gamification

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Three Papers by Jesper Juul

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Three Papers by Jesper Juul – A brief synopsis of his recent works relating to computer game design.

*Note, all of the papers below are available for free from the Jesper Juul’s website (linked above).

Paper 1 – Zero-Player Games

Juul’s analysis of gaming looks closely at the players themselves and how player is defined. Importantly, the paper shows that there’s a distinction between games and gamers, and also, that games do not require a player (the player-centric model).

Zero-player games are games which require no significant human interaction for the game to be played. These are divided into four categories:

  1. Setup only games – games where the player starts the game and observes (without interaction) the remainder of the game.
  2. Games played by AIs – simply, games where the computer (AI) assumes the role of the player.
  3. Solved games – Games played by computers with the purpose of solving it – such as figuring out guaranteed winning moves, etc.
  4. Hypothetical games – non implemented games designed to describe or examine a question.

By understanding how games can be played without a player, paradoxically, the player can be more easily understood. Juul concludes with five distinct player traits:

  1. Players have continued agency
  2. Players as humans
  3. Players as temporal beings
  4. Players as having intentionality
  5. Players as having aesthetic preferences

Juul’s paper shows that a distinction can be made between game (artifact) and games (the activity). As well, it gives a strong rebuttal to the dominance of the player-centric model, since it doesn’t actually centre on players and overlooks their aesthetic preferences.

Paper 2 – Easy to use and incredibly difficult: On the mythical border between interface and gameplay

Interface and game play are seen, by many as Juul suggests, as vastly different. He argues that there’s no distinct border between the two. Interface is the tools (software and hardware) used to affect the game state. Gameplay is the core activity of the game.

The analysis focuses on defining the two elements and understanding how they have been used in game design. Importantly, Juul looks closely at the relationship between interface and gameplay, then compares their realisation in various games.

He concludes that gameplay is usually a simple premise or idea made challenging by the interface. The purpose of games is to be fun. Doing so often requires challenging the user. There’s a lot of fluidity between interface and gameplay. Because games are entertaining they are not always designed to be efficient. Intentionally adding inefficient elements to the gameplay or interface increases difficulty. This is a desired effect.

Most importantly, games provide an opportunity for the gamer to improve certain skills.

Blizzard uses the term skill differentiation to describe how requiring a range of skills allows a player to grow: a real time strategy game can have “twitch” skills, multitasking, strategic thinking, understanding of economy, knowledge of a map, and so on, as skill differentiators.

This means that difficulties of interface or gameplay simply become a skills hurdle for players to jump. The gameplay and interface in games is often blurred and, as games become more innovating, is redefined.

Paper 3 – The Fear of Failing? The many meanings of difficulty in video games

The role of failure in games is interesting and important to consider. Juul explores two important questions regarding failure.

  • What is the role of failure in games?
  • Do players prefer games where they do not feel responsible for failing?

There are two approaches to looking at “winning” in games.

  • Goal oriented – where the focus is on winning, which should be made as easy as possible
  • Aesthetic perspective – where there should be a reasonable combination of challenge and variation

Added to that are the methods of punishing players for failure.

  • Energy punishment – loss of energy, usually leading to life punishment
  • Life punishment – losing a “life”, usually bringing the player closer to game termination
  • Game termination – ending the game, forcing the player to start from the beginning
  • Setback punishment – making the player “replay” the game from a certain point

When a player fails, they might attribute the failure to three possible causes.

  • Personal – personal traits, skills or disposition (eg. I didn’t move fast enough)
  • Entity – the characteristics such as the game elements (eg. The enemy in game is too powerful)
  • Circumstance – luck, chance or other transient causes (eg. My fingers slipped off the controller)

Juul developed an empirical study, based on an earlier study by Malone in 1982, to test how players responded to different punishments (energy punishment and life punishment). The study concluded that players prefer to feel personally responsible for failure when they play a game. When players failed, then succeeded, they gave a higher rating for the game, reflecting that they felt more satisfied. This is in comparison to players who didn’t fail at all and players who failed too often (both groups gave less positive reviews of the game).

From the overall analysis, four observations were made about games and failure.

  1. The player does not want to fail (feels sad, inadequate)
  2. Failing makes the player reconsider their strategy (making the game more interesting)
  3. Winning provides gratification
  4. Winning without failing leads to dissatisfaction

This is an interesting outcome. Gamers want games to be difficult. While they hope to win, gamers will fail and feel personally responsible. Once they’ve reviewed their strategy and tried again, they will eventually win. The gamer feels gratification and is satisfied with the game.

Failure in games creates a sense of depth. Failure forces the player to re-evaluate strategies and practice their skills. Doing so reflects improvement and success (overcoming adversity).

A game should be neither too easy, nor too hard. Failure adds content!

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Why I Blog

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Why I Blog

Lupton’s short explanation of why she blogs is worth a read. Not only is blogging immediate and personal, but it breaks down academic walls which act to keep society and academia apart. I like the notion that academic though need not always be so formal, which is an attitude many academics (but few academic institutions) are embracing.

Mostly I agree with her assertion that it’s important to keep our writing away from academic paywalls. This is very high on the list of my pet-peeves – paying for scholarly works. While google scholar, academia.edu and other sites are helping to remove paywalls, too many sites are still profiteering from paid access to academic writing. 

