Learning

We will now apply our theoretical framework to assess the applicability of two games for teaching and learning in humanities and social science subjects. Our inquiry will orient itself toward the four dimensions of the cybermedia model introduced above and will cover aspects of both representation and simulation. Finally, we will summarize key elements of the template in a table. We offer an overview over important aspects of games that teachers and learners need to assess and evaluate before using specific titles in educational contexts.

In our analysis and table, we draw upon the following aspects that align to both the cybermedia and the representation-simulation models (Table 1). The list is not comprehensive but indicative of some of the many issues that need to be reflected upon prior to using specific games for teaching and learning.

Table 1.

Key Aspects for The Planning of Teaching With, Through, and About Games.

	Teaching through / with	Teaching about
Materiality	• Commercial product: yes / no • Technical requirements: Hardware / software • Costs for schools / parents • School laws & regulations • Business model: Data collection / monetization / privacy • Lock-in / accustoming to specific corporate products • Educational version: yes / no • Educational resources: yes / no	• Economic conditions & implications: • Working conditions in games industry • Composition of development team (diversity) • Business model: Data collection / monetization / privacy • Distribution • Non-disclosure agreements (NDLs) • Ecological implications / sustainability • Energy & resource consumption / CO2 footprint • E-waste & pace of obsolescence
Sign system	• Ideological subtexts: subject-focused • Available roles & identities: subject-focused • Blank spots & invisibilities: subject-focused • Genre of game: content-based definitions • Provocative / toxic content: yes / no	• Ideological subtexts: general • Available roles & identities: general • Blank spots & invisibilities: general • Game genres: content-based definitions • Implied player of the game • Provocative or toxic content: yes / no • Emotionally challenging content: yes / no
Mechanical system	• Procedural rhetoric: subject-focused • Goals & affordances: subject-focused / attention management • Levels of difficulty / accessibility • Required playtime • Access to saves / teacher access to all levels? • Genre of game: mechanics-based definitions	• Procedural rhetoric: general • Goals & affordances: general / attention management • Game genres: mechanics-based definitions
Players	• Classroom settings • Game competence & literacy: Teachers & students • Player cultures, communities & discourses in class: Toxic & otherwise • Counter- / oppositional / toxic play in class • Accessibility: • a/v-triggers • language proficiency • interface design • offensive / provocative content • age restrictions	• Toxic player cultures, communities & discourses • Transmedia embedding • Game literacies • Transgressive / counter-play / toxic play • Modding / cheating
Representation / simulation	• Explorable problem spaces / pre-determined storyline: Subject-oriented • Player freedoms / limitations: Subject-oriented • Selective reduction of complexity / blind spots: subject-focused • Ludo-narrative dissonances: Implications for subject taught	• Explorable problem spaces / pre-determined storyline: General aspects • Player freedoms / limitations: General aspects • Selective reduction of complexity / blind spots: General aspects • Ludo-narrative dissonances: • General aspects • Problems / potentials

We will now demonstrate how such aspects can be reflected upon when planning to use specific games in educational contexts. We use both a relatively expensive commercial entertainment title – Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla – and a free-to-play publicly funded serious game – Survive the Century – to show the wide applicability of the analytical template. Note that even though many aspects at the levels of materiality, sign system, mechanics, and/or players should indicate a non-suitability of a particular title for teaching with or through games, the identified weaknesses might still be important to highlight when teaching about the title in question.

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (ACV)

ACV is a third-person action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft Montreal and released by Ubisoft Entertainment in November 2020. The title is set in the Viking age and inspired by historical events and characters. We will use the case of ACV to show how our template can be levied to evaluate how a commercial historical digital game can be used for educational purposes. In this endeavor we follow the logic introduced above and move along the four axes of materiality, sign, mechanical system and players, and flesh out both representational and simulation aspects.

Considering the level of materiality important aspects of ACV are the physical devices required to play the game. ACV is expensive and can only be played on costly and power-hungry state-of-the-art hardware. Three things are important to note for teachers and school administrators:

1. Are the necessary funds and administrative procedures in place to acquire both the game and the equipment needed to play it? Given the costs and technical requirements of ACV, it will be difficult to use it for anything other than play demonstrations on a screen during class. Asking all students to play it at home or hoping to acquire a class-size set of games to be played collectively during teaching sessions does not appear viable given the game’s violent content, its age restrictions (18+), and the significant amount of time required to play it through (20+ hours). Note also that no educational version is available that for instance would offer teachers access to all areas and features of the game.

