Abstract
As video games become a ubiquitous part of today's culture internationally, as educators and parents we need to turn our attention to how video games are being understood and used in informal and formal settings. Serious games have developed as a genre of video games marketed for educating youth about a range of world issues. At face value this seems a worthwhile enterprise; however, how is this genre viewed by youth who are immersed in video game culture? This paper explores what can be learned by inviting a group of youth to play and analyze current “serious” games. Key findings include adolescents’ comments on how serious games compare to mainstream entertainment-based games and how world issues are represented in games. Implications from this research suggest that serious game designers need to pay attention to the perceptions and experiences of gamers if video games are going to be developed as instructional tools for youth and children.
Introduction
In recent decades, parents, educators, health practitioners, and the media have expressed many concerns about video games. However, video games are becoming a ubiquitous aspect of 21st-century society, which has turned the discussion from the negative concerns to focusing on the best ways to use video games. Educators and technology programmers have taken up the challenge of figuring out ways to use video games for “good”, that is, as acceptable forms of education and routes to learning rather than entertainment. The emergence of “serious” or “E-E” (entertainment–education) games offers potential for conceptualizing video games in more mainstream ways, but the development of this new genre of games also creates critical questions. In this paper we will examine the rising field of “serious games” through the perspective of young adults with a range of experience with commercial video games. We investigate and problematize underlying beliefs regarding “serious” and “good”, particularly in relation to notions of “games” and “play” through participants’ examination of Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013). Finally, we initiate conversation about the question, “What is ‘good’ about serious games, what is being learned, and how is learning enhanced through their use?”
Problematizing “serious” games
The term “serious games” refers to a wide range of simulations and games that attempt to address important societal issues, such as world hunger, homelessness, and national catastrophe. Serious games are used in a wide range of educational and training environments, including military, medical, social, and political spaces. For example, Immune Attack (Federation of American Scientists, 2011) allows high school students to experience the challenge of defending the human body against invading antigens; PeaceMaker (Impact Games, 2010), a game created by students at Carnegie Mellon University, lets Palestinians and Israelis switch roles to better understand each other’s plight; and the United Nation World Food Program’s Food Force, described as the first humanitarian video game (World Food Program, 2009), teaches youth about the difficulties of delivering aid to the developing world (Schollmeyer, 2006: 35). Similar serious games or simulations are now being utilized for training medical response teams, firefighters, and law enforcement personnel, enabling users to make potentially life-threatening decisions without real-world repercussions, termed by Rejeski (2004) as “failing softly”.
Although some serious games are sophisticated play spaces, others are less complex and immersive than many commercial games. While some popular commercial video game contents are seen to be based on violent and misogynistic themes within fictional storylines, serious game designers develop learning environments offering sanctioned ways to assist with learning by navigating through digital worlds. Capitalizing on games’ abilities to “promote challenges, cooperation, engagement, and the development of problem-solving strategies” (Gros, 2007: 23), serious game designers utilize strategizing, hypothesis testing, or problem-solving, usually with higher order thinking rather than rote memorization or simple comprehension. Characteristics of such games include a system of rewards and goals to motivate players, a narrative context that situates activity and establishes rules of engagement, learning content that is relevant to the narrative plot, and interactive cues that prompt learning and provide feedback (Dondlinger, 2007: 22).
However, the content of these games or simulations can sometimes present a simplification of reality, and can pose themes in ways that hold particular ideological values and perspectives. Our purpose in this paper is to disrupt the potentially simplistic discussions of commercial and educational/serious games that result in polarizing definitions of games, such as serious/not-serious, good/bad, work/play. We will further discuss the potential of all games, commercial as well as serious, to enable deep learning to occur. As Gee (2005: 4) comments: A good instructional game that followed the model I have described would pick its domain of authentic professionalism well, intelligently select the skills and knowledge to be distributed, build in a related value system as integral to game play, and clearly relate any explicit instructions to specific contexts and situations. There are many other ways to accomplish these goals, and there is much to learn from good commercial games, many of which are serious games, indeed.
