Ok I am rather sheepishly bring my seeping epistimological wound into my own blog where I can lick it quietly. Sorry I know that is gross but you know what I mean - we had enough fur and feathers flying in the forum, that even though everything has settled down nicely I feel a bit nervous about rubbing my hands together and saying...
"So, epistemology eh?"
It began here:
Me: But in this case, I just don't see this because, it is for the purposes of our current discussion unknowable - the nature of truth and reality. It seems like quibbling to discuss this when a certain functional acceptance of true and false is necessary to get simple tasks (like writing dissertations and cooking chickens) done. Especially as much of it seems like semantics. Truth like greek love and eskimo snow has many different forms, and one of us picks one and an other picks another and then we have a discussion - which is essentially meaningless because we are talking about different things.
Hamish: In writing your dissertation you will be planning to come to some conclusions, I assume? It is really rather expected. De rigueur, you might say. So you will be making truth claims. That is the nature of it. You need to know then, what it is you are doing. You are not doing journalism. You need to understand what you are saying and, impostantly, what you are *not* say, or able to say. That is what we are about. And it is challenging.
This is the thing, and I fear I may have exaggerated my lack of understanding along the way somehow, but I get what Epistemology is, and how it differs from Ontonology. (I have no idea why I am capitalising them, maybe I have a German ancestor, or possibly just giving them the respect of Very Important Words I Don't quite Feel I Can Relax Around.) Anyway, the thing is I am not sure why we have to bother with them in order to do research. Lol, I could hear the collective gasp of horror from everyone who has every done research ever after I typed that. Shall I explain here that I have never done research ever or leave that for another blog post. Ok, ABP. I really want to be convinced, by the way - I am very much lawful good when I play dungeons and dragons. I would love to conform, I just can't fake it.
Anyway, according to the whims of epistemology I need to get off the fence and have an opinion about knowledge.
When I make a truth claim about something either (and these are the main current contenders, not an exhaustive list, and assuming my research is good) the meaning I am offering up:
a) it is there, in stuff, and is therefore something I have discovered - and had I not discovered it, it would still be there
b) it is in my head when I 'look at' stuff and I inflict it on whatever I am assigning meaning to, but it is not inherent in the thing itself
c) it is constructed in the relationship between me and stuff
If I believe the former I am an Objectivist, if I believe the one in the middle I am a Subjectivist and if I believe the latter I am a Constructivist which is apparently the coolest position to hold at the time of writing - and you can see why, it is like the democrat of the epistemological world.
I look at those 3 choices and think "no I don't want to be any of them because I can see that all are equally possible and equally unknowable" and if I am picking one, then it is because I have to, or because it comes with good research tools and therefore I will be an agnostic when it comes to knowledge kthanx.
What makes it worse is that you have to pick one (and I get it that you don't have to be 'it' forever, you can select a stance for a particular research interest) because the rest of anything to do with research is totally dependant on this issue. If you don't have an epistemological stance you can't have a theoretical perspective, if you don't have a theoretical perspective you can't have a methodology, and yes... Crotty concedes rather magnanimously you can have methods because they are rather promiscuous critters who will hang out with anyone, but if you have a bunch of methods without the other parts then pretty much everyone is going to be tittering behind their hands when you hand in your dissertation.
I feel like I am being told that in order to read a Bible I need to be a Christian, and if I fancy taking a peak at a Qur'an I must convert to Islam (but don't worry I can go back to being Christian when I have finished). And when I wail "but I am agnostic" I feel like my inner voice says, "oh well then why not adopt a Buddhist Approach, because that is essentially agnostic, it is not like they believe in God, and then you can read the Tripitaka, which is pretty cool, it has the fire sermon in it and everything. Go on, be a Buddhist, it will make Hamish happy.
Apparently we have been recommended to keep a blog for Research Methods. I feel like I have had so many blogs my MSc in E-learning, but in fact it has been 2 main ones, this for IDEL and a Wordpress blog for Digital Cultures. I didn't know I could access either still until Damien mentioned Holyrood Park blogs and I went there hit a few links and found this old girl sitting here all neglected like Miss Havisham.
Seems appropriate that my IDEL blog gets to be my Research Methods blog. If I had my time again I would continue to keep a blog after IDEL through every course, as I think that would have been invaluable. Just thought I would mention that in case there are any IDELers wandering past, lol.
Anyway, Research Methods... yikes. A month ago I was in the blissful state of just worrying about the maths, little did I know that that worry would be utterly subsumed by my need to worry about everything else. I am currently in the zone where everything I say on the DB seems to be wrong, or off the mark somewhat - so it will be a relief to come here and mutter to myself in my inappropriately humorous, journalistic manner. I have struggled with being insufficiently academic from the beginning - I bet there is a blog about it back there somewhere - and hoped that one day something would click and I would have access to an appropriate mode of discourse (whether this would be a new way of thinking or simply a new way of presenting my ideas I don't know), but now I am going to do myself the favour of not worrying about it. Hopefully I will be able to muster enough faux gravitas for my dissertation but ultimately I accept it is not me. I am not academic. Nuff said.
That isn't to say I haven't loved it. I fully appreciate every piece of wisdom that has gone in. I just don't seem to have much control over how it comes out, lol. And before I give the impression that 'this is the end my friend' it isn't... I have one more course after Research Methods before I can consider myself a Master *snort* oh yeah, and the small thing of the dissertation.
Lolz.
Anyway, as ever this blog will be public and comments are welcome from all and sundry, especially the sundry.
I found Royle (2008 [1]) an interesting lens through which to view the last few months of thinking on digital game based learning. Royle touches on many of the themes which have persisted across game genres and approaches, such as the conflict between educationally focused games and commercial releases (particularly around verisimilitude (e.g. de freitas (2008)[11]), gaming cultures, and the tension between what makes a good educational experience and what makes a good - and entertaining - game experience. One of the factors he identifies is the time that a game should take, something that is particularly interesting at this stage of the course.
Over the last 12 weeks I have tried and played and looked at dozens of games but the engagement has largely been as part of short lived experiences. This may resemble many pedagogical experiences of games - which might occupy a single week of study or be restricted to demonstrating a particular concept - but this style of engaging with games poorly represents the experience of playing games for leisure. Puzzle games, often the very shortest in terms of narrative and challenge, might occupy a regular portion of a players time every day, week or gameplay may last over many years of regular short play. Complex games across many other genres can occupy weeks or months of committed game play: regular gamers I know will easily spend 3-5 hours a night on a game for the first few weeks they own it, in a few feverish cases gamers will simply play a game from start to finish only pausing to sleep and eat. It would be unreasonable and undesirable for learners to play for long bursts every day on a game - no matter how educational - but Royle argues that an educational game can scarecly claim to be a "game" unless it sustains a long and rich play period. He ties this style of play with notions of learning as rehersal as a sort of "virtual apprenticeship" an argument I see significant validity in:
"The original conception of Racing Academy was that through the game play and collaboration with other game players there would be an opportunity to act as a community of scientists and engineers, and use the language and practices of scientists and engineers. It was as much about developing identity as scientist or engineer as learning science or engineering."
Owen, Daimant, and Joiner (2007) quoted in Royle (2008: 3).
Such long form games present significant challenges for assessment and reflection since such assessment would require either for gameplay to be a non assessed part of learning or an enormous amount of tutor and support time. Whitton (2010 [2]) and Prensky (2001 [7]) both take pragmatic and practical approaches to integrating games into education and it is interesting to thus see how both differ, to an extent, from Royle's idealistic take on what may realistically be possible, and also from Gee's (2003 [3]) ambitioous expectations around the of 36 Learning Principles for digital game based learning that he defines. However on the whole Whitton, Gee and Royle all agree that fun and engagement are increadibly important qualities in any educational game and this is also supported by theories around the value of intrinsic motivation in learning games (e.g. Malone (1980) [8], Barab et al (2005) [9]) and notions of flow (Nakamura, J and Csikszentmihalyi (2002) [10]). "While real content is a good thing, it should not disrupt gameplay; the content presentation must be believable within the context of the game. If a believable backstory and mission have been established, real content can be inserted seamlessly into the environment. It's the crucial balance between real content and narrative that works, and the gameplay should drive this. "
Royle (2008:3)
"cheating should be both intrinsic and extrinsic to the game"
Royle claims that these are established parts of the games community and should be used in learning games also. However Some players in an educational setting will not be part of that community and cheating may be culturally problematic to them. Open structures of participation, whilst often ultimately more rewarding, can meet some resistance and, with games in particular, rules may be unsettlingly unclear compared to anticipated structured forms of learning (Jackson 2009). Whilst I agree with Royle that: "The search for cheats is itself pedagogically important; the moment a player searches for extra knowledge, an independent learning strategy is invoked."
