Learning in Video Games » Learning games

Serious Games: Making a Difference

Rob — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 17:17:51 +0000

Most people are well aware of the violence found in some video games, but less people know about games that can bring about positive change. Serious Games, described as a new movement in gaming whose purpose to “raise awareness, instruct a new generation of good citizens, create new business models, train military personnel, or model surgery for doctors,” is one such breed.

Michelle Boule, Social Sciences Librarian at University of Houston, writes an interesting article on Serious Games that gives several examples of fascinating games that produce public awareness on various issues. These games include:

optical communicationsDarfur is Dying (mtvU and Reebok Human Rights Foundation). A Flash-based game that promotes awareness about the genocide in Darfur. Players take on the role of a villager in Darfur and try to survive by foraging for water without being captured and killed Janjuweed. One soon realizes how dire the conditions are; you can’t really win, and that’s ultimately the point.
Escape From Diab. This is a game that is meant to teach kids how to eat healthy. One plays a healthy youth who becomes trapped in Diab, a land where everyone eats exclusively junk food.
Planet Green Game (Starbucks). This game creates an awareness of how one can change his or her lifestyle to slow global warming. One travels through aгардероби fantasy city and finds ways to decrease CO2 emissions.

Boule then discusses how games can help us learn more about information seeking behavior: how people find the information they need when presented with various challenges. She argues that games could be built to teach information literacy and how to seek quality information among various sources to synthesize usable answers to a problem. Navigating in a world such as Second Life, “what would a 3D version of the information highway look like?” she asks.

Interesting questions. How can we create games and experiences that can foster better information skills in students?

Brain Age and Other Video Games for Grandma?

Rob — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:06:01 +0000

Nintendo of America recently demoed their game, Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day at a recent AARP convention, of all places. Many people consider playing video games a kids’ activity, but soon people might be thinking of getting grandpa and grandma video games when it comes to Christmas time. How so? As this Time magazine article (January 3) indicates., gaming companies are looking to tap into the baby-boomer generation as a largely untapped (and potentially lucrative) market that might be interested in products claiming to help sharpen memory and cognitive ability. A game based off a Japanese neuroscientist’s research, Brain Age features a host of quick memory, math, logic puzzles, and other kinds of activities that are intended to sharpen one’s mind. The game has easily sold well over half a million copies since its U.S. release for the Nintendo DS handheld system in April.

Can brain games stave off senility? Hard to say, as little research exists as of yet. But it’s interesting to see games (and educational games) continue to reach a wider audience. Brain Age is a product of Touch Generations, makers of other educational games such as Big Brain Academy.

Teaching stock basics: Kabushiki Baibai Trainer Kabutore

Rob — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 20:39:56 +0000

A new game by Konami for the portable Nintendo DS system teaches players the basics of stock training, using real Tokyo Stock Exchange market data from the past five years. For novices, the game has step-by-step lessons in stock-market transactions and trading, including a lecture mode and a story mode.Â Experts can also play an expert mode, which lets the game function as a market simulator.

Series creator Hideo Kojima (who has also created games like the Metal Gear series) seems to understand the increasing importance of games that move beyond entertainment. Kojima states: “Video games have been changing during the past one to two years. The recent trend is toward training software, which brings affluence to life rather than drama. Although we’ve been releasing games for the hardcore audiences up until now, we’re really about taking on new challenges.”