Post #11- Playing in Virutal Worlds

Play is not a new concept, and neither is the idea that we all belong to various communities of play, groups in which we can adopt different roles, take on different aspects of ourselves or our other selves.  Upon reading this first chapter I made a list of the play communities I am apart of to help further understand this idea Pearce puts forth in the beginning of her book Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds.  I am a text based RPer, I am part of the hoop performer/festival community (similar to her Burning Man example), I am a convention goer who dresses up in various personas, I was a part of the Society of Creative Anachronisms (people who like to reenact Rennasance and Medieval aspects of life), and I used to be part of the theater community.  In essence, all of those communities are communities of play, communities which exist “quite sonciously outside ‘ordinary’ life” and are “ ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing theh player intensely and utterly” (5).

                Pearce opens up her book on play communities with a brief outline of playing, how it started, what it was like, and asserting that in many ways these MMOWs and MMOGs are a return to a more “natural order” (7) as games used to be mostly multiplayer.  It wasn’t until technology advanced in the most recent centuries that games because predominantly solo played.  In many ways it seems as though we have taken a step back, drawing in and away from communication with others, until the birth of MMOWs and MMOGs.  And, it is within these sorts of worlds that creative inquiry burgeons.  With table top RPGs there was miniature paintings and fan art (though we still see fan art a lot today with Con Badges con goers have commissioned of their characters).  Within these specific communities of play (and others) we have a growth of creativity through avatars, avatar art, ingame fashion design, etc.

Avatars      

My avatar on GaiaOnline.com

      There are specific ways in which virtual worlds are structure, specific characteristics which help them succeed including that they must be spatially diverse, explorable, persistent, inhabitable, populated, exhibit worldness, and allow the player to participate (all of which I am going to bypass over except for the identities part in this blog).  As a writer and someone who engages in text based games primarily (though I am an avid member of Gaiaonline.com), the avatar, arguably one of the most important aspects of virtual worlds, fascinates me.  It allows the player to expand themselves, reach into what they want to be seen as.  With the ability to alter so many things on many avatars, players can chose to represent that they look like (perhaps young/old, thin/fat, bald/full head of hair) or they can project themselves the way they want to be seen.  Basically, Pearce harkens back to Gee’s concept of the player as the hero.  Even in games where there is no definitive beginning or end, the player has the ability to posit themselves as “hero.”  Throughout all of the avatars I have had, I often keep some times the same—for instance, I try to make all of my avatars fit into the “goth” persona, one which I would dress more if it were culturally acceptable (I used to and that just ended badly!).

           Culture     

Perhaps the greatest topic Pearce dwells on within this second of the book is emergent cultures within these virtual worlds (which is, granted, part of her general goal of the book).  Pearce writes that “emergent behavior in games and virtual worlds arises out of a complex interaction between players and the affordances of the play space they inhabit” (24).    Basically, if we chose to consider these virtual worlds as real worlds (which begs the question, what exactly is real?), the cultures that evolve come from both interactions between players and the constraints/rules of their worlds.  These emergent cultures can take the form of “online weddings, game-wide protests, social organixations, and various types of social and fashion trends” (46).  Much like real culture, though time on the internet can be accelerated which place these virtual worlds as prime places to study.  All of this is to prime the reader for the remainder of the book which delves into an in depth study of the Uru Dispora and the culture that arose from there.        

                Pearce, in these first several chapters provided us, the readers, with a good handhold to start from as we delve into this idea of emergent culture in virtual worlds.

               

Questions:

1)      1) Continuing the thought of communities of play, what communites of play are you involved with?

2)      

2) Which sort of “world” is better?  Or rather, which do you enjoy more?—One, like There.com where player content cannot be introduced without extensive review?  Or one like Second Life/Minecraft where the players have the ability to shape and create their world as they desire?

3)       

3) Will the two games we are creating have the ability to develop emergent cultures?  Is that necessarily important for our games?