Royle (2008:5)
I am unconvinced that simply giving a student a problem will trigger this behaviour and Gee (2003) indicates that such ingenuity may be expected only at a very advanced level of mastering gameplay and experimental hacking, unless acceptable cheating is introduced in training levels (as in Gee's discussion of Tombraider training levels). Thus some sense tutor approval needs to be conveyed to indicate acceptable cheating mechanisms to those students more used to adhering to rules. Crucially there may also be cheating bounds to be set at the other end of the spectrum - a student may be able to hack the result of a game so that they succeed without the pedagogically important steps of gameplay and this may well be an unacceptable level of cheating within the curriculum.
The idea of building a cheat site in addition to a learning game is an intriguing concept, particularly in the current educational environment which is particularly focused on clarifying and eliminating plaigurism that coincides with the growth of written-to-order assignment web services. Cheating of any sort can indicate great intelligence and independent thought from a student but there are conventions and reputation systems within academia which rely on the principle that honesty and originality is to be respected and revered (even if the reality can occasionally include inconsistancies and compromises such as inequalities in the sharing of credit for work or competition to "scoop" research colleagues). Thus an attempt to merge educational and academic cultures - a merger whose history Royle criticizes - must face a distinct moral complexity introduced by encouraging certain types of cheating but discouraging others.
The cultures of appropriate game structures, behaviour (including cheating) and player expectation are problematized by many factors, not only those of educational vs. commercial. The discussions in the comments section surrounding a particularly critical article by Adams (2010 [4]) on cultures of conduct, commerce and cheating in Chinese Free-to-Play online games are fascinating as they reveal substantially different expectations and cultural prejudice (both comments and article are tinged by prejudices around Chinese games culture) from a random cross section of digital games players. The notion of fairness is particularly in the contrast of Royle's comments about cheat sites and lively quasi-commercial communities to support pedgagical aims since such communities can be very cliquey and communication is not always made public - potentially allowing some learners greater advantage than others.
By contrast Royle's concept that narrative, social reflection spaces and personalisation should be important to educational games design seems obvious and well informed by current pedagogical thinking around personal reflection and student centred learning
The centrality of narrative to engaging gameplay is evidenced by the popularity of games that build on the success of games that build on popular film and television properties. These are familiar characters and narrative arcs and thus enable players to enter the game fully aware of characters, relationships and game goals before engaging in gameplay. For instance the successful series of Harry Potter games or the upcoming interactive Doctor Who games (Stuart 2010 [5]). Though not specifically considered over the last few months such games offer a simple model on which to build educational customisations. Royle cites "DoomEd", an attempt to include educational science content into the familiar Doom game narrative, but there is no reason why the current popularity for "brain training" and quasi-educational games cannot be combined with popular mainstream entertainment narratives and more credible pedagogy to create something genuinely educational and fun. Whitton (2010) and Royle (2008) both highlight the important role that educators can play in the process of creating and developing commercial learning games. This partnership working also resonates with current funding arrangements around educational technology (e.g. JISC (2010) [12]) and it will therefore be exciting to see if a new generation of fun learning games begins to emerge are more educators engage in the creative process of game design.
Concluding Thoughts on the last 12 weeks There is something compulsive and alluring about games and the playful visual aesthetics of digital gaming. They are engaging, visual, transliterate and frequently social. They can be directly educational, accidentally educational or be cleverly made into authentic learning moments. The challenges of actually introducing digital games into educational practice are, however, numerous and range from simple to foresee (though not always to resolve) matters of hardware, cost, fitness for purpose, accessibility and time through to more unexpected complexities such as in-game etiquette, sustained engagement and the positive and negative impact that fun game based activities may upon more traditional learning activities.
I came into this module an enthusiastic newbie to gaming with limited but positive and negative experiences. I have found this an immensely thought provoking topic but, at the end of 12 weeks of reading, discussing and, above all, playing digital games I still find myself distinctly uncertain about the best ways in which to deploy a game in a learning context though I feel well armed with theories and practical guidance (particularly from Whitton (2010)) on the subject. I find the cost and speed of commercial production an intimidating prospect for educators looking to support and entertain learners through game based learning experiences. I think I have come to the conclusion that digital game based learning can only take place when an educator is directly and personally passionate about the game(s) they use, and who is willing to be open and responsive to calls for support or criticism from learners. Games must also be fun on some sort of level in order to work as educational spaces since, to be frank, any form of education must be engaging and fun (to an extent) in order for learning to be retained, particularly when learning takes place in unconventional spaces.
In the spirit of fun I will therefore close on a video that draws on the appealing aesthetics and conventions of retro gaming and brings them to life. Such creative blurrings of fantasy and reality are, after all, one of the most beneficial aspects that gaming brings to educational experiences.
References
• [1]. Royle, K. (2008). Game-Based Learning: A different perspective. Innovate 4 (4) • [2]. Whitton, N. (2010). Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge. • [3]. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. (core textbook) • [4] Adams, Ernest (2010). The Designer's Notebook: Selling Hate and Humiliation. Gamasutra, 8th April 2010. Retrieved 8th April 2010. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4319/the_designers_noteboo • [5] Stuart, Keith (2010). Doctor Who Adventures - and the future of cross-platform entertainment. Guardian Unlimited Technology section, 8th April 2010. Retrieved 8th April 2010. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/apr/08/doctor • [6] Jackson, Janna (2009). Game-based teaching: what educators can learn from videogames. Teaching Education, 20 (3). pp. 291 — 304. Retrieved 10th April 2010. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10476210902912533 • [7] Prensky, Marc (2001). Digital Game-based Learning. (USA: McGraw-Hill) • [8] Malone, T.W. (1982) Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: Lessons from computer games. Proceedings of the 1982 conference on Human factors in computing systems table of contents. Gaithersburg, Maryland, United States. • [9] Barab, S., Thomas, M., Dodge, T., Carteaux, R., & Tuzun, H. (2005) Making learning fun: Quest Atlantis, a game without guns, Educational Technology Research and Development, 53(1), pp.86-107 • [10] Nakamura, J and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002) Chapter 7, 'The Concept of Flow'. In The Handbook of Positive Psychology by C.R. Snyder and S.J. Lopez. Oxford University Press. • [11] de Freitas, S. (2008) Emerging Technologies for Learning. BECTA research report, March 2008, Volume 3 (2008). • [12] JISC (2010). Business and Community Engagement. JISC website page. Retrieved 10th April 2010. http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/themes/bce.aspx.
At a talk on the history of Lego [1] that I attended this week I discovered that Lego are about to launch a new MMOG (Massively Multiplayer Online Game) called Lego Universe (see trailer below). When asked, only two people in the audience had heard of this type of game and yet I think there would have been a great number more hands raised if the question had been "Has anyone heard of World of Warcraft or Everquest or games that work like them?".
The popularity and business models of MMOGs, RPGs and MMORGs makes them a fascinating possibility for education. Though television shows, sports and home console games all have a significantly more visible leisure presence in current popular culture there are huge numbers of people quietly living our complex personal and social fantasies in these rich online games. Many of these games (indeed most of those I have seen) are significantly expensive to participate in and yet World of Warcraft (WoW) has over 11 million subscribers - all willing to pay an upfront fee and between $13 and $16 per month to play (around £8-10) the game[2] (see also Chan et al (2006)[10]) - indicating that there is something deeply compelling and entertaining taking place within such a game. Furthermore there are whole communities and businesses based around a game like WoW - machinima[4] and gold farming[5] (see also video below which forms part of a project from Ge Jin, a PhD student from the University of California San Diego[6]) being the most notorious though cafes that provide spaces for social (in both physical - the impact of which is discussed in Brown's account of new learning spaces (2005)[9] - and virtual senses) playing of MMORGs, quasi-official/unofficial merchandise and artwork[7], and web videos also feed off this very active community.
