Gamefication as a Facilitation of Learning

Okay, this is not a blog about the video gaming industry. This is not a blog designed to review video games on the basis of enjoyability. This is a blog promoting the continuation of video games as a respectable art form. Many facebookers wanted me to talk about the philosophy behind certain games, but after I read this article: (http://www.bogost.com/blog/gamification_is_bullshit.shtml), my priorities were shuffled.

Let me preface this tirade with this phrase: "Ignorance Breeds Idiocy". It's the purest form of artistic stagnation. However, many people, including Stephanie Morgan, agree with this sentiment.


2011/12 Stephanie Morgan | Gamification Sucks from San Francisco Creative Mornings on Vimeo.

For those of you who don't want to listen to the drivel, Stephanie's initial point is that gamefication is a "shallow and cursory take on what makes games interesting." See? Ignorance.

The problem here is that we have labelled something based, not on it's purpose, but on it's current usage. And to be fair to Stephanie, she addresses this and agrees it has the potential to be a very powerful tool... So maybe we should define gamefication before we go any further.

Gamefication is the process of taking any task not associated with gaming, and applying gaming elements to it. James Portnow does an interesting segment on it in Extra Credits (http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/gamification), but this primarily deals with the issue of Gamefication as adapting learning to the classroom through gameplay elements by giving students XP bars and such.

This is a video game designer looking at education from a design standpoint. And it does, honestly, come off a little gimmicky. You can't just take RPG elements and plug them into an FPS game and make it work. Well...maybe you can...

But then again..maybe you can't.

This pretty much sums up how I felt while playing the game...

Point is, it's partly execution. Mass Effect was a well thought out universe and simply adapted some FPS elements to the RPG. It's not a trainwreck of two entirely different playdough colors beings thoughtlessly mashed together.

So what makes you think you can mash RPGs and Education in the same way? Or any gaming genre? No one likes to be beaten over the head with information.

Believe it or not, when you play video games you learn. The fact that when you pick up a game for the first time and you know A is usually Jump, Right Trigger is usually Shoot or Attack, Start usually pulls up a menu interface, etc. is because you've been conditioned to know certain commands execute certain functions. Learning is a type of conditioning. That's why your math teacher sends you home with 100 practice problems a night. It isn't to torture you. It's to condition you to realize patterns in the problems, and you won't even realize you've learned them half the time.

Just imagine what John Nash's professors were like...

Remember this concept. It's important. We will come back to it, and it will be on the quiz.

For now, lets take a few steps back and look at what gamefication currently is and what is wrong with it. Remember those games you played/hated as a kid, but got away with playing them because they were educational? Games like Math Blasters and Oregon Trail?

Those were early attempts at gamefication. The idea that if you had pretty pictures bludgeoning you over the head with things that you found uninteresting, it would somehow trick you into thinking they were interesting....or strong-arm you into submission.

This works...slightly. Mostly because we would rather be playing a sadistic video game than not playing a video game at all. But still, it shows a reckless disregard for necessary design elements in the same way that designers show a reckless disregard for certain educational elements in gamefication.

Trick question of the day: Do you learn when playing?

It's obviously a trick question because I just showed you how games condition responses out of you mechanically, so let's delve into learning conceptually.

I'm going to put in a plug for a game I just recently started playing to demonstrate that answer is YES.

This isn't just concept art. The game actually looks like that.

Eternal Sonata. This game is a wonderful example of proper degrees of gamefication. Remember how we talked previously about Mass Effect combining elements effectively rather than just mashing them together mindlessly? Well Eternal Sonata is arguably one of the best examples of combining Education and RPG mechanics. Does the game have it's flaws? Yes. Mostly due to laziness on the developers part, but this isn't a blog about reviews, as I've stated previously. Play the game and judge for yourself.

What we want to look at is how do traditional educational elements combine with RPG elements to create engaging gameplay while facilitating learning. I'll probably go more in-depth with this at a later time, but for the sake of brevity (which is already lacking in the article), suffice it to say that the game plays like an RPG but as it progresses players also learn about the life and death of Chopin and are introduced to many of his most famous musical pieces (as well as learning about their origins).

I was Chopin you would enjoy learning about me...

See? A beginning music history course taught through a beautiful cel-shaded JRPG and no one is complaining if they can stop studying yet. So let's pause for a moment to reinforce the major differences between Math Blasters and Eternal Sonata.

Eternal Sonata: Original Dark/Light battle mechanics. Increasing difficulty as the game progresses to induce a constant learning curve. Engaging story about many relevant social/philosophical topics including (but not limited to): Perception vs. Reality, Useful does not always equal Good, Consumerism vs. Environmentalism, Propaganda Machines, etc. Beautiful artwork and inspired music.

Math Blasters: Generic Space-esque art. Repetitive/limited sound effects. Only as difficult as is required by 4th grade comprehension standards. Only enough of a plot to allow for the quest to exist. Tunnel focus on math and math alone.

I've had naps that were more engaging...

Life does not exist in a 2 Dimensional context, so why is Math Blasters allowed to? Now don't get me wrong...Math Blasters is doing decently compared to other attempts at gamefication. But why try and shove the sandwich down the kids throat when you can just add honey and he'll eat it himself?

This is the point I am trying to get at. Gamefication does not suck. What sucks is how you are presenting it. Gamefication is an art. It's more than that. It's allowing for greater exposure to art in a nonthreatening way. The key is enjoyment to facilitate learning. Not pretty pictures to facilitate learning. It has nothing to do with scores or points.

Turntable.fm is a great example of gamefication in the ever-expanding music industry. You want to get your sound out? Play this game online and become a reputable DJ in the real world. It's all about engagements. This is a very broad article so we may go in-depth later about mechanics and their positive or negative usage for gamefication (such as points). For now...we march onward.

Now we get to exactly the "how" past of this article.

If you want my guess, it's a pretty simple solution and games like Assassin's Creed, Professor Layton, and Eternal Sonata have already begun working toward this. Make education a component. Not the whole meal. No kid is going to eat his veggies without the promise of dessert. And if the dessert is made of vegetables...

Come on, no one wants to eat that.

Take unique approaches to this medium. History Channel Civil War...I'm looking at you. Just because your game is based on history doesn't mean you have to adhere to it. Take creative license or fresh perspective. That's where film is kicking video gaming's butt. If Red Tails was a video game instead of a movie that would be mind-blowing! A video game that teaches kids about the greatest African American fighter squadron in history! We have tons of flight sims! So why hasn't this been done? Because we're pandering to the adolescent white male in his mother's basement stereotype that, in actuality, isn't really an accurate representation of gamers. Now this leads into problems like the game about Afghanistan that got cancelled because of it's social and historical relevance..but we'll file that into future topics.

Now as some of you may have realized, a lot of the issues with gamefication also exist because of attempts at making them a factor of productivity in the work place. That's an entirely different issue and maybe the answer is you should hire less lazy people. But I'll probably do an article on Gamefication as Facilitation of Productivity when I do more research.

For now, take a look at the inspirational future: http://web.uncg.edu/dcl/econ201/ or http://www.360ed.com/ I'll probably do a segment on Conspiracy Code at some point too...

Okay...lots of good future topics (including one on demographics and stereotypes I'll have to address...) but i think we get the general point. This is a very complex issue, hell...it can even be considered a sub-genre of gaming, but that doesn't mean it sucks. It means it's new. We don't even have all the kinks worked out of the overall industry. With finesse, there is no reason education can be handled in a more engaging fashion. And then some day teachers will work for corporations as game designers.