Serious games are, by virtue of their moniker and content, thought to be “good” as they address global issues and are seemingly free from the violence of commercial games—however, they contain discourse and ideologies that are problematic and often left unquestioned, for example, the game title, Third World Farmer (3rd World Farmer Team, 2012) uses outdated and colonial terminology. Another serious game, Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013), is framed around the following questions: “What is it like to live in poverty, struggling every day to stay healthy, keep out of debt, and get educated?” Although the intent of the game is to provide a new perspective about the challenges for Haitians, the title frames life as being measured solely in monetary terms. As one of our participants commented: [The serious game] The Cost of Life gives you real insight though because we’re so sheltered and we’ve got such a different standard of living, but it almost changes the goal point because in the game you’re worried about their happiness, their education. In Haiti they’re just worried about making it to tomorrow. It introduces it to you but it sugarcoats it as well.
Another participant commented, “I also don’t think every Haitian family has a friend in America who gives them money. Bundles of money. Or a farm.”
Serious design
A great draw for educators in regards to serious games is that the game is “good”; that is, the game addresses social and/or curricular issues and has a clear objective. However, a significant challenge for the serious game movement is to both disrupt and explore the word “good” and to communicate to the interested public what defines a “good” game. As De Freitas (2006) advances, there is a lack of clarity surrounding vocabulary and principles between educators, researchers, and designers who attempt to create educational, or serious, games for young people. Further, James Gee (2005b: 1) asks the question, “What would a state of the art instructional game look like?”, arguing that the serious game movement often neglects the deep and powerful principles of learning observed in many leisure (commercial) games. He suggests that it is not necessarily a lack of financial resources that results in less immersive games, but rather “the failure … is often one of imagination as well as continued allegiance to bad theories of learning” (p.1). Where this problem is most clearly demonstrated is in the response from young people towards (some) serious games, seen in the comments in the following section. There seems to be a heavy disbelief among educators and educational game designers that commercial games give youth opportunities to be immersed in deep learning and complex problem-solving (Gee, 2005a; Squire, 2008b). They also struggle to accept that these principles of “good games” (Gee, 2005a) should be attended to in serious game design.
Investigating serious games
The participants of this study that focused on exploring youths’ perceptions of serious games were 11 male and female youth, both gamers and non-gamers, who have been involved in a larger four-year research study related to engagement with video games. They were asked to play several “serious games” over the course of two afternoons and were invited, through a written survey and a focus group, to discuss their experience with the games. Several games were made available to them, including Darfur is Dying (mtvU, 2008), Food Force (WFP, 2009), and Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013); all games were promoted on the Games for Change website.
Methodology
As a result of our three-year relationship with the participants, we were able to engage in thoughtful analytical conversations with them about the serious games we had asked them to play, particularly Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013). We utilized an open-ended survey to enable the participants to initially gather their thoughts, consisting of the following questions: What do you think is the purpose of this game? What is enjoyable to play about this game? What is the playability and/or game design like? What is the point or goal of the game? What did you learn by playing this game? Are there differences between the games you usually play and this game? What does this game say about people? Do you see any stereotypes about people? Do you think this game is educational? Why? How is this game more “serious” than other games, i.e., commercial games? What is your opinion of the game?
We then followed up, on two occasions a month apart, with “collaborative conversation” in order to elicit in-depth discussion about the game itself and the participants’ responses to the game. The collaborative conversations (Hollingsworth, 1994) that ensued went beyond informative talk to enable both participants and researchers to focus on the concerns that arose from their game play and survey questions. Collaborative conversations enabled all participants to value their “lived experiences and emotions as knowledge” (Hollingsworth, 1994: 43) and to include their “biographical connections and differences” as important aspects of the conversations. The participants recognized this space as one where they could share without risk of receiving disempowering feedback and that enabled “relational knowledge” (Hollingsworth, 1994) to emerge through sharing of experiences and reflecting upon them in a collective.
The collaborative quality of these conversations, including talking, listening, reflecting, and responding, takes on a game-like quality, where ideas are played with and create a pleasurable experience. Through collaborative conversations, new understandings emerge; further, the nature of conversation as a process of talking, listening, reflection, and responding, through questioning, anecdote-telling, and other discourse genres, suggests that it is a critical process (Gadamer, 1992).