That social spirit and sense of investment in MMORGs is well captured by Gee (2003) [8] in his description of the intense anxiety of a player, "Adrian", facing the possibility of losing both elements of a character that he had built up (he would drop two levels if he was not ressurected - equating to about 12 hours of gameplay) and his relationship to his "clan" in EverQuest. A highly social process had to be completed to ressurect his character sparking an unusual overlap between his virtual clan and their real life identities. The most interesting part of this process is the team working and the ways in which this reflects practical real world skills. Gee describes the distributed skills structures at work in EverQuest clans and WoW guilds as "the Social Mind" and he also reflects on the ways in which highly experienced gamers can in turn become creators and hackers of these spaces - through the same social sharing processes that makes progress through the game possible. Hacking of this type can potentially generate huge technically skilled creativity (something highly transferrable not only to the games industry but many other professions) that takes the player beyond the game and into reflection on their gameplay experience and into a new form of role play where, instead of playing, say, an elvin hunter (my personal choice of character for our own experiments in WoW for this course) the player instead plays at being a games developer and/or computer programmer. In some senses it is this hacking activity - reflective, self-led, experimental, creative - that offers, in my opinion, the most exciting possibilities for learning since, if my own experience of learning programming is in any way representative, activity of this type will empower and have significant impact on the learner.
I acknowledge however that for many educational a more controlled gaming experience is preferred and the concept of team working and cooperation can certainly be safely experimented with in MMORGs in a way that is not always possible in person. We have debated the positives and negatives of role playing activities in physical situations on the discussion boards recently and it has been interesting to hear others' experiences of real life role playing contrasted with virtual experiences. Role playing should always be about a safe space for experimentation and the making of mistakes but many real world groupings include rivalvies, pre-existing relationships, and awkward social dynamics that can compromise the safety of the space. It would be nieve to assume all such compromises are eliminated in MMORGs since it may be that pre-existing rivalries and relationships exist (particularly if long term clan/guild relationships exist - a fun reflection of these strong affinity group bonds (Gee 2003) is included, below, in an episode from "The Guild" [16]) but it is fair to assume that an element of physical anonymity will allow some learners to feel more free to behave more freely.
There is, however, a concern raised by the embodiments possible in MMORGs particularly if they are to be used educationally and their use encouraged by trusted institions. At the time of Gee's account Adrian was 15 whilst a pivotal member of his community was a player from Indiana in his Thirties. Adrian comments:
"I still talk to the guy from Indiana sometimes. All of us have websites and message boards to talk on, to keep in contact with each other. Even with all like the Internet security stuff, we try not to give out our personal information, but after you get to know the person for a while, it becomes like second nature."
Although a sense of personal responsibility can, to an extent, be expected from higher and further education students it is still important that any educational use of MMORGs be well supported and that any learners exposed to these spaces be able to make well grounded judgements around their own privacy, the social ettiqueete and the potential costs of subscribing to MMORGs. Ensuring students are well supported will also mean ensuring games are available for multiple platforms (Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc.) or are centrally available on campus (where applicable), something that proves to be no slight feat. Some console based games already offer online connections between diverse platforms (Chan et al 2006) but for games such as World of Warcraft, which are well established but also contain legacies of earlier technologies, organising in-game events may be complex for both students and tutors (something experienced this week in both WoW and EverQuest sessions). Software that may be limited in terms of compatibility, availability and cost is not a new issue (indeed software like AutoCAD and SPSS as well as costly GIS packages are commonly used by academia despite such constraints) but the element of fun, confidence, sociability and playfulness that one wants to encourage in game spaces can be hard to encourage if learners are confused, angered and frustrated (and potentially even excluded) by the process of entering the game space. In many physical courses initial encounters with software can be controlled by lab set up and increased levels of in-person support but the diversity of computers/gaming systems that students on an electronic course (such as this one) may be using makes support an extremely complex and unpredictable prospect.
Chan et al (2006)[10] examine the demographics of MMOGs and these two raise challenges to those wishing to make pegagogical use of MMOGs. Although women (indeed women over 40) represent a large proportion of those playing online games it is young adult males that make up the majority of MMOG players. The authors also note that many MMOG players, for various reasons, spend a colossal amount of time on play citing a study by Griffiths et al (2003)[15]) that found that a quarter of EverQuest players interviewed spent an average of 41 hours online (Chan et al (2006:81).
Personal MMORG Reflections
My own experiences of MMORGs this week were limited to playing World of Warcraft. After a quite spectacular amount of time trying to get the software set up and functioning (I had accidentally downloaded a full version of the software and was mystified, when I downloaded the correct trial version, to find it installed this software as a separate application) and setting up my Battle.net account I was finally able to choose a player - an Elvin Hunter I names Suchgreeneye - and begin trying ouit the game itself.
I found that gameplay was relatively intuitive though the screen layout was intensely complex and I was aware of the fact that I was not exhibiting particular skill in moving and inhabiting my character, or making selections of appropriatte tools and strategies for her. The format of the game - many sub missions make up the large MMORPG - guided me to near instant gratification as I found myself completing small manageable tasks and feeling great satisfaction at the achievement despite early tasks being clear training levels. However I did not (in part, perhaps because of my technical problems that meant I was unable to join the course sessions) find the game terribly social as a space. A few characters said hello to me and I attempted to communicate back. I am aware that the usefulness of guilds and social play does not really occur until a player reaches an advanced stage of the game but I also felt this was quite an alien space for conversation.
Just as I am naturally suspicious of chatting to random strangers in real life and in second life, I was also cautious about speaking to random characters in WoW. In part this was my own fault: I chose an avatar that had some synergies with a username (suchpretteyes) that I use widely online and, although I do not really think others would immediately google the character name and find me, I do consider my usernames to be recognisable versions of myself and thus somewhat exposed. On the whole I was, however, more concerned that I simply did not know how or what to respond. Should I respond in character or as myself? Should I be chatty or is WoW primarily about the game? Could the person I was speaking to possibly be less knowledgeable about Wow? How would I make conversation with them? I am sure some of these issues would be overcome by further gameplay. Although I enjoyed spending a full evening (many more hours than planned) in WoW I did not find myself pining for gameplay the next day. Indeed I had previously been toured around WoW by enthusiastic friends and I could not - either as viewer or player - find a compelling reason for playing the game seriously on a regular basis. I enjoyed the game greatly - though I have some reservations about the learning possible by a game that is fundamentally centred on conflict - but found it hard not to be aware of the monetary and time cost of enthusiasm. I could not say whether this subconciously affected by enjoyment or engagement but I know that conciously it was a factor in my motivation to play on beyond the first few hours. The notion that I could get engrossed enough to take up a subscription somewhat alarmed me, not because this is any more inherantly unacceptable or odd than going to the cinema once a month, going out to dinner once a month, or other regular recurring leisure costs, but more because there are many other things I would prefer to do with my time and many friends I would prefer to stay up to date with online but already find it hard to make time for (they are not WoW players so I could not, as I know some friends do, use WoW as a shared virtual social activity space).
I had hoped to try some other MMORPGs out during this course but was unable to successfully access EverQuest and ran out of time for further MMORPG experimentation though I am excited to trial Lego Universe when it comes out as I have a great existing affection for Lego as a creative experience. Farmville is, however, the game I am most interested in trying out following our work on WoW. Like WoW Farmville has a huge and growing audience, attracts substantial income from that audience and has, on the whole, existed relatively quietly as a social game within Facebook. Unlike WoW Farmville sits in a female dominated online space and is based around farming activities so potentially offers some interesting possibilities for learning even as part of conventional gameplay. The connection to existing mediated social networks has both benefits and compromises for pedagogical usage since it would be administratively simpler to set up a game between students but might force students who would not otherwise wish to open access to their profiles to uncomfortably blend studying and private personas. It is an intriguing space though so I want to play and explore it in the near future.