2. ACV is a commercial product developed based on clear return-of-investment considerations. Using it in teaching requires the allocation of public-school budgets to the acquisition of an expensive commercial product. Using ACV also implies installing this commercial product on school hardware with all costs and potential problems regarding data capture, advertisements, and accustoming students to the game and the specific platform(s) it is played on (lock-in). The game requires expensive state-of-the-art hardware to play, but once installed functions without an Internet connection.

3. At the level of players it needs to be considered that not all students will be equally used to playing such action-focused and violent games that even at the lowest level of difficulty entail significant senso-motorial challenges. It is important to make sure that also the segment of class not interested in videogames or not used to playing these types of games are sufficiently included and that the teaching session takes heed of diversity amongst students. In addition, ACV is very violent and playing the game regularly requires killing other characters, a feature that might be experienced as unpleasant or provocative by some students, and that is prohibited by school regulations and law in most countries. Therefore, use of ACV in schools is limited to showing cut scenes or the collective exploring of areas of the game world that do not allow for violent actions.

Despite such limitations, ACV can offer interesting insights when taught about (rather than with). When teaching about the production context of the game, potential focus can be directed at the business models of global commercial game development, working conditions in the industry including issues such as global inequalities, crunch-time, the use of non-disclosure agreements, or the regular exclusion of women and non-cis identities. In this sense, the game is a useful example illustrating the production context of contemporary blockbuster games.

At the levels of sign and mechanics, issues of cultural representation and ideological subtexts can be critically addressed when teaching about the game. Here, it is important to show that analyses of game form merely offer insights into the aesthetic structures that predispose player action and understanding in a particular direction. This level of analysis does not deal with actual player responses and experiences in specific contexts. Teachers must make this distinction very clear to avoid conflicts with students playing with a different mind-set.

In ACV, players control a character navigating a three-dimensional world inspired by the historical Viking age. Besides the main storyline, ACV contains a series of quests designed to keep players engaged over long time periods through a simple effort-reward loop offering new or enhancing old abilities that make it easier to overcome the mostly violent challenges of the main quest forming the storyline. By such means, the game captures and holds the attention of players for long time periods.

The story of ACV is set in 9th century Norway and England as a popcultural rendition of the so-called ‘Viking’ era following similar conventions as recent television series set in the same historical period. Players take control of protagonist and hero Eivor Varinsdottir who is tasked to lead the Vikings’ invasion of England. Interestingly, the game lets players decide upon the gender of Eivor who can be played as either male or a female. Non-binary alternatives, however, are not available. This invites contemplations about game characters and their appearances in commercial triple-A productions.

In ACV, players encounter characters inspired by historical figures such as Alfred the Great and Ragnar Lothbrok and partake in a series of events that are based on actual historical incidents. The main features of the historical simulation are set imposing what Shaw (2015) has termed a “tyranny of realism” that presents one hegemonic version of a past reality and suppresses contingencies and ambivalences. ACV approaches history as the linear story of great men focusing on well-known historical figures rather than on persons or groups located at the margins. The game offers a hegemonic power fantasy to players where individual heroes overcome all odds through violent means (Hammar, 2020). The game enforces violent play and de-emphasizes alternative ways of resolving conflicts and interacting with others. Here, teachers have an opportunity to explain how both narrative and game mechanics can issue violent and bellicose ideological messages by predisposing player perceptions and actions and connect these insights to a critique of received genre conventions and their possible political implications.

Finally, the analytical level of player allows teachers to focus on actual play practices in context and how these either follow an intended dominant storyline and interaction pattern that is systematically invited by the game’s sign system and mechanics or negotiate and even oppose these in deliberate attempts to tweak the message or break the game. Taking heed of an active audience and dominant, negotiated, as well as oppositional play styles (Shaw, 2017) is important when teaching with and about ACV. Educators can focus on the contingencies inherent in the decoding of cultural representations and investigate the selective activation of game features by players in interactive simulation spaces. Games work on and predispose player actions and understandings by various means but also always open for struggles against the “implied player” of the game (Aarseth, 2007) through for instance transgressive play styles (Pötzsch, 2019).