Ayiti: The Cost of Life—game context
This game is intended to enable players to “understand conditions in contemporary Haiti and how poverty is an obstacle to education.” This game was particularly salient during the time of the study as it followed the 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster. The game’s homepage screen provides the following information: Your goal in this game is to help a Haitian family get an education and improve their lives. The Guinard family is living in a quite impoverished condition so survival will be hard and getting an education at the same time will be very challenging. But it’s up to you to help this family to live a better life.
The game progresses with the player moving the family members from location to location based on the information the game gives them, similar to a board game. Each season comes with additional information about the conditions of the Haitian people and how these affect their living situation. Depending on the choices the player makes, money might be earned or spent, education achieved, health improved or worsened, and the level of happiness increased or decreased. If the player can keep the family alive until the end of the four-year/16-season period, the game is won. Keeping the family alive involves earning money, getting an education, and remaining healthy and happy. If the parents both fall ill, the game is over.
A not-so-serious design
When asked to critique the game described above, Ayiti: The Cost of Life, (Global Kids, 2013), initially the participants barely commented on the social issues and problematic assumptions of the content of the game, that is, the seemingly desperate life of a Haitian family. Rather, they were quick and articulate in critiquing the game design at length. To one not familiar with game culture and learning it may seem that the participants were missing the point of the question. However, the efficacy of the game design is extremely significant to how the participants engage in and understand the content. As one participant, Mike, suggests, “It’s a good idea but if it’s not executed well enough the message won’t get across, because people won’t be interested in it.”
Over the four-year course of research with these participants, we have learned much about what makes an immersive experience, and that the opportunity for immersion is a significant property of what ultimately makes a game “good”. Participants commented on (at least) three properties of immersion, as we understand the term, and although there are more different and overlapping points of critique regarding this game, these three points were prevalent in our conversations: (1) time spent; (2) realism; and (3) complex problem-solving.
Time spent
The game Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013) does not take a very long time to play. For some educators that may be preferable, as they can offer it to a class in one lesson period and everyone would get a chance to play through it. For the designers, they wanted to show how quickly the game ends (e.g., all the people in your Haitian family die) as there is seemingly only one route out of poverty, which is education, and this must be obtained through the sacrifice of your family members’ lives. However, marketed as a game for digitally savvy youth used to playing very sophisticated and strategic long-term games, the brevity of the game hinders their engagement. Jason: If it was delivered effectively, it has power behind it to actually change your opinion. Nolan: Which gets back to the fact that the game takes two minutes to beat – you’re not going to remember that … But I think for something to be like educational it kinda needs to be there for a prolonged amount of time. Like that game, yeah, it probably needs to teach you something but you play it for two minutes and you forget what you just learned right? Modern Warfare 2 [commercial game] – I mean, sure they probably don’t count it as a “serious game” but that’s something that might actually happen, like … who knows, we could have a nuclear war and it could end up like that. In my opinion I kinda think that Modern Warfare 2 is giving more awareness than that game. In my opinion, but …
When we (the authors) think about powerful learning experiences, often we think back to times where we felt some mastery, some depth of knowing, and immersion. That is, we often remember “the sensation of being surrounded by a completely other reality, as different as water is from air, that takes over all of our attention, our whole perceptual apparatus” (Murray, 1997: 98-99). This description of immersion from Janet Murray (1997) is a good one to connect to what makes for “good” learning, and is a very different experience than what the participants sensed in playing the Ayiti game.
Realism
Over the past years, we have struggled to understand just what the participants meant when they used the word “realistic” to describe games. For example, when asked why they like a particular fantasy game where one wizard-type avatar kills another, they might say that they are more interested in it because it is more “realistic” than another game that might have human characters. Over many conversations, we now know that realism for our participants relates to a variety of design elements, rather than how closely the game content mirrors “real” life. Some examples of these design elements include the physics engines employed in the design that make the environment react in a more believable way (e.g., if a car runs into a brick wall the bricks fall in an appropriate way and the car is damaged at the corresponding places); the characters moving in believable ways and the player seeing a 360 degree view of the character (rather than blocky avatars whose legs do not move as they travel around the environment); and the storyline moving in believable, fluid, and often detailed ways. These are just a few ways of interpreting the word realistic used by participants. Realistic properties help the player/learner to connect to the game and immerse themselves in problems therein.