Post #10- Education, exercise, and Bogost vs. Gee

Image from: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/

Now that we’ve come to a close on Bogost’s book, we have hit the pedagogy chapters, the ways in which videogames have the potential to be used for teaching, in educating.  Bogost and Gee would seem to disagree on many points in the conversation regarding videogames and learning, although that might be the result of their very different approaches to education. 

                Bogost begins his third section of the book with an outline of two very prominent educating methods—behaviorism and constructivism.  Behaviorism is very popular is school systems, focusing on the reinforcement tactics such as students receiving A’s for good work and F’s for poor work.  Those who adhere to constructivism focus often times on the individual, their learning experience, and their ability to “play” or “do” in order to learn, bringing in past experiences as building blocks.  We see this method a lot in kindergarten and the Montessori schools.

Education           

    These two popular theories are at odds within the education system in America and thus pose various different problems for video games.  Because both systems focus on different aspects of games, we seem to hit an impass.  How can games be useful in the educational system? 

And this is also where Gee and Bogost seem to veer off—although I believe that Bogost might merely be a more elaborate build up of Gee’s.  According to Gee, good video games allow a players to engage in embodied learning—that is, video games, when played actively “situating meaning in a multimodal space through embodied experiences to solve problems and reflect on the intricacies” (241) of the world (both real and imagined.  Bogost, in this chapter, argues that no meaning or experience is general, but rather, because video games are rhetorical, there must be a correlation between particular worlds and relationships.  Hence, why it seems as though Bogost is building and refining upon Gee, rather than driving a clear divide between him and Gee.  This, of course, leads Bogost into his definition of procedural literacy as “any activity that encourages active assembly of basic building blocks according to particular logics” (257).  If this is the case, perhaps what we are creating within Second Life and Minecraft are helping to grow/build out procedural literacy. 

                Continuing along with the concept of schooling and education (two ideas which Bogost claim are completely separate and I must admit, I agree), Bogost transitions into the value systems which are instilled within the traditional school system and work places.  These two cultural institutions help to drive home the ideas of consumption and value in work.  We go to school so our parents can work so they can purchase products that advertisers say we need.  Children, in school (and essentially at home), learn the value of work so that they can then go out into the world and work and consume.  It’s a vicious cycle.  But, if games provide a strong internal rhetoric through the procedure of the game, these values (including ones that have to do with faith) can be examined—looked at under the hood, so to speak.  Games such as Animal Crossing help the player to explore and think about the culture of consumption, giving the player the tools to make decisions about consumerism.  Bogost also speaks about the game Cold Stone Creamery: Stone City which “exposes the corporate business model” (261).  Like Animal Crossing it helps to expose a system through its procedural rhetoric.

Exergames

Image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ec/Dance_Dance_Revolution_North_American_arcade_machine_3.jpg

I found the section of exergames to be particularly interesting, though I had trouble seeing them as hosting any sort of procedural rhetoric.  Of all the video games we have spoken about, I am most familiar with these, being an avid DDR player and having the Zumba game, as well as Wii Fit Plus and the Biggest Loser Wii game.  Bogost leads us through a history of these games, attempting to posit that video games have long since been infiltrated with physical activity (though I feel that this was a major stretch). Bogost suggests that games such as DDR allow players to be both the exerciser and the personal trainer.  The game uses procedural tactics to general feedback from the motivating (or sometimes unmotivating) voice.  However, despite the fact that some games might have some procedural rhetoric, our culture and values might be what persuades us from actually engaging in these games.

Persuasive Games and Evaluation

Persuasive games, those that employ procedural rhetoric and probe the player into starting conversations (with themselves or others) about the procedures exposed by the act of play, must submit to evaluation just as any other game.  However, unlike other games or products where a counter can be ticked everytime someone plays, these are best evaluated by their ability to conjur up conversations and critic—which is exactly their purpose, according to Bogost. 