The idiosyncratic nature of gameplay is important to consider also in a different manner when planning to teach with or through ACV. When playing the game either collectively or individually, students might not follow the path intended by the teacher or the game, thereby potentially undermining the previously planned outcome and results. This contingency of play is one of the main differences between teaching with, through and about videogames as opposed to other audio-visual media such as film, streamed series, or television. In addition, it is important to critically evaluate the suitability of the game for different groups of students in terms of age restrictions, inclusiveness, and accessibility. When using titles such as ACV, significant differences between players used to engaging with such titles and those with little to no interest in them will probably be significant and might also include aspects of toxic gamer culture in transmedia environments beyond the limits of the game. This problem can be alleviated by teaching about the game with an eye on reflective critique to offer students critical insights about the game, the genre it belongs to, and the transmedia contexts it is embedded in.

Survive the Century (STC)

Survive the Century is a choice-based branching narrative game about climate change developed as a free educational resource with the support of the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center at the University of Maryland and the UK-based Global Challenges Research Fund. Players are put into the position of a senior editor of “the world’s most popular and most trusted news organization” with the “enviable power to set the news agenda and thereby shift the zeitgeist” (STC website). Exposed to different ways of covering key global issues such as the Covid-19 pandemic, a green shift in the economy, or global inequalities players can decide upon the future course of the world and witness the consequences of their decisions in short pieces of creative writing presented to them before being exposed to new challenges. The game has been hailed for its upbeat take on the issue of climate change policies and its ability to engage players through its witty style.

STC easily lends itself to teaching sessions at an upper-secondary level that focus on challenges posed by climate change, growing inequalities and pandemics, and connected to this about tensions between populist positions and responsible political action. Due to this thematic frame, the game is particularly well-suited for use in social science subjects. Furthermore, its creative style and at times elaborate writing also makes it suitable for teaching English. When using STC, teachers can either project the game on a screen and engage in discussions about each choice-alternative and its potential consequences with the entire class or, if the necessary equipment is available, invite group or individual play and exchange experiences in subsequent de-briefing sessions. As the remainders of this section will show, however, using STC does not only enable a teaching with, but also requires a teaching about the game, its specific frames, ideology, and inherent blind-spots. To address this, we will again follow the template we developed from the models by Aarseth and Calleja (2015) as well as Pötzsch and Šisler (2019) to structure our evaluation of STC as a potential teaching tool.

At the level of materiality, STC appears very suitable for classroom-use. The game was publicly funded, and development therefore remained free from return-of-investment considerations that might lead to clandestine data collection, profiling, and tacit advertisement directed at players. STC is free to play and distribute and does not require allocations of school funds or payments by parents. The game only needs minor computational capacities and is playable on almost any screen-based device that can connect to the Internet making it widely accessible to students. It requires only minimal network capacities and is therefore quite resilient against Internet bottlenecks. Since STC is browser-based it does not require installation but can be accessed through programs already installed on school hardware. However, the title might be blocked by school fire walls sensitive towards online games.

In terms of sign and mechanics STC appears problematic in that it builds its argument on a series of implicit premises that need to be problematized in sessions of teaching about the game prior to or after teaching about climate change with the game. Firstly, STC is based on a problematic notion of media effect that assumes that senior editors are free of constraints in the decisions they make, that their decisions will have immediate effect on the content produced, and that this content will effectuate a shift in audiences, and therefore policy. By these means the game from the outset suppresses attention to problems connected to the political economy of commercial news production and dissemination (see for instance Hall, 1977; Herman & Chomsky 2002).

Secondly, STC reduces complex and contingent challenges with multiple and dynamic global effects to a series of unambiguous choices to be made by editors alleging the availability of simple solutions with straightforward and easily identifiable effects. The game too clearly marks certain choices as bad and thereby creates a caricatured version of climate change politics that can be entertaining but ultimately do a disservice to attempts to understand its actual intricacies and real complexities offering a perspective on the world that can rightfully be criticized as naive. However, if such issues are treated with care and brought to the awareness of students, the game can still solicit heightened awareness and even practical involvement through the content offered on the game website including links to additional information, local climate pressure groups, and more. These features, however, will require continued updates to retain their usefulness.