Tangental MMORG learning activities
At the beginning of this blog post I commented on the phenomenon of Machinima and so, to close, I wanted to return to the idea of subverting games designers' intentions in MMORG activities. Earlier this week my course colleague Sarah Payne posted a short insightful interview she had conducted with other players in World of Warcraft about the sociability of game play (Payne 2010 [17]). This is not an activity that forms part of game play, nor is it an activity that could only take place in this (or any other MMORG) space, but it is an activity that potentially benefits from the anonymity and sense of community that exists in the space. My own experience of conducting a mini digital ethnography for a previous module (Osborne 2009 [18]) brings to mind several interesting possibilities for using MMORGs for engendering trust in research participants. For particularly sensitive subjects participants may wish to remain anonymous even to researchers - although such situations would obviously raise tricky complexities around the validation and deeper analysis of participants' responses since such interviews would lack authenticatable context.
On a much lighter note I also liked the creative use of WoW as a space for comedic experimentation in the video included below (Machinima 2008). As Rich Kuras talks to various WoW players and polls their opinions of candidates for the 2008 presidential election he actually reveals opinions and ideas that are at least as insightful as many serious news programmes' focus groups into the same topics revealed. By placing the democratic process in a playful space the filmmakers elicit playful but personal responses from players.
Returning to Gee's discussions of Semiotic Domains I think this offers a fun model for increasing engagement from those who may not feel that public debate is couched in anologies or terminology that speaks to them. With a UK election currently approaching this is broadly interesting but I also see links here to many learning contexts in which the process of moving from an outsider to an insider can be slow and frustrating and where greater connection to familiar environments may increase initial levels of understanding and ownership of learning.
[8] Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. New York, Palgrave Macmillan. Chapter 7: The Social Mind: How Do You Get Your Corspe Back After You've Died?
[12] Steinkuehler, C. A. (2004). Learning in massively multiplayer online games. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Mahwah, NJ.
[13] Walker-Rettberg, J. (2008). Quests in World of Warcraft: Deferral and Repetition. In H. G. Corneliussen & J. Walker-Rettberg (Eds.), Digital Culture, Play and Identity: A World of Warcraft Reader. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. Chapter 8: Quests in World of Warcraft: Deferral and Repetition
[15] Griffiths, M. D., Davies, M. N. O., & Chappell, D. (2003). Breaking the stereotype: The case of online gaming. Cyber Psychology & Behaviour, 6. pp. 81-91.
As you can see from my very first blog, I was a complete novice when it came to video and digital games. Also within my immediate family there is a feeling that games are frivolous.What seemed incongruous to them was this up-to-now serious academic suddenly playing games.
However, I was curious as to what games could offer education and I have not been disappointed.I particularly liked Nicola Whitton’s approach – focusing on what educators can learn from good game design and also her concentration on higher education which is where my own teaching is located. As a sociologist I am fascinated by the evolution of digital game play which somehow passed me by – from the very public context of arcade gaming, to early console games, to initially textual multi-player online games in MOOs and MUDs, to fully 3D immersive MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft and Everquest, to ARGs and multi-modal games and mobile and wii games. These developments have occurred in a relatively short time frame of about 30 years.Being in my mid-fifties I can see how these developments have passed me by although I am not arguing strongly for a generational difference as I was never ‘into’ games that much. I can see someone of my generation who was a game enthusiast would have been enthralled by these developments.
I had a very simplistic notion of what is ‘play’ and what is a ‘game’.The distinction between paedia (spontaneous, unstructured play) and ludic (structured play) (Caillois,2001) was illuminating particularly as I could apply it to my practice of qualitative analysis – where I can see a phase of ‘playing with the data’ in the paedia sense when experimenting with ideas, immersing oneself in the data and a more ‘ludic’ phase i.e a structured, methodical approach to managing and analysing data.The problematic nature of ‘what is a game’ was brought home to me when we had to design in our own groups a game using Google Earth as the back drop.After constructing our game, I was suddenly not sure whether it was a game or not (see blog).I had to think hard about what differentiated a game from a learning activity.This was not something I had expected – having read the literature on the characteristics of a game. It was in the practice of trying to design a game that the issues the literature discussed became meaningful.
My own experience with playing games during this course began with a lot of frustration.I had never played arcade-style games so my attempts with PacMan (I had never even heard of PacMan!! – which seems amazing to me now), Donkey Kong etc. were fraught.It was like entering a new world, learning a new language for me.I did not enjoy the early weeks of game playing.Ironically, I now play on my iPhone two arcade-style games – DoodleJump and Ragdoll 2. I play them when I want some down time to relax and empty my mind – something I never thought possible during my first attempt at playing these games. And I get satisfaction in getting better – improving my score. As I tried different types of games, I became more involved in them and started to look at them from a meta-level perspective – learning their design grammars or understanding their semiotic domain (Gee 2003).This level of understanding was reinforced in searching for a game to review that would somehow be related to my practice.At this point in the course, we had not looked at ARGs. I first looked at educational games but as most were aimed at the K-12 level, I did not find anything that I thought could be translated to post-graduates. I then looked at commercial games and the ones that I thought had relevance to qualitative analysis were detective games.The one I ultimately chose (Missing: Since January AKA In Memoriam) I discovered retrospectively had elements of an ARG – playing as oneself, having an ongoing storyline, moving between the game and the real world (real fact-based sites, emails), a ‘this is not a game’ attitude and a simulation of collaboration.The blending of the real and game worlds I particularly liked as it engendered a sense of the uncanny (Bayne 2008) – an uncomfortable feeling, a disorientation which mirrors the ‘troublesome’ nature of the qualitative analysis process and links to Meyer and Land’s (2005) notion of students’ needing to grapple with troublesome areas before being able to assimilate the ‘threshold concepts’ relevant to their subject area.
Missing: Since January was the first ‘long’ game that I played and I had to grapple with the variety of puzzles, arcade-style games as well as internet searches in order to proceed. I also discovered a number of cheats on the internet and thus connected with the affinity group associated with this game. At this mid-point of the course, I felt that I was getting a deeper understanding of games.
My biggest surprise was how much I enjoyed the MMORPGs.I was slightly apprehensive about playing these games and I welcomed the fact that we would be playing them as a group.I doubt whether I would have ventured into them alone. I enjoyed developing my avatar and learning about the role my type of character plays in the game.I have blogged about the ethical issues I think these games raise but I like, in general, the notion of completing quests.World of Warcraft and Everquest II reminded me a bit of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (with the idea of travelling through unknown lands to complete a quest).Not surprisingly, I recently discovered that there is a Lord of the Rings MMORPG.I enjoy the richness of inhabiting these simulated environments.
I am still absorbing how I can apply what I have learned about games to the way I design workshops supporting learning about the qualitative analysis process and the use of CAQDAS (Computer-Aided Qualitative Data AnalysiS).I can see how each software package (such as ATLAS.ti, MAXqda or NVivo) can be used as a platform for a game.Using an existing software package as platform for a game (in the way we used Google Earth as a platform) has the benefits of being efficient in terms of cost (not having to design from scratch a game environment) and being authentic – playing in the environment that you are learning about.However, I am reluctant to explore this route as these software packages are complex as it as and adding learning how to play a game on top of these packages would be adding an additional layer of complexity.Students may feel they are wasting time learning how to play the game.In addition, all these packages are in a phase of rabid development with new versions coming out every 18 months or so – any game I develop for a particular platform will be quickly out of date.
More importantly, I need to consider whether a game is an appropriate vehicle for the kind of teaching I do. I can see the relevance of the collaborative nature of games and the development of affinity groups to develop a researcher identity. Many of the people who attend my courses are new not only to the software tools but to qualitative data analysis itself – so I see the potential of creating something that addresses that need.Whether that something is a game or a series of learning activities is something I need to consider. In fact, I should not think of my choice simply as an ‘either-or’ between a game or a learning activity. Jackson (2009) gives an example of game-based teaching where she used principles from gaming – levelling, “well-ordered problems”, immediate feedback, resubmission and discovery learning – in designing learning activities. What I need to steer clear of is what Papert (1998) calls – shavian reversals – combining the worst from the education and the gaming worlds. This is something I will be working out in my final assignment on designing a game.
References
Bayne, S. (2008) Uncanny spaces for higher education: teaching and learning in virtual worlds, ALT-J, 16:3, pp.197-205
Caillois, R. (2001) Chapter 2, 'The Classification of Games'. In Man, Play and Games. Illinois: University of illinois Press.