Within the constructs of our institutions of education, politics, and advertising, games with a strong procedural rhetoric are the games which take Gee’s concepts of embodied experience and allow a closer and particular experience to be had.  As Bogost claims, “videogames get to the heard of things by mounting arguments about the processes inherent in them” (339).

Questions:

1)      Would you consider our game design within Second Life to be more constructivism than behaviorism?  And, because of the problems inherent in both, is there a way we can use aspects of both within the game?  Or do we want to?

2)      Through the creation of our projects in Second Life and Minecraft, how would you say our procedural literacy is growing?

3)      Is there a way to reconcile Bogost and Gee?  They seem to have some very different ideas via the educational potential of games, but I wonder if it is possible to find an example where both of their ideas are present. Maybe there isn’t, but I’m curious.

Post #9- Advertising in Videogames

Photo from: http://www.engadget.com/

Last year when Pretty Little Liars came out, my sisters started asking my parents for the Kin cell phone. A small circular phone, it was brand new on the market, and while it crashed and was not revived after a year, it was featured as the phone of choice on the popular teen television show. Each girl on the show had a Kin and instead of using a generic phrasing when someone called such as "I need to check my phone" the girls would expressively say "I need to check my Kin" or "I’ll send you a message on your Kin." And, the television show did its job promoting the phone to such an extent that the phone sold big. It sold big and for lack of experienced technicians working on the phone, it crashed.

Advertising, as Bogost begins his second section of his book, is pervasive. It is everywhere, informing "us of something that we’ve longed for all our lives even though we’ve never seen it before" (148). Much like the political processes involved in garnering supporters, advertising has undergone various changes, morphing to adapt to new technologies as culture changes—a move that is indeed warranted, but which, Bogost claims, opens up new and sometimes treacherous opportunities for advertisers.

Types of Advertising

There are three main types of advertising: demonstrative, illustrative, and associative. Demonstrative advertising is basically all about the facts. It deals in facts, figures, and tangibles—often times not expressively trying to sell a lifestyle or image. Illustrative advertising focuses on both tangibles and intangibles of a product as well as focusing on a "cultural and social context" (158). The associative type of advertising often only shows the personality of a product, the "people who buy [enter product] are fun and relaxed."
And of course, these show up in video games (both as products within the gamescape and as the center for the product, ie- the advergame). While associative advertising is the most popular, demonstrative advertising is often used—especially when procedural rhetoric is at stake. However, within advergames (games whose pure purpose is to promote a product) often do not provide a procedural rhetoric.

Videogames

I think, to understand how this sort of advertising works hand in hand with procedural rhetoric, I need to stick with examples, much as Bogost does throughout this particular chapter. Licensing and Product Placement is often done in video games more and more now, and I believe we notice the licensing aspect more often with games that spawn from the Harry Potter books, The Lord of the Rings, Beowulf, and other well known books and movies. These original products, such as the Harry Potter books, are then created into games that allow the player to adopt the role of the hereo (in this case Harry) and complete various tasks. While allowing the players accessing to the minute details of their latest cinematic/novel hero, the Harry Potter games also serve as an advertisement for the movies/books.

Because of the nature of video games, advertisings’ previous tactic of placing and leaving products/ads is defunct. A videogame "has to allow the player to do something meaningful inside its interpretation" (175). Which, of course, leads to one of the large problems within videogames as advertising space—for the advertisers. Because of the procedural rhetoric of many videogames, games which feature strong product placement, such as Carnival Cruise Lines Tycoon and SeaWorld Adventure Parks Tycoon, face the challenge of having players reconsider their allegiance to those specific organizations after playing. Basically, because these games allow the player to see under the hood of an operation, players are exposed to perhaps some unsavory practices such as poor working conditions.



