It was lovely to start this week with Dara O'Briain's [4] great overview on the problem of content from the point of view of a gamer forced through uninteresting but difficult entry levels before the main advertised action of a computer game commences.
Gee [1], almost as a second introduction to What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, starts addressing the core criticism of gaming in general – what is the point of playing them? I was quite taken by how Gee compared the cynicism over gaming to the attitude taken to visual content in academic contexts and the lack of acceptance of more transliterate approaches to scholarly practice communication – formal text is still king and any sort of game will therefore thus appear particularly alien.
Although I am not from a linguistic background I found Gee's concept of the semiotic domain of gaming to be quite helpful as, as a very occasional gamer, any interaction with gaming websites, magazines etc. feels like dipping into a wholly new domain. I recognise some of the symbols and their meaning but there others that entirely pass me by because I am not sufficiently versed into this domain to be able to decode even some quite basic features. In particular my unfamiliarity with the social as well as game play practices of current gaming platforms is a key gap in my understanding of current gaming culture and practices.
I was thus pleased that Gee had focused on Pikmin, a GameCube game from 2001 which I spent many weeks playing not long after release, to further explore the ways in which games could provide learning opportunities far more sophisticated than their basic narrative at first suggests. Pikmin amply illustrates the level of concentration, time and commitment needed to complete many apparently cute but daft games – every action in any vaguely creative, complex or involving game will involve some elements of problem solving, of sustained imagination, of efforts that far outweigh the actual reward of the game. Framed in this helpful context it becomes easy to see Gee's view that:
“The problem with the content view is that an academic discipline (or any other semiotic domain, for that matter) is not primarily content, in the sense of facts and principles. It is primarily a lived and historically changing set of distinctive social practices”
Gee (2003[1] p. 22)
Indeed during the same week that I was reading Gee a senior colleague was telling me the very same thing about my own studying process – reminding me to do well but also warning me that it was not the content per se, nor the grades, that makes the MSc but the communication and research skills and the understanding of the work process at the expected level that really counts.
If that disconnect between what is often assessed (the content) and what the actual focus of learning should be (skills, process, social practice) is accepted then there some interesting questions to ask about gaming. What, for instance, are the skills of first person shooter games and, if content is immaterial, is there any moral restriction on what might be reasonably played for learning? In some regards content can, in fact, be a driver for interest in learning a new skill but at the same time there are few literacy courses teaching adults to read English with violent thrillers or erotica and I think there would be some concern if learning games were to fully adopt some of the morally grey areas in which many of the most popular computer games sit.
However there is, as was briefly addressed on the boards this week, a gender element as well. Some content and playing styles will instantly be more appealing to female players, others to male players. In the commercial sector the choice of focus for games designers may be rather skewed but in the educational sector gender must be handled in a more balanced way and that may offer challenges in finding both game formats and content (as a driver rather than the focus of learning) that will motivate both learners sufficiently to progress and learn from a game.
But I digress...
Gee's concept of Semiotic Domains and the processes of active learning seem to have synergies with the ideas of Threshold Concepts (Meyer & Land 2006 [5]) and the transformation of a learners identity from distanced outsider to increasingly skilled novice to equipped insider to qualified practitioner. It is at this latter stage of working through threshold concepts that Gee's Affinity Groups also ring true. Once one can prove one's literacy in a semiotic domain then one becomes eligible for memberships of affinity groups. At the time of writing I find the World of Warcraft (WoW) conversations on the course discussion boards quite obscure and, if not excluding, then certainly detached from meaning for me as I am not versed in this quite specific semiotic domain and cannot thus be part of the course's own affinity group of WoW players. I do however know some of the external grammars of WoW as I have friends who are players so I am, at least, able to recognise and understand the broad tone of messages about the game.. I could not bluff more specific internal grammars but neither am I a total outsider. If I wanted to enter that domain more fully then I could call upon my own knowledge and that of my friends' and gradually blend these interrelated internal and external grammars to reflect my changing experience of the game.
Gee sees Critical learning as a natural add on to active learning. But whilst most games offer some sort of space for critical reflection I think the use of the word here is quite loaded. Analysis, critique and reflection are, of course, possible in computer games but I am not compelled that formulating a multitude of strategies for completing/succeeding at a game are born of entirely conscious intellectual reflection. Greenfield (1984 [2]) too examines in detail the clinical detail of a game (Pac Man in this case) establishing a very rational outline of the discoveries made by gamers. But Greenfield takes not the players of PacMan but a cheat guide as her source whilst Gee attributes complex thought processes to a six year old's game strategy – in neither case do the players articulately relate their experience of the game in a way that shows a particular understanding of the process of game design. In critical thinking around cinema there is one level at which one recognises and can articulate a cinematic trick, convention or feature but there is also a much more critical level at which one can stand back and analyse the way in which such a feature has been used, or subverted, or referenced, etc. and I am not convinced either Gee or Greenfield entirely convince me that the players they describe are equipped to properly critically evaluate the games they play from the perspective purely of insiders within those games.