Gee, J.P. (2003) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, New York: Palgrave
Jackson, J. (2009) Game-based teaching: what educators learn from videogames, Teaching Education, vol. 20. No. 3, September 2009, pp. 291-304
Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2006) Threshold concepts: An introduction in Overcoming barriers to student understanding: Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge, London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Papert, S. (1998) Does easy do it? Children, games and learning, Game Developer, June: 88
Whitton, N. (2010) Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge.
I am blogging at this point in the course about ARGS because my ‘flow’ in this course was seriously disrupted at the end of Week 7 because the hard drive of my main laptop got corrupted.While I had some things backed up on my back up computer, I did not have everything – including all the work I had done for this course.I was able to complete the first assignment having been granted a few days extension.During those extension days I was completely focused and immersed in my chosen game and the review write up.However, after I completed my review, I had to go back to re-building my laptop, prioritising the training material that I had lined up over the next few weeks and a presentation I had to give at a conference.While I continued to do the reading for the course, I was not able to play games as I had to spend what time I had to try to reconstruct all my lost data for my business – contacts, engagements, accounts (I haven’t even started on that!).
With my ‘flow’ interrupted, I had been finding it difficult to get back into the course. I had been thrown into what Czkiszentmihalyi describes as an anxiety state – I had too many challenges to handle at once. However, I had been completely immersed in the course before my IT disaster. I started trying to get back into the course by looking at some Alternative Reality Games.I was particularly interested in this type of game as it seemed to be most suited to the kind of game which would be relevant to my work. In fact, I reviewed Missing: Since January for my first assignment because while it is not a true ARG it has elements of an ARG: an ongoing storyline, moving between the game and the real world (real fact-based sites, emails),a ‘this is not a game’ attitude and a simulation of collaboration among different people trying to solve the clues that the Phoenix gives as to the whereabouts of the journalist he kidnapped. (It is a single player game but collaboration is simulated by receiving real emails with ideas on how to interpret the Phoenix’s messages from what appears to be real people also looking for the journalist.) I enjoyed Missing: Since January despite being sometimes frustrated by the difficultness of some of the puzzles.
However, I was disappointed in the ARG games I first looked at – Darfur is Dying and the Viola Quest.Darfur is Dying is simply depressing – it is incredibly difficult to get to the well to bring water back to the village without being picked up by the patrols.One by one you watch your little avatars – representing villagers - disappear.The link to the real world is made by asking you every time an avatar is picked up to contribute something for the people of the Darfur. I found it too simplistic and appealing only to the converted. I also felt uncomfortable of the situation in Darfur being represented by a cartoon-style game.I also could not get engaged in the Viola Quest – the storyline did not appeal to me, and I did not have any need to be inducted in the Manchester Metropolitan University community.
My re-engagement in this course occurred when we explored MMOGs through playing World of Warcraft and Everquest II. It may have been a combination of the immersive nature of these games and re-connecting with my fellow students that re-generated my ‘flow’ in this course.But it could also be something about how these games can generate flow in players.
Entering flow is largely a function of how attention has been focused in the past and how it is focused in the present by the activity’s structural conditions….Clear proximal goals, immediate feedback, and just-manageable levels of challenge orient the organism, in a unified and coordinated way, so that attention becomes completely absorbed into the stimulus field defined by the activity.” Nakamura, J. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002:92)
I found that I was able to develop my character, learn how my type of character fits into the wider frame of the game world and was able to successfully proceed through several levels.I have blogged about my experiences of MMOGs and issues they raise – particularly about ethics.
Having successfully explored MMOGs I decided to revisit ARGs.I read Kim et al.’s (2009) evolution of ARGs.I found it interesting that the first ARG – The Beast (2001) – was designed as a promotional tool for the film – A.I.This idea that ARGs can be used as a viral marketing tool was developed further by other games – I love Bees (2004) for the video game Halo 2, Last Call Poker (2005) for the video game – Gun, Year Zero(2007) for Nine Inch Nails’ CD of the same name, and Free Fall (2008) to promote the film – Eagle Eye.All these games benefitted by a large marketing budget which is obvious by the quality of the various artefacts of the games.(I explored in particular – I love Bees and Year Zero.) While I don’t believe that top production values of videos, web-sites, posters etc alone make a game exciting, the combination of a good game design AND top production values are winners.
Kim et al. (2009) make the point that ARGs they discussed used participatory mechanisms ‘to build and strengthen affinity groups. A set of problems aligns the interest and attention of a group and pulls them into the story’s action’. This development and use of affinity groups is key attraction for educators. In my case, I think ARGs can be used to develop qualitative data analysts - creating a group environment where novice researchers can learn from each other, given an interesting area to research.Kim et al. (2009) point to the decline of professional journalists and the domination of information by a few media sources.They see ARGs as a way ‘to make sense of amateur data and provide structure and interactive experiences. The role of the storymaster will likely evolve to become more flexible and open...’ They seem to be promoting ARGs as a structure for everyday folk to make sense of the mass of information about the world.This seems similar to the analysis process in research.Of course, who frames the stories will have a lot of power in what they are proposing.
Jane McGonigal who was involved in designing some of the viral marketing ARGs (including I love Bees) has now moved to using ARGs to promote social action.
She designed World without Oil – a game where participants from all over the world had to imagine a real world potential problem – how would they manage when the oil ran out.Her current game is Evokewhich is focused on youth in Africa although anyone can play. It is described as a ‘crash course for changing the world’ – teaching you collaboration, creativity, entrepreneurship and sustainability. The World Bank is one of the sponsors. As can be seen from the promotional video, the production values are high but so is the design. (It cost $500,000 to design.)
However, even though at the time of writing this blog Evoke is live as a game, it has already inspired a parody game – called Invoke – a crash course in saving capitalism – inspired by the World Bank and their game Evoke.
Christy Dena (a game design consultant) has blogged about the implications of this parody.The first point she makes is that the fact that Evoke has been parodied is evidence that the ARG genre (a game form that has confused many up until now) is a recognized form – particularly as the parody ARG was designed by people outside of the ARG community.
It wouldn’t be a parody of form if there was no recognisable form to parody. This means the mechanics and missions have become somewhat standardised. They are not part of experimental fringe culture, but have moved into mainstream creative forms if you like. (Dena, 2010).
The second point Dena makes is that Invoke is also a parody of McGonigal’s claim that games can save or change the world.Adrian Hon (a cross-media entertainment designer – a term he prefers to ARG designer) has blogged about the misleading claims that have been made for ARGs. He cites that while World without Oil had 2176 registered players over 32 weeks, only 276 were active (i.e. submitted at least one piece of work) and only 170 submitted more than one piece of work. Superstruct is another ARG where players fast forward to 2019 and try to find solutions for multiple threats to human survival. Hon reports that of 8901 registered players only 554 superstuctures were created. Hon’s point is that while these games may attract a large number of players initially, they are impacting on only a small percentage of them. He says it is overstating the case that games can change the world. However, he acknowledges that in its first week Evoke had over 8000 registered users and these users had submitted 3000 pieces of content. It is also truly international and has succeeded in attracting players from Africa. Hon feels that games like Evoke and World without Oil can be inspirational but it is misleading to say that they can change the world.
My preference for the ARG game genre in relation to my own work is that the game is enmeshed within the real world rather than entering a fictional game world and that it uses multiple media and communication tools.The players are playing as themselves but they are linked together to form a community of novice researchers. My goal is that they learn to be qualitative analysts. I notice that the game Evoke also has a role for mentors in the game which is an idea I can use when constructing my game. My concern is that while it is possible to construct an ARG with basic Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis, emails etc. (as Whitton suggests), the ARGs that I found that worked were the commercial ones, the ones that had a lot of money to produce them. Also even in these, they needed a critical mass of several thousand players in order to get enough interaction going among players. Despite this, I feel optimistic that it is possible to use as a model these successful ARGs to produce a scaled down version for educational purposes.
Kim, J., Lee, E., Thomas, T. and Dombrowski, C. (2009) Storytelling in New Media: The case of alternative reality games – 2001-2009, New Monday, vol. 14, issue 6.