Image from http://wn.com/



In the third chapter, Bogost goes into detail about advergames. Advergames are meant, according to Bogost, to be "simulations of products and services" (200). These games, such as the Budwiser game, try to sell the "coolness" of drinking Budwiser with the importance of seeing how irresponsible it is to drink too much. I think perhaps my favorite example from this book is the Tooth Protectors game from 1983 by Johnson and Johnson. The game worked on two levels—one as a way to advertise their products such as specific toothbrushes, floss, and mouth rinse, but also as a way to speak about the "responsibility of oral hygiene" (202). The game shows the child how they can care for their teeth by bypassing sugary snacks sometimes but, knowing full well that it is not possible to also forgo the snack, also how to actually care for the teeth after the snack has been consumed. The games is a wonderful example of procedural rhetoric as well as advertisement.

And then, of course, there are anti-advergames, and idea which I found interesting. These are not made by the companies advertising their products, but rather by often disgruntled individuals who hope to show a flaw within a product or company—such as Bogost’s Disaffected!, a game about Kinko’s.
While not many people enjoy being bombarded by advertisements, advertising is everywhere and it has begun to be incorporated into videogames—a platform both useful and potentially dangerous for the advertisers. And, coupled with procedural rhetoric, the companies being advertised begin to face a more critical crowd as their products are examined much closer than the constant bombardment of name repetition or some celebrity/popular show/etc we get when watching movies, tv shows, and see billboards.

Questions

1) When advertisements are placed within your games, do you pay attention to them? Or do you absorb them as part of the atmosphere within a second thought?

2) Would you consider all simulations as procedural rhetoric? If not, what has to be present for it to be considered an example of procedural rhetoric?

3) And, how exactly is a product proceduralized?

　
　

Post #8- Politics

In the first section of his book, the section on politics, Bogost provides the reader with countless examples of games that are “persuasive.”  These arguably good games while employing procedural rhetoric exhibit how politics can work through games.  Bogost posits that games which exhibit procedural rhetoric can illuminate political processes, various political ideologies, and democracy far better than more traditional sources such as documentaries, visual ads, and even social interaction such as blogs.  If we continue the idea Bogost puts forth in the first chapter, that process (and logic) underwrite everything we do, it makes sense that it forms the basis of various political processes.  And, it follows that ideology is firmly in place and ushered in by procedure. 

                A large portion of what Bogost speaks about in the three chapters on politics and procedural rhetoric is ideology.  Ideology is, as Bogost defines it, the “hidden procedural systems that drive social, political, or cultureal behavior” (72).    It is what we come to think and feel, a “false representation of reality” (74).  I feel that calling it a false representation is a bit extreme, but ideology does seem to lurk at the base of all of our processes.  It lines the affinity groups we belong to and it helps to steer our every move.  Ideology helps to make up our world view.  And persuasive games help to expose that view to us, either for confirmation or questioning.

                Through a myrid of examples, Bogost helps to further clarify what persuasive games are, and perhaps the two that really caught my eye were Tax Invaders and games such as Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill.

Tax Invaders

(Image from: http://usability.typepad.com/confusability/images/tax_invaders.gif)

Tax Invaders is a 2004 game for the GOP when Bush was running against Kerry in the election.  Using the platform of Space Invaders, Tax Invaders situates Kerry’s tax increases as a threat and the Republican firing gun (Bush’s head) as the thing that will save the country.  Framed by verbal rhetoric, this game then allows the player to play through the ideological stronghold of conservative politics.  The ideologies are experienced through the process of the game rather than told via popup text or another such mode.  They allow the player to experience and gain a deeper understanding of one of the big issues of the election.  Republican players may feel their own thoughts about taxation reinforced, and Democratic players may indeed use the game to further cement their own thoughts.  While not a highly aesthetic or sophisticated game, Tax Invaders does require the player to assume the role of a conservative in order to play and it does reinforce ideology.  I found this example particularly useful when it came to understanding political ideology, especially when looked at in comparison to the following two examples.