The immediate critique from the participants in regards to Ayiti: The Cost of Life was that it was not realistic, and some even felt that the lack of realism given to the game disrespected the very serious and upsetting nature of the content. Scott: I would have been a lot less critical if it hadn’t been so cartoon-y though. Like, if it was a bit more … aesthetically like the circumstances in Haiti then maybe I would have liked it more. Because it’s a bit more realistic. Jon: And how cartoon-y they made it. They’re like, yea! (cheers) Different voices: Yea, go to work! Happiness! (All laughing and making jokes). Researcher: Would you play it seriously? Or would you just do it to get it done. Nolan: I’d play it to win. April: Yeah, if winning brought me marks [in school], then I would. Nolan: Yeah, you’re not doing it for the [Haitian] people.
Complex problem-solving
“Good” video games offer a series of complex problems that are well-ordered and scaffolded (Gee, 2005a). These problems can be approached in multiple ways, and those who are immersed in video games are involved in regular risk-taking, failure, and constant re-trying. They become more comfortable with the process of taking risks in solving difficult situations posed by the game play (Sanford and Madill, 2007; Sanford and Merkel, 2011; Gee, 2003, 2005a; Norton-Meier, 2005; Squire, 2008a, 2008b). The majority of participants in our study enjoy strategizing to meet difficult problems, and found Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013) to be very limiting in terms of problem-solving. Jon: I was thinking one of the problems [with the game] was there’s not really very many ways to win; there’s only one strategy. Researcher: Which is? Scott: To work. Nolan: Yeah, send them all to high paying jobs, and if their health goes below 4 send them to the clinic. Scott: Don’t let them get sick. Jon: Yeah, it’s really, really hard to get education. Which I guess is supposed to represent a real situation, like it’s hard, but it wasn’t really that hard once you figured out the way to beat it. And there was only one really good way to beat it. You only really have a chance of four things to do, which gets repetitive. Researcher: So do you think, would a game that was talking about homelessness, that was obviously a sophisticated game like that, would that be appealing? Hanna: Possibly cause the challenge is there. Can you survive? Other player: Yeah, as long as … Hanna: Cause then it also has the opportunity to make a joke of it. Cause when people, if they do become homeless or they see a homeless person they can laugh it off and say oh well I know what they need to do to survive – thinking of the circumstances in the game – there it’s provided. When you’re actually in real life and you have to find it or create that circumstance.
Hanna advises that educational games, in order to attract and engage more people, must be more intricate and complex in terms of problem-solving, but another element of care must be the ways in which facts and supporting information are offered. Gee (2005a), in his explanation of good problems, advances that good video game design does not give all the information to players up front, but rather, as the game progresses and when needed. According to the participants, this quality of “information on demand or just in time”, as Gee calls it, is an outstanding deficit of Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013). Jake: I think the Haiti [game] may not exactly raise as much awareness as it might want to ‘cause, I think when we play that game we don’t actually read all the instructions and read all the information about the game. And we don’t really see the aspects of the game and the aspects in real life [as corresponding], we just see that’s an obstacle, that’s an objective, we don’t actually see what they are, we just see “oh we need to do that or we need to avoid this”, and we don’t really pay attention to what they are … One thing that would probably make the game better is, it just seems so simple and there’s not much that it’s really telling you. So if once you reach a certain goal it could tell you snippets of information or maybe little bits of information about certain kinds of things that Haitian people have to go through or perhaps statistics or something.
Jake’s critique of what is missing in the game aligns with our previous observations of what makes a good game wherein learners are engaged and invested in not only strategizing for and solving the problems in the game, but also in the development and dynamics of the characters. Further, we notice, through Jake’s critique, that many educational games, including Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013), seem to force more conventional concepts of literacy on a video game framework. That is, the game is heavy on fact pages written in lengthy paragraphs that are presented up front. The informational text is not contextual to the movement of the game or the problems presented, and players do not need to read it in order to easily beat the game. What little information that is presented during the game, presumably for educational/informative purposes, appears at unpredictable intervals and often quickly disappears before it can be read.
