games: more than just fun

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This is a short presentation given at the UNISA Library Technology Showcase 2013 where I discussed the importance of games.

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Games: More than just fun

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Page 2: Games: More than just fun

• I am also a Multimedia Specialist

• I have been lecturing in Multimedia for 7 years

• What is Multimedia

• Information Science

• Visual Design

• Computer science

• Web based development

• How to combine all of the above

• My dissertation is about Alternate Reality Games

• I also focus on:

• Game studies

• Gamification

• Serious games

• Game design theory

• Recently I gained an interest in Game Design and education

• This interest is not in educational games, but in using games to teach and

educate

• There is a difference, in my opinion!

• Educational games is thematic similar to the content you are teaching

• Games for teaching is designing a game about aliens/robots/time

travellers where the actions you take are fun and entertaining but

requires you to exercise skills that you require in the real world

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Page 3: Games: More than just fun

• Games as a medium engage people

• By nature games are interactive and immersive (or they are supposed to be)

• Games provide the player with the feeling of power (the “epic win” as stated

by Jane McGonigal)

• Games provide players with the feeling of control (player agency)

• Games are FUN!

• Games are engaging – They create flow

• Flow is a state of mind achieved by a player when he experiences a

high degree of focus and enjoyment - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

• Games are a literacy

• This statement is a very hot topic at the moment

• It was made by Eric Zimmerman in a very recent essay he wrote called

“A Manifesto for a Ludic Century”

• In the essay he claims that the new century is the century of games

(calling it the Ludic Century)

• He claims that not only should people be technology literate but also

and visually literate but to survive in the Ludic Century, one should be

gaming literate

• The manifesto is a lot more than that, but this quote of Eric

Zimmerman stuck with me: Games are a literacy

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Page 4: Games: More than just fun

• I included this section just to be clear on what the requirements are for

something to be considered a game (defined in Rules of Play – Zimmerman

and Salen)

• There are, as with most things in this field, a large variety of definitions for

games

• Games have been around for thousands of years, they are ancient

• People have been playing games since civilisation started

• Games are:

• A system containing

• A collection of activities

• Guided by artificial rules

• To overcome obstacles

• And to achieve specific goals

• The activities have meaning within the context of the game

• The activities may appear to be completely inane outside of the game context

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Page 5: Games: More than just fun

• Serious games are games used for more than just entertainment

• Serious games are used to teach people things in an environment that is safer

for them

• Examples of usage of serious games:

• Military training – simulate real world scenarios in the safety of the

training facility

• Educational games – teaching people something through using games

• Training games – To train people to use certain equipment

• Training games should differ from simulation training by still

adhering to the requirements of “what is a game”

• In most of these examples, the game should still adhere to the requirement of

what it means to be a game

• Examples:

• Arma I – Used for military training

• Mars Rover Landing – Awareness of the landing of the Curiosity rover

(science)

• FoldIt – A puzzle game that simulates protean folding. Solving the

puzzles can result in real world science application

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Page 6: Games: More than just fun

• Games designed to modify the behaviour of people

• Persuasive games take advantage of the fact that games are a persuasive

medium

• Ian Bogost extensively cover this topic in his book, Persuasive Games

• He also started a company that creates “persuasive games”

• Examples of these games are (http://www.persuasivegames.com/games/):

• Colorfall: a puzzle game to promote cognitive health and physical

activity

• Debt ski: a game about savings, debt and its consequences

• Fatworld: a game about politics and nutrition

• There are a lot of other examples as well

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Page 7: Games: More than just fun

• Gamification is the use of game thinking and game elements in a non-gaming

context in order to engage users of an existing system

• Gamification enhances the experience of using existing system by borrowing

elements from games

• Examples:

• Nike+, Strava etc. - Fitness

• Zombie run – Closer to a game

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Page 8: Games: More than just fun

• http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/07311.09363.pdf

• Serious games are still being defined

• Many of these definitions may appear to overlap

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Page 9: Games: More than just fun

• To play a game is to engage in the system and adhere to all the requirements

imposed by this system

• To play a game is to move around in this rigidly defined system (game)

• The system is designed with the purpose of building a context, an experience

• The purpose of the system is to be engaged in, to play in.

• Gamification has a system in place that fulfils certain criteria

• Gamifying this system, you place game elements on top of this already built

system

• The express purpose of the system is designed when the system is developed

(book airplane tickets, buy goods online, read the news)

• Games are designed and built from the ground up as games

• Gamified systems have game design elements applied to them to increase

their engagement.

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Page 10: Games: More than just fun

• An ARG (Alternate Reality Game) is a game

• An ARG is also a narrative that encapsulates the players reality

• The player participates in a story (world) that is not distinguishable from the

real world, except for the fact that there are aliens ☺

• An ARG requires players to play together.

• The players need to solve puzzles that cannot be solved individually

• The players must play as a community (share information, discuss solutions,

discuss the narrative etc.)

• An ARG use multimedia – from snail mail, to augmented reality applications.

• An ARG requires the player to accept the mantra “This is not a game”

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Page 11: Games: More than just fun

• We are currently developing an ARG that will attempt to exercise library

activities

• We are targeting a group of students that are busy completing our information

literacy course presented at the University of Pretoria

• The game will be a game, not a gamefied system

• The actions the players will take during the game (the activities guided by the

artificial rules) will be related to library usage

• The goals the players need to achieve (the goals of the game) will be game

world related

• The rules of the game is extremely broad due to the nature of an ARG

• The players can do anything they want, pursue any avenue of enquiry

• Certain actions will results in game related outcome (story related events)

• The reason players will participate in the game will be:

• Because it is interesting (the story interests them)

• It is fun! (hopefully)

• The players control the reality

• The players are engaged

• They want to see what happens next

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Page 12: Games: More than just fun

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