Socks the Cat Rocks the Hill and Bush vs. Kerry Boxing

(Image from: gamingafter40.blogspot.com)

                “Not all videogames about politics are political” (90) according to Bogost and, true to form, he offers examples (would we expect anything less?).  This game, while it never actually came to fruition, situates the player as Socks.  Socks/the player must navigate throughout the White House, sneaking past politians and spies in order to warn the president (Clinton) that there has been a stolen nuclear missile.  While this game is about politics (the White House, Republicans and Democrats, stolen missiles), it does not expose a process, or in other words, expose how things work.  It merely situates the players within the political world without context.

                Another example of a political game that it not political is Bush vs. Kerry Boxing, a game meant to simulate boxing matches with presidential candidates in hopes of winning people over to a traditional sports game.  Like Socks the Cat, this game does not expose a process or ideology.  Instead it merely puts political people in a situation removed from the process of politics.

Politiking

                Political video games are also useful within the subtext of campaigning.  Presidential hopefuls (or any political hopeful) often utilize digital means to get themselves known, striking out on the internet, attempting to reach possible votes.  These digital artifacts that hopefuls use are made up of “four essential properties” (124).  These are: “procedurality, participation, spatiality, and encyclopedic scope” (124).  While all are very useful when running for office, procedurality is often pushed along the wayside.  It can be, and should be utilized within politics, however.

                Because videogames are well on their way to becoming pervasive artifacts within the political world, it would make sense that persuasive games were adopted.  Bogost claims that because political issues are so complex and policy issues are rarely binary, video games are well suited for the type of conversation that should go on about these issues.  If political issues are meant to be spoken about and discussed, what better way than to utilize a video game that allows the players to work through the process? 

               

Questions:

1)     1)  Is procedural rhetoric just exposing the inner workings or ideology of something?

2)     2)  Games such as Kabul Kaboom and September 12 operate under the rhetoric of failure.  Would those be considered “good” games?  And, can we apply the idea of a “good” game to political games in general if they are unwinnable?

3)      3) This book was published in 2007.  Are more recent techniques for Internet-based campaigning utilizing procedural rhetoric?  Can you think of any?

Post #7- Procedural Rhetoric

             (From bn.com) 

 

Ian Bogost’s first chapter in Persuasive Games seems to be the tool box for which we, the readers, will find some important basic concepts and terminology used throughout the book.  This chapter, entitled “Procedural Rhetoric,” breaks down rhetoric and eventually moves into a distinction between serious and persuasive games, all the while providing examples which can help to clarify these terms and the ways in which he uses them.  And, of course, Bogost lays out his purpose for this book in a very clear-cut way.

                As someone not hailing from a background of computer knowledge beyond that of a word processor and some internet surfing, from a background replete of video games, and a background where rhetoric was never explicitly expressed (although, granted, we’ve implemented it in writing, in debate classes, in my art history classes), this chapter provided a very useful starting point for the integration of rhetoric and persuasive games.

                In the beginning of the chapter, Bogost opens with a detailed example of the video game Tenure which allows the player to simulate the first year of teaching at a secondary school.  The player gets to make decisions which then have the ability to affect their relationships with other teachers, the principle, students, and the parents of students.  Many different possibilities are available in this game, all which help to show first year teachers how the system works—how every decision is caught up in political and social dilemmas.  And this game, Bogost argues is an example of procedural rhetoric—that is, “the practice of using processes persuasively” (3).

Procedurality

                In the sub-section about procedure, Bogost begins by acknowledging that procedure is often coupled with a negative connotation.  Essentially, Bogost seems to be saying that procedure is a set of rules and regulations that can be manipulated if need be.  A particularly interesting comment Bogost makes on the topic of procedure, and a comment that I feel highlights his explanation very well is that without a process “it would perhaps never even occur to us that defective or unwanted products can be returned” (7).  Through the logic that surrounds what we do, there is a process and we are “authoring” that process by procedure.  Basically, almost everything we do is part of a process.