Nakamura, J. & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002) (2002) Ch. 7 The concept of flow in Snyder, C.R. et al Handbook of Positive Psychology, Oxford University Press
Whitton, N. (2010) Learning with Digital Games, Routledge.
I'm blogging about this week retrospectively now that I've had a chance to mull further on the readings and ideas. In looking at the ideas of engagement, motivation and narrative we touched on some topics that really excited me but were a touch tangental to gaming.
Flow
The discussion of “Flow” from Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (TEDtalksDirector 2008) and Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2002)[4] really captured my imagination. This idea of reaching a heightened state of awareness and of filtering and focus, where one loses all track of time whilst absorbed in a task, is very recognisable and seductive as a state for learning. The further idea that even unengaging activities can become engaging if Flow is achieved (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi 2002 [4]: 92) is particularly pedagogically intriguing. In theory it suggests that if you can provoke efficient behaviour you can engage a student with learning though I think this would be a cynical and ineffective way to ensure your learners actually engage with the curriculum. However the related idea that a more skillful task and “skill stretching” (Massimini in [4]) is more demanding and helps promote a state of flow and engagement seems logical and it is self-evident in personal and/or many group learning activities that a lack of challenge can quickly lose attention.
How one creates and assesses a state of flow seems to be a significant challenge despite efforts to measure (e.g. Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi (1988), Mayers (1978) both in [4]) and create computational spaces designed for flow (e.g. Schmidt (2000), Trevino & Trevino (1992), Matocchio (1993) as discussed in Nakamura and Csikszentmihalyi (2002) [4]). But there seems to be a relationship between self-esteem and flow (perhaps in both directions) and a role for day to day success to contribute to flow (Schmidt 2000 quoted in [4]) - both aspects can certainly be supported by the pedagogic choices and mediation that takes place in digital or physical learning environments. Interestingly the fostering environments identified (Montossori schools, occupational therapy, exhibits in the Getty Museum in LA (in exhibits)) are about creating the freeing and open environments often associated with pioneering work spaces such as the Google offices in the US and Switzerland. The further example of Key School (Whalen 1999 in [4]) appears to offer facilities that enable proximal learning as well as fostering flow states and this is perhaps no accident. Indeed even if flow is not a useful theory (a question raised in our tutorial with Nicola Whitton this week) establishing creative spaces that raise learner self esteem and their sense of personal achievement can certainly have no ill benefits (whether in digital game-based learning, online or physical spaces).
From the more specific games angle Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi (2002) talk about relaxation and flow as being two intrinsically rewarding states which would seem to raise a useful role for games in finding educationally beneficial flow. Furthermore LeFevre (1988 in [4]) talks about a desire for leisure even when workers are experiencing flow, a challenging effect but one which should further enforce the role of games in creating flow.
In reading about flow the part that rang most true for me was the idea of the “autotelic personality” - a person who enjoys life and/or does things for their own sake. Abuhamdeh (2000 in [4]) indicates that autotelics are less stressed and strained in flow than out (whilst non-autotelics experience opposite states). This resonated with my own usage of time and perhaps could be interpreted as the reasoning behind the idea that “if you want something done, ask a busy person”. However I found myself wondering about the conflict between useful and useless states of flow? You can, from what I can see, be autotelic and productive but you may also have trouble harnessing flow on the activity you want to focus or achieve progress on (vs. a fun or less important goal). Flow can also be interrupted so unrealistic or unmet goals, reminders or interruptions may trigger drops in self-esteem and breakage of flow.
I did not fine Crawford (1982) [3] as exciting. Crawford seems to suggest that exploration and fantasy must always be interlinked but I think my science and tech interests contribute to my personal sense that exploration is about imagination, trial and error and as free and creative a space as can be provided. However I don't think that fantasy is an essential to that process – even in games. Games do offer safety nets – I think we have discussed that throughout the last few months – and can offer some of recognition (I am not sure all games must have interaction at the core but a game like N0t Pr0n can be frustrating because it takes place on an individual and pretty much private space) . Crawford's suggestion that games were the earliest form of communication is problematic to me but I think if one thinks of playfulness as being a key part of survival I can see and accept that argument about the centrality to play and games.
Crawford also raises the issue of sensory qualities (“proof of games reality”) being important to motivating and enjoying game play. This harks back to de freitas (2008) [7] and her discussion of game quality as important to learning. I am not convinced by either Crawford or de freitas here but acknowledge that the prevailing direction of commercial games is towards the hyper real – whether in “realistic” visual scenarios such as war games or simulations (e.g. recent versions of The Sims) or real looking high definition fantasy games such as Final Fantasy and recent Zelda incarnations (see below - the latter video even agrees with Crawford and de freitas that better graphics make for better engagement).
As I have mentioned before on this blog I am not convinced that realistic games are automatically engaging nor that realistic high definition graphics are required to become immersed in a game but I wanted to note the similarity in those arguments from the very different perspectives of Crawford and de freitas.
ARGs (Alternate Reality Games)
The remainder of this week's readings complimented our games focus of Alternate Reality Games. Whitton (2010) [2] and (2008) [5] specifically examined the role of ARGs in learning contexts. Whitton (2010) [1] meanwhile discussed the complexities of assessing the effectiveness and learning from digital games as well as highlighting the importance of aligning engagement to desired learning outcomes, something particularly pertinent to sophisticated gaming contexts including ARGs and MMORPGs. Indeed such sophisticated games, by virtue of their complexity and the cost of development and infrastructure, will often be designed and run by commercial or external companies whose core focus is likely to be entertainment rather than education (even if their games may coincidentally be well suited to teaching and learning.
Whitton (2010) [2] is a case study of the University of Brighton's “Who is Herring Hale?” student induction ARG which consisted of 10 tasks over the course of students' first term at the university. In some senses this is a very encouraging case study as the facilities used to create and deliver the game were relatively inexpensive (with the notable exception of staff time) and take up, whilst not dramatic, was relatively good with around 15% completing at least one task in the game. Since these were involved explorations of physical student support services and resources this represents a significant amount of effort on the part of those taking part. Indeed the launch of the game was via a student quiz that offered two ipods as prizes, and the start of the game also coincided with the launch of a university wide social networking system further raising visibility of the initiative within the organisation.
What surprised me, however, was not the innovation in the induction game but how much like a professional development course the game was in terms of activities. This digital game revolved largely around reading information leaflets of rather general tone – rather than relating specifically to students own areas of study or interest. Additionally since the programme was linear in structure tasks like “find and apply for a specific job” will not be of interest/appropriate to many students and is a very involved and invasive task in comparison to later weeks' activities which involve reading leaflets. The responsiveness to real events is a nice idea but the timeline of 10 weeks seems excessive, particularly given the many other activities that students will be interested in as they begin courses and settle into the organisation. Reading through the numbers of participants it also seemed bizarre that only a tiny proportion of new students were invited to take part in the quiz and these were, by their selection process, those that were already most interested in official university information. Furthermore the “debrief” sessions only involved the 12 students that completed the ARG which seems odd since it is likely to be those students that did not, in the first place, get 70% in the new student quiz and those who dropped out of the game early – these seem likely to be students far more likely to be excluded (by their own choice or the choice of format) of existing induction processes. Although this game was measured and assessed I therefore question the measure of assessment since the audience was self-selecting, committed and interested in the game and the reasons for other students not taking part were not properly examined. I take Whitton's end of case study Tip on board – mysteries and quizzes are not for all – but I suspect that 12 people out of a possible 5000 may not represent a helpful proportion of the student body compared to traditional induction systems and the game may not financially be easily justified by this level of uptake.
Were I involved in the team behind the game I think I would have wanted to involved several students who had recently completed the first term (or year) of university and asked them to indicate the type of induction information they would want, the formats that appeal and the timing that such information would be useful. I would want them to inform the design significantly since the gap between information professionals and new students is enormous. To some extent it would be most appropriate to ask students completing secondary school to help craft the game as this would likely most match up to the expectations and needs of induction but there would be considerable complexity to doing this. However whilst looking at ARGs this week I became aware of SmokeScreen, a game built around internet safety and supported by 4iP (a funding arm of Channel 4). This game takes leverage from shows like Skins in it's alternate reality story and uses realistic looking social sites as part of the game. This seems more in tune with the expectations, aesthetic and digital savvy of young people though it will, of course, have cost far more money to initially set up. However the tasks are far more integrated to the story than those of Who is Herring Hale? and I think that is an interesting aspect of comparing different ARGs – the engagement possible in the alternate reality can vary greatly and whilst the slickness of a game may not matter I think integrity and narrative relevance of each task is crucial to building an involving scenario.