Thirdly, STC’s game mechanics base available choices on pre-selected alternatives that are by necessity exclusive. Consequently, the implicit ideology of the game also emerges at the level of what is not shown to be existing alternatives for action. This becomes palpable already in the first option presented in the game that focuses on responses to the Covid-19 crisis in terms of vaccines. An implicit neoliberal capitalist bias here reveals itself through the fact that the only alternatives available to players to solve the vaccine shortages in the Global South are donations by either states or billionaires. Initiatives to remove patents from vaccines to make these affordable to poor nations are not even mentioned. At the same time, the very problem description preceding the choice alternative reveals a colonial bias. The game states:

But poor countries, who haven’t been able to afford vaccines, are seeing wave after wave of the virus. Experts are worried that it’s continuing to mutate and to become more aggressive. They say our best chance is to get the whole world vaccinated.

The most aggravating problem, it seems, is a possible mutation of the virus potentially endangering affluent parts of the world rather than millions of dead people in the nations ravaged by a preventable disease because vaccines are unaffordable. These two examples show the problematic aspects of a selective reduction of complexity (Bogost, 2006; Uricchio, 2011; Pötzsch, 2017) implied by simulations of real-world processes and points to the fact that STC has been made by affluent citizens for affluent citizens of the world selectively disregarding the fates and immediate interests of the vast majority of humans populating this planet.

Even given such problematic aspects of the game at the level of sign and mechanics and their interplay, STC can still be used productively in teaching. This, however, implies the necessity to teach not only with but also about the game in a critical manner thus alerting students to the problems identified above and enabling them to critically assess not only STC but also other representations and simulations that make arguments about the world. Teaching about the game might carry the additional challenge that the theme of Covid-19 and vaccination can be a divisive and polarizing issue in class. We perceive this challenge also as an opportunity to discuss important aspects of contemporary politics and society including issues such as fake news and the nature of trust in democratic societies.

At the level of players not much can be said about STC. Gameplay is keyboard-based and accessible to most. However, playing the game requires advanced reading skills and a high proficiency in English. The game offers players the ability to make decisions that are clearly framed as wrong thereby attempting to include efforts of counter-play into its pre-designed choices making it easier for teachers to predict possible alternative forms of play. It would be an interesting endeavor to trace the actual responses by students including transgressive attempts to exceed the borders of accepted discourse in contentious issues such as Covid or climate change thus connecting students’ resistance to an implied player (Aarseth, 2007) with trans-medial realms and wider socio-political contexts.

Having exemplified our approach with reference to ACV and STC, we will now move on to summarize our template for the evaluation of games for teaching and learning in form of a table. Here, we will offer schematic assessments of additional games to show how the template can be operationalized by teachers and other educators helping them to identify suitable titles for educational purposes in a critical and reflective manner.

Evaluating the suitability of computer games for teaching and learning is a difficult endeavor that needs to be taken seriously. The purpose of the template presented in the following is to make it easier for teachers and other educators to identify salient issues and critically assess how specific games can best be utilized for classroom use. Different questions raised under each component of the cybermedia model can reveal different issues relevant for different games and for different ways of teaching with, through, and about them. It is not our intention that identified problems and challenges should lead teachers to discard specific titles and not use them for teaching purposes, but to help teachers evaluate which games are suitable for precisely what types of teaching and learning.

The template is divided along the four sections of Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) cybermedia model – sign/narrative, mechanics, materiality, and players – and, following Pötzsch and Šisler (2019), distinguishes between representational and simulation aspects of the titles. Our model is not meant to be comprehensive, but to highlight key aspects that should be considered before using games in class. We encourage others to expand the template and add further components considered important for the evaluation of game-use for teaching and learning (Table 2).

Table 2.

Teaching with, Through, and About Specific Games: Issues and Concerns.