Rhetoric

                In this sub-section, Bogost goes into detail about various kinds of rhetoric.  The classical form of rhetoric was meant to be oral and performed in public, as it was specifically meant to deal with social and political issues.  We’ve all be exposed to this and a more written form of rhetoric, so in awareness of word restrictions, I will be moving onto mention, briefly, visual  and digital rhetoric. 

                As an art history minor, I took a class on women and art and I was much more substantially educated in visual rhetoric.  In visual rhetoric, images are used to generate and sway opinions.  We are faced with these every day when we see billboards and ads on the internet.  Because there is, as Bogost mentions, a very emotional aspect to visual rhetoric (think of Humane Society ads with the abused dogs and cats), verbal rhetoric is often much more privileged.  However, the very fact that visual rhetoric exists helps us see that the concept of rhetoric is open to various other forms, say, for instance, video games.

            The existence of visual rhetoric leads Bogost into a discussion of digital rhetoric, which he claims “typically abstracts the computer as a consideration, focusing on the text and image content a machine might host and the communities of practice in which that content is created and used” (25).  However, this form of rhetoric does not often address the interactivity that allows for the authoring of processes.

Procedural Rhetoric

(Image from: http://mcdonalds.video.game.suckered.us/)

                Which brings us to procedural rhetoric.  In short, procedural rhetoric is the act of using process persuasively.  Bogost’s example of the game Tenure is a good example of this.  But, Bogost also provides another example of a game called The McDonald’s Game which allows the player to run a massive fast food organization.  Like Tenure, the player gets to make decisions based on how it will operate its farming, deal with various rights groups, and other such day to day organization activities.  As an example of procedural rhetoric, this game uses the process of the fast food conglomeration to make an argument about the procedures they have.

                Both of those examples, Tenure and The McDonald Game, were extremely clear in the book, allowing me to really grasp what procedural rhetoric was and how it can relate to video games.  In many ways, it seems as though all simulations are a form of procedural rhetoric.  They engage a procedure, a process, and have the ability to make an argument.  And, they stand in direct contrast to other examples Bogost presents such as the Retouch project which shows the viewer what happens to a photo that will be in a magazine, but does not allow the viewer to do it themselves.  There is a process being presented there, and an argument being made, but it is vastly different than persuasive games and not quite procedural rhetoric because it does not allow the viewer to be part of the process.

                In many ways our project in Second Life could be classified as a persuasive game which embodies a procedural rhetoric and makes arguments as to how various processes work in the material world.  We are taking a process (being a tour guide) and allowing those who are going to become tour guides operate within a world where they can explore various ways in which tour guiding can happen and practice persuading members of the tour to stay on task.

Questions:

1)      1)While Bogost says he will get into more commercial games in later chapters, can you think of any more commercial or popular games that would fall under the umbrella of persuasive games?

2)      2) Does a game having a goal and a simple set of instructions make it procedural rhetoric?  Is there anything else it should or could have to make it a “good” game?

3)      3) Bogost provides an example of GrandTheft Auto on page 43 and in discussion about it he says that the limited interactivity is not a limitation of the game.  But, couldn’t it be seen as a limitation?

Post #6- The Social Mind and Conclusion

Image from: http://www.ebooksdownloadfree.com/ups/193/12032.jpg

            At one point within Gee's seventh chapter, "The Social Mind: How Do You Get Your Corpse Back After You've Died?," he speaks about two ways of learning, the reciprocal teaching method and jigsaw method.  In this method, no one in the group is an expert in everything. If a group is five people, each takes on learning intensive knowledge of one part.  Then, they reconvene and share/teach the others in the group what they learned.  Together each person contributes to form the complete puzzle.  My sister, when she was in high school, would enact this method of learning with her friends.  While it made me cringe (as they were dealing with each taking a chapter of a novel), the idea intrigued me.  Each girl in the group knew their chapter inside and out.  They spend maybe two hours working on the information for the chapter and maybe study guide questions for each chapter and then they would talk about it.  Brilliant!