Of the ARG games I was able to test this week I found World Without Oil rather unengaging but this is probably a result of the fact that the game has finished. Video is a great medium for communication but I suspect this game was far more involving for participants than for viewers. Darfur is Dying was very effective in raising awareness of the bleakness of refugee life in the Darfur region of Sudan. However it's strength – showing how tough life is – is also the games biggest weakness as you cannot progress far enough into the game to become highly engaged. As an engagement and awareness raising tool it is excellent but I think as an ARG it has some problems. Indeed on the discussion board I have also been wondering about:
“how problematic - especially on a less learner centred course or one with a central strand of physical meet ups/tutorials - a truly emotionally engaging game is in terms of honest responses and reflections from learners. The risk factor in engaging goes up enormously in a group - especially the relatively random and relatively fleeting groupings that often characterise a single course of study - if the grounding is highly emotional and personal. I think the Darfur games this week is an interesting game from this perspective as it is instantly profoundly upsetting and game play, no matter how skilled, seems destined to always end in the death or rape (or both) of a character and there is, of course, the unsettling reminder that this game is based on real situations. I would have great trouble learning socially with a game like that as the natural tendency in a group play or discussion session is to turn to macabre humour or outrage. It is much harder to share the distress and reflect on how that reaction relates back to reality.”
Indeed I think role play – often a key component of ARGs - can be very tricky because of that issue of balance - it is risky to emotionally engage and be really part of the moment and taking a cynical attitude provides safety from exposure, particularly in social games or in public gaming settings (like a classroom or computer lab) where there is an aspect of performance. In the case of Darfur is Dying there is a great potential to feel distressed or shamed by failure if you are seen to try over and over again but still achieve no progress in the game and/or you are being seen to select children for tasks that will see them murdered, abducted or raped if unsuccessful.
Notpron was the game that most grabbed my imagination as the tasks were quite geeky and obtuse and that appealed to my explorative side. Although the game has been running for 6 years it remains fairly fresh though it's low resolution origins won't work for all and the lateral thinking required can be extremely challenging. Viola Quest was also surprisingly engaging. Although the look and feel was, compared to it's age, a little low resolution and there were uses of stock images that seemed at odds with the plot the actual puzzles and challenges were very enjoyable and appropriately challenging. As an induction process I am not sure if it would be the most efficient way to learn about Manchester Metropolitan University but I can certainly see that it would be a memorable and fun way to find out useful information in spare moments with a little competitive lure to bring me back regularly. Meanwhile Emergent Game, like World Without Oil, rather suffered for being complete but I loved the visual style of the site and the game certainly looked fun to take part in. Like Hunt The Poem there seemed to be a real sense of community around the game and that would certainly help motivate participation and retention of players. Planetarium reminded me a little of Myst (odd since I think Notpron was the most Myst like of all this week's games) and I failed to engage with the story and format of the puzzles – I think in part this was a resistance to register and login to the game (I didn't have the same response to Emergent Game partly because it was clearer who I was registering my data with and that they were trustworthy) as I found the initial puzzles difficult and not very entertaining at all.
Geocaching is a phenomenon I was already well aware of as there is a large geo community based at and around several projects and services at my work. I am actually not sure that I would previously have classified that activity as an ARG exactly. It's inclusion on the list made me wonder if communities of competitive bird watchers, mountaineers, etc. could be seen, in some way, as taking part in ARGs. This challenging use of labels resonates with an issue I raised in these week's tutorials as I wanted to explore what the difference between an ARG and a subculture might be since so many parts of being a key member of a cultural tribe or subculture relates to attaining or participating in competitive rights, learning cultural practices and vocabularies, and building networks and status in the group. It is not an issue I found closure on but it did make me reassess the gaming aspects of every day life again. The idea that one would go on a long walk uphill purely to geocache the experience seems bizarre to me, but then I rarely enjoy an experience until I have tweeted some sort of brief summary to share what I am doing and I certainly note and can (occasionally) be a little competitive about my popularity on the service. There are some really interesting examples of crowd sourcing sites that make really good use of creating a sense of competitive community so that contribution becomes a game. GalaxyZoo (http://www.galaxyzoo.org/) and the Australian National Library Newspaper digitisation project (http://newspapers.nla.gov.au/) both come to mind as they use tools like leaderboards and prizes to turn work (that could be costly and take a great deal of time to complete any other way) into fun.
Finally I also wanted to share a few links this week. First is a news item I saw after our ARG week had finished (but before I had completed this post). A child has racked up hundreds of pounds of debt in Farmville, a game which is a sort of a cross between an ARG and a MMORG that sits on Facebook. Although the story will provoke criticism of online games I think there is an aspect here that is quite intriguing. The sense of fantasy was such that this child spent all of their own real world savings to buy virtual goods and virtual points to progress through the game. This is a powerful and engaging game and, no matter to what extent the game is or could be educational, this shows the power of an absorbing sense of play (and flow?) that can be engendered in fantasy games (even those that are promoted as casual play experiences).
The other link was the Games For Change Toolkit which I thought was a great attempt to make the process of creating games as inventive and enlightening as the process of playing them. The initiative offers, as it's mission statement, that it will:
“transform urban youth into successful students and global and community leaders by engaging them in socially dynamic, content-rich learning experiences.”
And the site is rich in useful content for game creation arranged in really unusual and visual ways that fit well with the mission for making social games. The site also features huge numbers of games that have been created using the tools and ideas of Games for Change so I felt it complimented many of the games which we have been looking at this week.
References
Whitton, N. (2010) Chapter 7, 'Assessing the Impact of Digital Games on Learning'. In Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge. (core textbook)
Whitton, N. (2010) Case Study 1 in Chapter 11, 'Who is Herring Hale?'. In Learning with Digital Games: A practical guide to engaging students in higher education, London: Routledge. (core textbook)
Nakamura, J and Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2002) Chapter 7, 'The Concept of Flow'. In The Handbook of Positive Psychology by C.R. Snyder and S.J. Lopez. Oxford University Press. (p89-91 specifically, online)
MMOGS such as World of Warcraft and EverQuest can be viewed as communities of practice.Etienne Wenger (2006 - http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm ) identifies three elements that characterise a community of practice:
·The domain – a shared domain of interest that members are committed to and have a shared competence that distinguishes them from others
·The community – members engage in joint activities and build relationships so that they can learn from each other
·The practice – members are practitioners who develop a shared resource of knowledge and expertise through sustained interaction
The community of practice is evident in the guilds of World of Warcraft .As John Seely Brown(2005) points out, guild-building is important in WoW. High level quests have to be carried out by a well-organized team with players who have diverse skills e.g. warriors, healers and spell-casters. The WoW guild has all three elements that Wenger identifies as essential to a community of practice.
David White in his case study of World of Warcraft in Whitton (2010) mentions that there are three significant techniques that WoW uses to encourage the formation of communities of players (or communities of practice):
·Their management of presence
·The formation of multi-skilled teams
·The pursuit of clear goals within an overarching narrative
White claims that the first two techniques have not been properly considered by those designing online learning environments.White makes the point that interaction in a community requires fostering both a feeling that the environment is safe and a feeling of trust that others in the community will respond to one.White claims that WoW successful does this by how they manage presence.The player is immediately aware of the presence of others in the game by being able to see their avatars.More importantly there is a general chat channel which is open to all, so the player can see the interactions going on without having to risk engaging in interaction.It is this low-risk management of presence that allows the novice player to learn the etiquette of this new world enabling them to eventually more from being an individual player to a group player.In addition, Hagel, Brown and Davison stress that there is also there is a whole “’knowledge economy’ surrounding the game –videos, blogs, wikis etc.” (http://blogs.hbr.org/bigshift/2010/01/a-better-way-to-manage-knowled.html )Any player can access these resources to learn more about the game.