The three critiques the participants had of the game outlined above (time spent, realism, and complex problem-solving) are examples of the ways in which these youth actively engage in analyzing (mostly commercial) games on a regular basis. They are both familiar and sophisticated analysts with digital literacies, as we see in every research session and on the online forums regarding this research. This observation disrupts the idea that their game play outside of educational games is not already a serious endeavor. Rather, “the contrast between play and seriousness is always fluid … .Play turns to seriousness and seriousness turns to play” (Huizinga, 1955/1998: 8). By silo-ing educational games into a serious games genre, perhaps educational game design teams forget that “good”, immersive play is an experience offered only by good game design. In fact, consider the following ironic answer from one participant in relation to this serious game: Researcher: What is your opinion of this game? Nolan: Silly.
The importance of an immersive environment for creating opportunities for players to be informed and emotionally connected to important issues cannot be understated. If the focus of serious games is to provide new vehicles for education, game designers need to create opportunities for players to fully engage with the game’s virtual world in order for them to fully appreciate the depth and complexity of issues and be able to move towards greater understanding and recognition of how to act. As noted by Gee (2005a: 3): … the player is immersed in specific activities, values, and ways of seeing. And the player is supported by the knowledge built into the virtual characters and the weapons, equipment, and environments in the game. The player is supported, as well, by explicit instructions given at the precise moment that they can be understood within a specific context of action (i.e., explicit information is given “just in time” or “on demand”). The learner is not presented with knowledge devoid of context, nor is the learner left to his or her own devices to rediscover the foundations of a professional practice that took hundreds of years to develop. Thus, our paradox of learning is solved.
Serious discourse
Language is powerful in shaping what and how we learn. Discourse, in spoken or written form, is often used in society as a means of control and maintenance of power. Discourse analysis, using a critical lens, can identify ideologies and power relations that exist and are maintained through language. In exploring the potential of “serious games” to increase youth’s awareness of significant worldwide issues, we have examined the discourse that underpins serious games and suggests particular worldviews and ideologies. As mentioned earlier, the visual cartoon-like representation messages to youth lack the seriousness of the game content. The language used also suggests a stance that players are to take while engaging with the game.
Game discourse
The game Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013) requires the player to select one of four game-playing strategies at the outset of the game: Health – health is the most important thing to take care of—if the whole family is dead, you lose. Education – getting an education is all that matters—that’s how you get better jobs and win the game. Happiness – you can’t have everything but if you watch your health, get some education and work hard, you can succeed. Money – the way to win the game is to make as much money as possible—no matter what.
Education is presented as critical to having a better life; however, the mitigating factors (hurricanes, rainy season, disease) are not mentioned as significant factors that independent effort cannot overcome. In fact, these factors are treated in a somewhat flippant manner: “Your family spent its last dollar. That means you’ve had to cut back on your living expenses. You’ll be living poorly until you can get your heads above water”, accompanied by a picture of rag tents depicting desperate poverty or “Resting this season didn’t help. You still got a cold. It’s no big deal, but you’re definitely not healthy. Too bad you don’t have money for the clinic”. The opportunity for an education, despite the clear message that it is the only hope that Haitian children have, is highly unlikely without outside intervention. As documented in supporting materials for the game, “Despite its potential for eradicating poverty, universal primary education remains a great challenge in many countries’ – because of four main factors: inability to physically reach a classroom; inability to pay school fees; inadequate school facilities and resources; and poorly educated parents”. However, despite the fact that education is promoted as essential to changing life circumstances, it is also framed as something to keep children occupied and, as in western societies, finishing the school year is to be celebrated, as described in the game – “Summer’s on! School’s not in session, so you’ll either need to hire tutors or find something else for the kids to do”. The mixed messages provided in the game are confusing and limit understanding of the complexity of the Haitian situation.
In Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013), Haitian people are portrayed as simple, uneducated, unable to earn a living but always looking forward to seasonal celebrations that make them happy—“Lack of money doesn’t get in the way of feeling happier during the holidays”, accompanied by a picture of a Haitian child beside a Christmas tree and clutching a present in her arms. At Easter, the caption reads: “A day of celebration with the family. Nothing but relaxation and joy”, accompanied by a picture of a family group dressed up in traditional costume seemingly made of reeds and grass—“even if you have no money, it is a time of celebration and joy”.