            Our class has started to do something similar with our Second Life project.  We each have something different we can contribute to the whole of the project and by utilizing things such as the Design Document, we are able to share our knowledge with our fellow students.  Both of those examples utilize the social mind.

       The Social Mind

     Chapter 7 deals primarily with the idea that learning is a social event.  Gee posits that we, as humans, think in "terms of patterns" (190).  However, this patterns are not unattached to experiences in our world.  We based this thinking on our experiences and use our experiences in order to make predictions about our world.  These experiences are not isolated either.  They involve interactions with groups and individuals, with social constructs, and rigid systems. 

            Gee further, after explaining the use of patterns, claims that patterns we develop are not inherently right or wrong.  Even these patterns are situated within groups.  My mom quilts and sews.  I might call everything yarn if it is long and wrapped into a skein, but within my mom's sewing circles, yarn is very specific.  My pattern of thinking would be wrong.  Depending on the group you align yourself with, your patterned thinking might be wrong.

            Another topic within the idea of the social mind is that despite learning and reasoning as social, they are also distributed.  Much like Kesha's example of knowing where to gather information when writing a paper--previous notes, published articles, other people, distributed knowledge is stored within other "people, texts, tools, and technologies" (197).

            The common trend through this chapter seems to take the path of learning as a collaborative action.  We seem things like this more and more, I believe, with group projects and within classroom science labs.  Even within scholarly academic work, I believe we see this.  For instance, we, as scholars, attend conference and gain information about other topics or add to their own reservoir of information for later scholarly papers.

           Wrap Up

 The last chapter of Gee's book, the "Conclusion," seems to be a recap and response to everything that has been said about the book.  Once again, Gee makes it clear that he is not necessarily advocating using video games within the classroom, but rather, he is advocating the use of video game principles such as allowing the players to adopt identities, allowing the player to think like scientists, to lower the consequences for the future.  Perhaps though the most interesting aspect Gee points out is that good video games allow the players to feel like the game is theirs.  They are not just passive consumers of a game.  Instead they have some stake in the game and process.  Learning should be this way, or should, at the very least, strive to work this way.

            Gee proposes that video games are a form of art, and like all forms of art when they first come into being, it is misunderstood.  We do not understand exactly what video games are, what their exact place is within society other than fun and games.  Gee's book, and particularly within the final chapter, focus upon the ways in which video game principles and possibly video games in particular, could be useful within the educational community, could be useful in the learning process. 

            And, in many ways, these principles have started being utilized within different training programs.  For instance, USC Upstate has a nursing training program at the Simhub which utilizes social learning principles as well as allowing students to develop strong identities.  Flight simulations do the same things.

           

Questions:

1) Now that we have finished reading Gee's book, how do you think we can begin to incorporate these various principles while teaching next year?  Which do you feel would be most useful to incorporate within your classroom?

2) Gee provides an example within Chapter 7 about a player who needs his character's body rescued within a game.  He demands that his father stops using the phone so he can wait for a call from a member from the game.  Would you consider this as an extreme in gaming?  Or would you consider this valid?

3) How can teachers and instructors lead learning in a way that allows students to claim it as theirs?

Post #5: Challenge Yourself-Games, Cultural Models, and Learning

                I grew up without video games.  My grandmother tried, for years, to let my mom allow her to buy us a Nintendo set, and for years my mother refused.  I was allowed to play various games on the computer, such as The Oregon Trail and the various Jump Start games—games which, according to my parents, had more educational prowess than Mario or Donkey Kong.  Granted, they may have been correct, as those games seem very straight forward, very simple compared to games out today such as Assassin’s Creed or Dragon Age.  I grew up, situated firmly in a model of “video games will turn your brain to mush” (along with such things like television).  So, when I began to read Gee’s chapter on “Cultural Models,” I could completely understand what he was talking about.

                The model of thought I grew up with did not extend to other games, elaborate games where I assumed the role of various different characters—a mermaid, a princess, among others.  Through this form of play, I learned, I feel, many of the same concepts Gee discussed some of his earlier chapters, but these newest two chapters, that on the tug of war between overt telling and doing and that on cultural models, illustrate the importance of video games in a learning environment that I do not believe simple make believe games can.