White’s discussion about presence resonates with my own experience of WoW.I am still at the early stages (having attained only level 6 at the time of writing this piece) – so I still do not feel that it is a safe environment – although I feel comfortable enough to go there on my own.However, I am aware of the open chat channel and I have observed interactions among other players – so I am getting a feel for the community. I have explored some wikis that discuss my role of the priest and the best way to maximise play at different levels.( http://www.wowwiki.com/Starting_a_priest )
I can see that if I decided to continue to play WoW that I could get to a point to start interacting with other players and maybe eventually join a guild.What I like is that I am not forced to immediately interact with others – that the game world is structured so that I can learn on my own the social norms of the world and that I am allowed to decide to interact in my own time.
Having time to explore the game world and learn about the role you have adopted leads to White’s second point about how WoW encourages the formation of multi-skilled teams.White makes the point that educators should think of designing goals that require a multi-skilled team.He feels that assigning roles is crucial to collaboration when it comes to learning.Ideally he would like learners to be able to experiment with different roles as they can in WoW.
The way WoW manages presence and has quests that require a multi-skilled team encourages the formation of guilds (a community of practice).I would like to design a game that leads to the development of a community of practice of qualitative data analysts. My goal is to design a game which is about what John Seely Brown calls ‘learning-to-be’ a qualitative analyst as opposed to ‘learning-about’ qualitative analysis.I am not sure whether a MMOG is the type of game for what I want to do, however, I can see how I can extract the ways that WoW encourages the development of communities of practice.I could see that the analysis task can be divided initially so that each analyst would be working on part of the data set (could be divided into types of data such as text, graphic, video, and audio). The initial tasks would be simple – organizing and classifying the data, moving on to commenting and reflecting on the data. This initial period would enable the analyst to familiarise themselves with their part of the data set and start to gain confidence in their ideas about the data.However, to develop the analysis, they will have to work as a team and collectively decide how to code the data and eventually they will need to collectively construct their arguments about how the data addresses their research question.
References
Brown, J.S.(2005) New Learning Environments for the 21st Century, Forum for the Future of Higher Education Symposium. Aspen.
Hagel, J., Brown, J.S., and Davison, L. (2010) A Better Way to Manage Knowledge, in Harvard Business Review blog, 19 January 2010
I bailed very early on from attempting to configure my connectivity to WOW and Everquest. Some success was gained in accessing the latter, but even 100mbps (via an ethernet connection rather than wireless at home) my Asus EEEPC struggled.
Yes, I may have played using better equipment, but I thought that a 10mbps connection to the internet via Virgin and 2Gb of RAM would have given me *some* experience.
As for WOW, I was very disappointed: a recursive problem with registration/configuration meant that I never got to access and enter the WOW universe, just a browser redirect to a-n-other game site.
So, are these games really geared towards the Internet and the average user? Or are they still a niche genre that only harnesses the Internet for connectivity - effectively power-hungry desktop applications calling for similar high-end distributed demands?
I enjoyed playing World of Warcraft and EverQuest.It is the first time I ever played an MMOG.However, I was a little concerned with how easily I slipped into the culture of these games.As I posted to the discussion board:
While playing with the group I heard one of our group members say that they did not like bashing wolves. I found that I didn't like doing it either but I had rationalised it because they were 'diseased' wolves and as such should be culled. However, in a later quest I had to collect the bandanas of some renegades and when I accepted the quest I realised that meant that I had to kill them. I was a bit uneasy about that but I had accepted the quest. I was killed at my first and second attempts but after being resurrected and figuring out (a la Gee) which weapon I should use, I was successful and forgot that I was 'killing' these renegades but just focussed on being successful in completing my task. However, when I went to get my reward and next quest, the quest-giver made a comment about how I didn't mind doing dirty work (or words to that effect). This jolted me out of my complacency and I realised that my character was a murderer. I had deliberately chosen the persona of a priest rather than a warrior to avoid being a 'bad' character. I was surprised at how easily I slipped into a murderer. I had an objective and became focussed on that objective - ignoring the means of achieving it.
I should add that I just came back from giving a paper at a conference in Berlin and spent the weekend exploring Berlin - which included visiting the Jewish museum and part of the Wall which is still standing. I was appalled at the stories of informers but my husband suggested that we did not know what pressures were put on informers. I mention this only because this experience is fresh in my memory and what I find interesting about WoW is how easy it is to be absorbed into a particular culture and a particular way of being. It made me wonder whether I could act more ethically in the WoW culture rather than passively just accepting quests.
Gee talks about three identities when playing a game – the virtual, the real and the projective. A player has some control in constructing their virtual identity in a game but the player’s choice is constrained because she has no control over the game world in which she has to play. So I chose Anavli to be a Priest in WoW so she could be a ‘good’ character.However, the initial quests in WoW involve killing beasts, killing renegades etc.My choice of my virtual identity was constrained by the game world in which my character has to live. Gee also talks about a projective identity using the term projective in two senses:
·Players project their own values and desires onto their virtual identity (in my case Anavli)
·Players see their virtual identity as a project in making – they need to take ownership of their creation (I have aspirations for the kind of character I want Anavli to become)
After creating my virtual identity, when I entered the game I was a passive player – accepting the quests and not questioning what I was doing. It was when the quest-giver made his remark that my real identity reawakened and questioned how my virtual identity was behaving.At that point, I think that I began to be aware of my projective identity.I wanted to take ownership of the kind of character I wanted Anavli to become but I was not sure of the constraints in the game world of WoW.
Miguel Sicart has written on the ethics of computer games.His view on ethics of computer games is linked to his definition of a game – ‘A game is not only it rules, its material aspect, but also its experience – the act of playing the game.’ (Sicart 2005:15) He takes the view that games players ‘are moral beings that evaluate their actions and the choices they make’ (Sicart 2005:15). However, he also argues that:
The way games are designed and how that design encourages players to make certain choices, is relevant for the understanding of the ethics of computer games. (Sicart 2009:17)
In his 2005 paper he uses an example from WoW.WoW designers allowed player vs. player combat (pvp) in certain servers.Because of the popularity of that feature, the designers decided to implement an honour system – where players got a considerable number of points for killing other players.(Sicart points out that they did not at the same time implement a dishonour system.)This design feature led to what the WoW community considered unethical behaviour such as corpse camping (i.e. waiting for other players to resurrect to kill them again when they were weak) and ganking (attacking players who cannot defend themselves).The WoW community became divided – some liked the honour system, others disliked it so much that they stopped playing in the pvp servers.The designers resolved this polarization by having certain areas that are designated in the map as battlegrounds. (Sicart was writing in 2005. I have been challenged to a few duels in WoW but I had the option to decline – so this is probably a further design feature refinement of the ethical issue the honour system raised.)
Sicart’s point is that both the player and the rules/fictional worlds are ethical entities which are both responsible for ‘the well being of the whole experience of playing a game’.My concern was how passively I started to play the game – not reflecting on the experience. That may have been a feature of being totally unfamiliar with this kind of game and concentrating on learning about it.I also wonder whether the quest-giver’s comment was a deliberate design feature to make me reflect on the nature of my virtual self.It seems in Sicart’s WoW example, the game designers are responding to community issues.If that is the case, then perhaps one could argue that WoW is an ethical game.But I need to play more in it to discover whether that is the case.
Educators designing games need to think carefully of the culture they want to foster.They need to take care that design features they create do not have negative ethical consequences. At the same time they need to see players as active moral individuals.As I work with mature adults that is not a problem for me – those working with young children may need to think carefully of their level of maturity.For both groups, individual and group reflection will help them resolve ethical issues.
References
Gee, James Paul (2003) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy
Sicart, Miguel (2005) Game, Player, Ethics: A virtue ethics approach to computer games, International Review of Information Ethics, vol. 4 (12/2005) 13-18
Sicart, Miguel (2009) Ch1 Introduction in The Ethics of Computer Games. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press.
The popularity and business models of MMOGs, RPGs and MMORGs makes them a fascinating possibility for education. Though television shows, sports and home console games all have a significantly more visible leisure presence in current popular culture there are huge numbers of people quietly living our complex personal and social fantasies in these rich online games. Many of these games (indeed most of those I have seen) are significantly expensive to participate in and yet 