The discourse used in this game to describe the thoughts, emotions, and values of the Haitian people are unsophisticated and trivialized. While players may finish the game understanding that Haitian people are destined to lives of abject poverty, in constant fear of hurricanes and torrential rains that cause disease and death, there is no opportunity for players to understand either the systemic reasons for these conditions or any real way out of this horrific situation. The true/false questions at the end of the game, for example, “Getting and education is all that matters – that’s how you get better jobs and win the game” or “The way to win the game is to make as much money as possible – no matter what” only reinforce the notion that there is only one way to play and win the game, and that winning the game is indeed the main objective. The discourse of the game promotes limited choices and outcomes with childlike simplicity; there is no possibility of developing a more complex or realistic strategy for addressing the issues raised.
The discourse of the teacher support materials is reflective of formal school instruction, complete with lists of objectives, materials, and timeframe. A “Background information for educators” section suggests that teachers must mediate the learning experience for the players, ensuring that they arrive at the correct conclusion and suggesting follow-up activities for them to complete. The “Profile Sheet” available for teachers to share with their students describes the country with words such as “first black-led”, “voodoo”, “gangs”, “degradation”, conjuring racial and primitive images that mitigate a tainted understanding by the players about the complexities of Haiti. Whether this game enables player empathy and awareness that will lead to significant action and change is, in our minds, questionable.
Gamer discourse
As our participants played Ayiti: The Cost of Life (Global Kids, 2013), they expressed questions about the intent of raising awareness of poverty and suffering through the medium of a game. As Hanna commented, “It intrigues me, but I don’t think you would go looking for a game that will depress people”. She went on to say, “It’s interesting because it touches on poverty but it doesn’t touch down on the level that it’s at, especially now with the earthquake.” Not averse to learning, Hanna wanted to be recognized as a serious player in life: It gives you real insight though because we’re so sheltered and we’ve got such a different standard of living, but it almost changes the goal point because in the game you’re worried about their happiness, their education. In Haiti they’re just worried about making it to tomorrow. It introduces it to you but it sugarcoats it as well.
The participants expressed their concerns with the lack of realism and wanted to be treated intelligently, as Scott has commented, “I would have been a lot less critical if it hadn’t been so cartoony … if it was a bit more about … aesthetically like the circumstances in Haiti then maybe I would have liked it more, because it would be a bit more realistic.”
Our participants addressed the role of media, particularly in desensitizing and numbing society to the crises of the world. Hanna commented, “Possibly there’s a challenge there [to solve world problems] but it also provides the opportunity to make a joke of it.” When cartoony characters are presented, “you can just laugh off killing people, innocent people, or watching them die.” Jake added, “You hear the news media put out like every day ‘oh, 12 more Canadian soldiers killed, 5 more Americans killed, I get bored of people getting killed so it’s become you’re just numb to it—it’s just a game to them.”
Underlying the participants’ concerns was the belief that “serious games” did not treat either global people and their problems, or the players, with the respect and seriousness they deserved. Youth are capable of understanding global issues, and indeed are most willing to engage in intricate and complex problems. In addition, while serious video games have the potential to provide immersive experiences that will change perceptions and attitudes, they are not currently doing so—in fact, they run the risk of diminishing the seriousness of such issues.
Implications
The collaborative conversations that were held with our participants revealed to us a deeper understanding of the value of “serious games” for youth and children. “Participants in conversation can come close to one another, ‘to what they know, desire, imagine and believe in’ and can reveal to them their ‘power of mind, good sense, and moral sentiments’ (Buchman, 1983)” (Feldman, 1999: 133–134). Through our conversations we were able to construct new understandings. We recognized the importance of having collaborative conversations with young people around games, both “serious” and “not serious” or commercial, so that the sanctioned nature of serious games is challenged, and not simply taken for granted to be “good” or enabling “change” in society.