                Video games provide the player/the learner, a way of striking a balance between overt telling and doing.  Children cannot learn, indeed humans cannot learn, by being bombarded by information.  We cannot understand how various things work or what they mean just by being fed information alone.  We need to experience.  But even then, experience itself, without proper explanation when it is called for is useless.  This problem is faced by schools and teachers time and time again, but games, in particular video games strike a delicate balance between these two extremes.  Games allow the player to work towards learning how to accomplish tasks without overloading the player with too much information at once.  This concept goes along with Gee’s previous point concerning the viewpoint of the mind as a computer which can just download, so to speak, information.  Because the mind is not a computer than can download and store information, games provide a way for players to maneuver through a domain while learning how to actually work within the domain successfully.  And, by doing this trial and error sort of approach, learning can become more cemented within the players (and learners) minds.

                Within DragonAge, the game I have been playing for some 10 hours or so, I have found myself playing the same boss several times.  Currently trapped within the Fade by a Sloth Demon, I had to die three times before finally being able to conquer a Lesser Sloth Demon.  I both took past experiences from fighting other bosses and foes within the game as well as the skills I was taught/told at the beginning of the game while traipsing through areas designed to help me learn the basics of the game.  This sort of practice within video games has the ability to solidify the marriage of telling and doing within our teaching spaces.

      Cultural Models

          Video games, I have realized through Gee’s discussion of cultural models, go far beyond merely playing a game or helping children/players work through difficult situations.  Games may teach the player about the value of trial and error, and they may reward the player for working through difficult situations, but they also seem to allow for a more introspective consideration on behalf of the player.  While I am not fully sure how video games can be used to conjunction with teaching in this matter, the similar principles at stake between learning and playing games deserves some consideration.

                Like I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, my group model, stemming from my upbringing, led me to dismiss video games as a source of learning.  Having begun, in my 20s, to play video games as well as having signed up for this class on video games in the classroom, I am feeling my preconceived ideas alter and expand.  Gee, within his chapter on cultural models, explains several video games, in particular Under Ash (photo on right fromhttp://kotaku.com/5654958/a-game-about-insurgency) , which allows a player who may not be a Palestinian play a character who is, a character with very different ideas than perhaps, say, Americans.  This game allows players to possibly see what it is like as the Other, to at least understand and consider the cultural models which make up the experiences of the Other. Gee also speaks about several war games—some which promote the idea of War as

Romantic and some which challenge that idea.

               
          By playing games, or various characters within games, we are exposed to various ideas of “good.”  These other ideas of “good” might not appear “good” in our eyes, but by playing this games and adopting this other identity, if only over the course of the game, we can perhaps begin to understand or even question our own ideas.

Things to Ponder:

1)      If games are able to bridge the chasm between overt information and immersion in the practices so easily, how come education/teaching has not been able to?  And, what are some ways in which education can begin to bridge this gap?

2)      It’s a good idea to develop games which promote deeper considering of our own systems of values and thoughts.  Games such as Under Ash strive to do such, and even the Sonic games allow players to play a different role.  But, is there a purpose for games such as Ethnic Cleanising?  Gee, while admitting that he finds such a game unsettling, does not seem to promote stopping the identities which can be developed there.  If a game is promoting an outright hate of various ethnicities and races, should it just be left alone and chalked up to “allowing people to build and understand different identities?”

3)      Video games can have a huge effect on a player’s thoughts/moral systems, as Gee points out.  But, in a realistic game is it possible for a player to really come to sympathize and understand what it is like to be that other person?  Or, is it possible that, despite the honorable intentions of a game or the truth behind it, the players will walk away without feeling an authentic “experience” of the Other?  Or, if the game is designed well enough, it is a “good game,” is that experience part and parcel of the game?