	Sign	Mechanics	Materiality	Player	Representation / simulation
Assassin's Creed: Valhalla (Ubisoft Montreal 2020)	Conventional image of historical era Violent power fantasy History is the result of great men’s deeds Male / female player character Predominantly audio-visual presentation Selectively realist depiction of violence	Predominantly violent interaction with other characters Other characters usually reduced to mere threats Playful activities with simple reward-mechanisms increase playtime	Expensive commercial title Requires advanced hardware No Internet access required to play Very long play time No educational version High energy consumption Accustoming to commercial platform / console High pace of obsolescence	Requires high play proficiency Potentially offensive content (violence) Not suitable for neuro-diverse players Rated 18+ in many countries Potentially toxic gamer communities Game literacy of teacher & students?	Map-based: Limited explorability High accuracy in historical background settings Ludo-narrative dissonance between accuracy in representation and violent mechanics Six different endings
Survive the Century (Beckbessinger et al. 2021)	Neo-liberal / capitalist bias Colonial gaze on Global South Assumes direct media impact Naïve choice-alternatives Unsophisticated good-bad distinctions The weaknesses above can be taught about Entertaining style Predominantly written presentation	Limited player freedom Pre-set paradigm of choices narrows down available alternatives for action Choice-alternatives invite reductive understandings of complex problems Branching narrative	Non-commercial title Browser-based game No installation Requires Internet access to play No costs Publicly funded Educational resources available Low energy consumption Low pace of obsolescence Relatively limited playtime	Requires high reading skills (English) Easy to use No age rating Potentially divisive and polarizing content	No free exploration Pre-determined narrative threads Limited number of possible endings clearly marked as good and bad
Minecraft (Mojang Studios 2011)	Generic blocks let players build widely different worlds Rudimentary storyline in deliberately unreal settings	Different modes allow for many playstyles Enables creative exploration Free building option motivates creative engagement Sandbox creates secure environment	Commercial title Free-to-play alternative Enables subscription and lock-in Crowd-sourced resources available Requires Internet access & large servers to play Energy-intensive Premium purchase with added monetization through micro-transactions & expansions Follows the Games as a Service model	Easy to use, quick to learn Enables creative play & collective endeavors	Free exploration Creative interventions individually and group-based Different modes allow for many different activities
My Child: Lebensborn (Sarepta Studio 2018)	Based on true stories about children with German fathers in post-WWII Norway Represents traumatic historical experiences Casts light on veiled part of Norwegian war history	Pre-set alternatives for communication with main characters Long playtime Possible to select a boy or a girl for adoption	Commercial title with public funding from Norwegian institutions Mobile phone game No Internet access required to play Low costs Publicly funded Potential problems regarding data collection Low energy consumption Low pace of obsolescence No educational version / resources	Easy to use Norwegian, English, Arabic, French and Polish language No age rating Might trigger traumatic memories of victims of bullying Emotionally challenging content	No free exploration Choice-alternatives lead to limited number of outcomes
Among the Sleep (Krillbite Studio 2014)	Represents how neglect is perceived by a toddler Suggests that memories can be repressed and retrieved Potentially oversimplified portrayal of father-figure Contains elements of horror	Limited number of possible actions enables progress Takes approximately 2-3 hours to finish Replicates mechanics of horror games	Commercial product Moderate costs No subscription or data-gathering Available for several platforms No Internet access required Ideally requires good speakers Moderate energy consumption No educational version Low rate of obsolescence	Requires some skills to play efficiently English sound, subtitles in several different languages Addresses sensitive topics Horror elements can be frightening to some students Age rating: 12+	Map based / limits player exploration Same ending regardless of player choices Potential dissonance between horror elements and seriousness of narrative
This War of Mine (11 Bit Studios 2015)	Focuses on civilians in war Features genuine ethical dilemmas Avoids heroism Shows multi-dimensional consequences of war Focus on scarce resources Generic Eastern European setting can serve stereotypes of the Balkans One version contains children as NPCs	Resource management mechanics Mechanics deliberately make fighting difficult Lack of tutorial to reflect unpreparedness of civilians in war No save option / no trial-and-error experimentation No educational version / educational resources Modding center allows for changes at level of processes and variables	Commercial game Relatively low costs Requires average hardware Low energy consumption Can be played on smartphones & pads No Internet access required to play Modding center requires console Relatively short playtime Low pace of obsolescence	Instrumental play can undermine intended message of the game Content can be depressing and trigger war traumas Suffering of child NPCs can be seen as offensive Age rating 16 / 18 Lack of tutorial and save options can be frustrating Comparably high demands on game literacy of teachers & students	No free exploration Potential dissonance between represented human suffering and resource management logics Quantitative variables imply reductive understanding of complex emotions and experiences
Roblox (Roblox Corporation 2006)	Various three-dimensional games can be created & played Platform & toolset for game creation & exchange	Enables creation and play of various games Includes shop with purchasable products Results predisposed by Roblox’s software toolsets Influenced by monetization strategies Propagates entrepreneurial mindset Enables collaboration & chat	Tacit monetization of products created by users Shop invites consumption of virtual products Potentials for lock-in Requires Internet access & server power Low hardware requirements Continuous updates of content & frames provided	Users targeted as both creators & consumers Enables creative exchange & cooperation as well as monetization & competition Might enable toxic communities Age rating 7+ / 12+	Tensions between roles of players, creators & consumers