Troubling the notion of what is serious
Despite their success using educational methods such as tutorials, game designers and developers must recognize their own limits when it comes to serious games. Creating simplistic games that are unsophisticated and non-immersive runs the risk of doing the opposite of what they intend, that is, they can trivialize vitally important world issues. “Serious” games can become inconsequential, while commercial games offer powerful learning opportunities about world events and challenges. Jackson: Let’s compare this to, say, Call of Duty online. Researcher: And that’s a very, very serious thing right? Jackson: It’s a different kind of serious—I mean, you’re trying to win right—that’s the serious part. You’re having fun. Whereas this, you’re trying to learn. I mean, it could be fun but it’s more to learn.
The concept of cheating arises for serious game designers. For while cheat codes have a long history in video games, they are seen in educational arenas to potentially “compromise the learning experience in a serious games” (Chen and Michael, 2005: 4). Also, formal education has traditionally valued independent work over collaborative endeavors, which raises issues about how to value “interaction by students both internal and external to the game” and how much interaction should be supported or discouraged. Students might be expected to work together and to provide insight into how well they and their classmates understood the material. Also, as Chen and Michael (2005: 4) comment, … the “game” part of “serious games” presents a challenge for designers. Whether “fun” is a necessary or even desirable element of serious games has already become one of the perennial debates within the serious games community. A large part of the appeal of serious games is that they provide a familiar environment for the latest generation of students. Games are something these students relate to and understand. However, games that act too much like a classroom, with pop quizzes interrupting the player's experience can disrupt their appeal.
Troubling the good qualities of a “good” game
Serious games (or E-E games) have emerged as a field of scholarship and practice that have focused on … educational and social issues in the creation, production, processing, and dissemination process of an entertainment program, in order to achieve desired individual, community, institutional, and societal changes among the intended media user populations. (Wang and Singhal, 2009: 272–273) Jon: I think it’s also back to, like, awareness—if somebody just stumbled on this game and didn’t even know what it was about and they were just playing it and they were like “Oh, that was a cool game” they wouldn’t even get any, like, if they don’t do it right then they’re not going to get any message at all, they’re just going to think it another one of those random flash games that you just go out and play—they wouldn’t get anything from it.
Indeed, in this game and other serious games, there is a reliance on the teacher and the lesson plan to explain the game’s serious message. As our participants played the game, they drew on game rules they had learned from playing commercial games; however, these rules did not hold for Ayiti, where the information came at the beginning in text-heavy screens, or was left to the teacher to convey. As Jake’s earlier comment suggested, serious games need to be as complex and engaging as commercial or entertainment games.
As Jake commented, One thing that would probably make the game better is like, it just seems so simple and there’s not much that it’s really telling you. So if there was, like, once you reach a certain goal it would tell you snippets of information or maybe little bits of information about certain kinds of things that homeless people have to go through or perhaps like statistics or something that have been shown about homeless people, in those … all across wherever … The researcher responded: It’s not engaging, it’s not … you’re not learning from it. Nolan: For instance, with Assassin’s Creed 2, when I was checking it out the other day, it actually references tons and tons of actual stuff from the Renaissance Era. Jake: Yeah, they actually try and make it as historically accurate as possible. Nolan: Like they have this information section on every other building, and it’s actually historically accurate. Jake: As you encounter significant people across the game who are actually historically relevant, you can actually press a button and it shows you background information about them and teaches you about them.
Conclusions
It is evident from this study that if video games are going to be developed as instructional tools for youth and children, serious game designers need to pay attention to the perceptions, experiences, and expectations of gamers. Gamers have a wealth of experience and, as evidenced by their comments, they are willing to engage in critical conversations about serious matters. They also need to be taken seriously. Game designers and educators must recognize the knowledge, interest, and passion that youth have for making a difference in the world, and not provide patronizing and simplistic materials for them. We need to ask ourselves what are the conditions we need to create in order for critical conversations with youth, both in and out of school, to take place. We need to listen to the youth for advice about creating opportunities to discuss issues of social justice, equity, and democratic practice.
As adults working with a largely youth media, that is, video games, we need an awareness of their expertise, and recognize that what appears “serious” or “good” to us might be different for the youth. We need to continually examine the educational discourse that, rather than illuminating issues of equity and social justice, disguise them with well-meaning but potentially condescending language and ideas. Youth are serious and if we value video games as a media for connecting them with significant world issues, we need to respect their intelligence and commitment to changing the world for the better.
Footnotes
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.