Playing of related and/or competing games and the social aspects around gaming certainly provide greater possibility for critical learning and comparison but these forms of criticism and analysis are, perhaps, equivalent to affinity groups around genre novels: a group of murder mystery fans may be extremely well placed to compare genre novels, their use of references and conventions, the most successful and inventive plotting etc. but that same group may not be equipped to compare their book to a broader palate of literature sources and compare conventions and ideas from wider contexts.
For gaming to be taken seriously as a semiotic domain I think it is essential to ensure that gamers and learners are equipped with extended critical skills that inform not only their own learning but also allows for reflection on the selection and use of a given gaming-learning spaces as well as how these relate to other semiotic domains – both gaming and non gaming domains. This in turn brings us back to Gee's fifth learning principle of Metalevel Thinking About Semiotic Domains [1].
One of the more interesting aspects of Wood [3] is the fact that it seems to be a lack of public (and medical) acceptance of gaming as a legitimate leisure pursuit that drives the move to radicalise and classify heavy usage of games as a problem. Greenfield [2] raises the peculiar disparity between the acceptance of television versus video games. It seems that the wider the experience, the more acceptable the pursuit although some of both Greenfield and Wood's observations hint at some of the most subjective problems in dealing with the arguments over digital game addition. Greenfield was writing at a time where use of video games was more visibly centred around specific gaming venues – although much more gaming took place at home – and these spaces carry their own baggage. Wood points to the difficulty in measuring time spend on games and how this relates to other activities.
However both Wood and Greenfield do not address other cultural aspirations challenged by computer gaming. As far back as gladiatorial combat the idea that competition is based on physical prowess and achievement and one of the most complex aspects of attitudes to computer gaming is the idea that there is something unusual, perhaps even perverse, in a virtualised or screen based form of play and competition. Television competitions are all conducted via some sense of real physical achievement – whether quiz contestants or Olympic athletes we see a human embodiment rather than a pixellated or stylised avatar – and it may be that that feels inherantly less unsettling than the bigger imaginative leap required in most computer games (no matter how good the graphics). Perhaps this is the reason that puzzle games are never raised as the cause of addictive game playing whilst highly animated virtual worlds are most often highlighted by the media as potential causes for concern. Puzzles can relate to an offline play paradigm and this is reassuring no matter how peculiar or potentially disruptive to normal life 3 hours of Scrabble per night (say) may be. More alien spaces such as Virtual worlds, first person shooters, MMOPGS, etc. all look and feel more like the niche pursuit of battle re-enactment and are seen with similar disdain perhaps, in part, because of the confidence and imagination inherant in choosing to be an active part of a community in preference to fully inhabiting one's own (real) world space. Perhaps it is merely a sense of rejection or abandonment that fuels concerns about addiction – it is not the actual number of hours spent in a game space but, as Wood indicates, the potential flaws in real life a high level of usage may highlight. Personally I think it is interesting that most of the media and academic debate on games addiction revolves around the use of games by teenagers. This is an age group who are biologically programmed to exhibit boundary testing, provocative, experimental and independent behaviours no matter what form such activity may take. Their parents, as their long term carers, protectors, etc. are therefore equally naturally likely to be concerned about whatever form teenage distancing takes and to blame the form, not the function - from Rock and Roll in the 50s to games “addiction” at present. Teenage years also coincide, in most countries, with the taking of genuinely important academic milestones – exams, transitions to college, university, work etc. - thus heightening the anxious tone of any debate on the consequences of gaming. I have many friends who spend substantial time playing computer games but this (aside from virtual world shock pieces) is not an age whose possible gaming addition is scrutinised nearly as closely. I do not think this is a reflection of the fact that older individuals spend less time on games but that at the age of 30 most people have proved that, alongside whatever their leisure pursuits might be, they manage to hold down a job, and/or attract and retain a mate, and to conduct a socially recognised pattern in their life. Teenagers however must face a world of possibility and parental and societal fears that goals will not be achieved, distractions will prove damaging etc. I think that disparity in studied communities is as important to Wood's argument as are his own interviews with functioning games “addicts” whose problems reflect other issues.
References
[1] Gee, J. P. (2003). Chapter 2, 'Semiotic Domains: Is playing video games a "waste of time"?'In What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[2] Greenfield, P. M. (1984). Chapter 7, 'Video Games'. In Mind and media : the effects of television, video games, and computers. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
[3] Wood, R. T. A. (2008). Problems with the Concept of Video Game “Addiction”: Some Case Study Examples. International Journal of Mental Health Addiction, 6, 169-178.
[4] "Dara O Briain - Charlie Brooker's Gameswipe". YouTube clip retrieved from eightySeventh's channel 1st February 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG3aHvPG6H8
[5] Meyer, J. and Land, R. (2006). Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. Overcoming barriers to student understanding: threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge. J. Meyer and R. Land (Eds.). (London, Routledge): pp. 3-18.