Discussion and Conclusion

We live in a “ludic century” (Zimmerman, 2013, n.p.). Today, games, and in particular digital games, can be found almost everywhere. They are a dominant cultural form used both for entertainment and many other more serious purposes by a rapidly growing number of people across the globe. Also education has become an important arena for the use of games. Such developments pose important questions to teachers, school administrators, and parents: Which games should be used in teaching and for which purposes? What are potential pitfalls and unintended consequences of bringing commercial and/or educational titles into the classroom? Once we start to use games in class, what types of activities are we diverting time and resources away from to make room for this new cultural form?

In the present article, we attempted to respond to such questions by developing a template for the critical evaluation of games as potential tools and objects of teaching and learning. Drawing upon Aarseth and Calleja’s (2015) cybermedia model as well as Pötzsch and Šisler’s (2019) distinction between representational and simulational aspects of digital games, we have proposed a framework enabling teachers and other educators to identify potentials and problematic aspects of specific commercial or educational titles. We argued for the necessity to critically reflect upon contingencies of game-use across a variety of dimensions including ideological biases, blank spots, business models, exploitative practices, privacy settings, accessibility, toxic play, sustainability, and more. We argued that besides directing attention to teaching with and through games also teaching about them rapidly develops into a key aspect of contemporary education situated in a world dominated by ludic forms.

We hope the template can serve as an orienting guiding light helping educators, administrators, parents, and others to maneuver through the shifting terrains of game-use in educational contexts in a reflective manner. We believe in the practical applicability of our framework, yet do not assume its completeness. The template contains many different categories and will, in and through its practical implementation, be changed, amended, and gradually improved and adapted to new contexts. It is vital that this happens in continued close cooperation between researchers and practitioners using the presented tools.

As a first step toward further improvement, we will present the model to groups of teachers and school administrators during in-depth focus and planning days in upper-secondary schools. During these events, we initially explain our framework and offer an empty table only containing the dimensions of the cybermedia model. We then add specific game titles and evaluation criteria in cooperation with the attendant professionals. Through this iterative process, we can solicit experiences and insights from practitioners while at the same time conveying elements of our template that the groups might not be aware of thus improving practice and adding new content to our framework. As a second step, we will work with colleagues from teacher education to develop the template further and, finally, publish it online as a freely available teaching tool including a commentary section inviting for new suggestions and further elaboration. By these means, we hope to enable a lasting impact of our findings and a continuing development and improvement of our ideas and concepts in close alignment with practitioners and other researchers.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Holger Pötzsch

Notes

Author Biographies

Holger Pötzsch, PhD, is professor in Media and Documentation Studies at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. His research focuses on media and violent conflict (in particular film and videogames), critical literacies, as well as digital culture and technologies. He currently serves as co-editor-in-chief of the journal Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture.

Therese Holt Hansen, MA, is a teacher in Social Sciences and Norwegian at Ishavsbyen upper-secondary school in Tromsø, Norway. She holds an M.A. in History from UiT The Arctic University of Norway and completed her practical pedagogical education at Nord University in Bodø, Norway. Her field of research comprises history, pedagogy, and digital technologies in education. She has published in journals such as Historisk Tidsskrift and Norsk Medietidsskrift.

Emil Lundedal Hammar, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Game Culture Studies at Tampere University and works as a researcher at The Royal Danish Academy Of Fine Arts in Copenhagen. His fields of expertise comprise game studies, political economy, critical race and postcolonial theory, as well as cultural memory studies, He currently focuses on labor conditions in the Nordic game industries.

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Digital Games as Media for Teaching and Learning: A Template for Critical Evaluation

Abstract

Background

Theory and Method

Aims

Results

Discussion and Conclusion

Keywords

Introduction

Background

Theory and Method

Game Ontology: What Are Games and Why Does It Matter?

Seeing and Doing: Games as Representations and Simulations

Results: A Practice-Focused Template for the Evaluation of Games as Tools for and Objects of Teaching and Learning

Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (ACV)

Survive the Century (STC)

Discussion and Conclusion

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iD

Notes

Author Biographies

References