I own my writing. It’s mine. As I progress through my studies towards completing my doctorate, I intend to make all my work free for anyone to read and share. This is the way the internet works and academia needs to get with the program

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High Score Education – Games, not school, are teaching kids to think.

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High Score Education – Games, not school, are teaching kids to think.

Although somewhat dated, this short article by James Gee touches on some important elements of gaming and learning. The education system still pushes a “memorize and test” philosophy. Gee laments that children are not learning to think, they’re learning to memorise … and good students aren’t good at thinking they’re just good at “doing school”.

This is a very valid concern. Gee believes that games are an agent of mental training. That children aren’t meant to be memorising.

Learning isn’t about memorizing isolated facts. It’s about connecting and manipulating them.

I like that. It’s a very succinct way of describing what should be our relationship with information. This is exactly what the internet can do – provide an environment where we manipulate information by mixing, sharing and remixing between collectives online.

Gee states that the secret of video gaming’s success isn’t the games themselves or the 3D graphics, but the underlying architecture of the game. Each level is incrementally more difficult, pushing the gamer further and further beyond their abilities. This is the ‘regime of competence principal’. The game is just difficult enough to simultaneously provide pleasure and frustration for the player. It’s hard enough to be challenging, but through effort the player can be rewarded by winning the game.

Games also incorporate expertise. Gamers become masters of a game, but are then forced to adapt and evolve as the game becomes more complex.

As Gee notes, kids often say that playing games doesn’t feel like learning. They’re focused on playing. Again and again, educational experts push this point. Learning must become a secondary objective to having fun. When students are focused on having fun they forget that they’re also learning.

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Assessing Higher Order Thinking in Video Games

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Assessing Higher Order Thinking in Video Games

In his paper Assessing Higher Order Thinking In Video Games, John Rice draws the conclusion that educational computer games, such as Revolution, which was developed by MIT’s Media Lab (the game itself will be discussed in a future post).

With the increased global interest in gaming, educators are looking more closely at how computer games can be used in the classroom. Teachers seem to prefer edutainment style games which offer a “drill and kill” style of repetition practice. There is a wide spectrum of games being used (some ostensibly educational, some commercial but with educational potential) and amongst those games levels of “thinking skill” are required. Some games require only lower order thinking (drill and kill) while other games are more immersive, offering the ability for players to use higher order thinking skills. Rice refers to these as cognitive virtual interactive environments (VIEs).

The benefit of cognitive VIEs is to address the higher levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy – particularly application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. VIEs are virtual (three dimensional) environments which require extensive interaction (reading, clicking, manipulating the environment). Most often, MMORPGs are the best representation of VIEs. Games such as World of Warcraft, Sims, Civilization can be considered examples which fit the genre.

While still being ‘edutainment’ Rice has developed a series of qualifiers, in the form of a rubric, which ascertain whether a game has the elements required to challenge higher order thinking skills.

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The qualifiers, 20 in total, are scored and graded according to a viability scale.

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Rice concludes that a game which scores 15 or more is “highly probable” to encourage higher order thinking skills in users. He concludes that VIEs are a viable as educational tools as long as they can be judged as having the ability to challenge higher order thinking skills. He is particularly impressed with “Revolution” and asserts it to be a high quality educational tool.

In reading this paper I’ve drawn some interesting conclusions myself. First is a criticism of Rice’s approach. While I agree that interactive gaming (particularly virtual environments) show enormous potential as learning tools, I cannot help but be alarmed that Rice’s approach to assessing such games is too prescriptive. The rubric is neither practical nor logical within the context of gaming. Computer games, and the culture created by them, shift constantly and are subject to trends which cannot be predicted. A game like Minecraft, arguably a teaching tool with enormous potential, scores poorly on such a rubric.

The generic codes and conventions of computer games are not static. They fluctuate and with each technology leap, there will be a noticeable shift in computer game standards. The games of today were inconceivable just 5 years ago. Computer games 5 years from now are equally difficult to predict.

While it’s important to recognise the value of gaming in modern culture and education, we must resist the temptation to rigidly define game boundaries.

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Teachers want access to more technology in the classroom

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Teachers want access to more technology in the classroom

A nation wide survey conducted last year discovered that teachers want more technology in the classroom. Access to computers seems to be high and a lot of teachers are using websites, images and other media in their daily classroom routine.

However the problem, according to the survey, is that teachers feel they don’t have access to the “right” kinds of technology. The biggest barrier to technology, unsurprisingly, was budget constraints.

Teachers have their hearts in the right place. Most teachers cite ‘motivating students’ as their reason for wanting more technology in the classroom.

What surprised me was that 943% of teachers believed that interactive whiteboards ‘enrich’ classroom education. I understand the limitations of classroom technology and also the often low levels of training teachers have in using technology in the classroom. Particularly, teachers aren’t always well versed in areas like the internet and social media. However, I cannot fathom why interactive whiteboards (a 20+ year old technology) is still desired in a classroom environment.  I had access to them over 10 years ago and nobody in my school was interested in using them. Their application, quite honestly, is limited.

Overcoming budget is an understandable problem. One idea might be to apply a BYOT (bring your own technology) attitude. Allowing students to bring mobile devices to class – and use them directly for learning – will help raise motivation levels. Also, students are more likely to enjoy using computers (internet and social media) than they are using interactive whiteboards.

Teachers should start moving towards a more participatory methodology for learning. Provide students with the basic ideas or questions and let them use the resources that they’re comfortable with (online environments) and it might be surprising what they can produce.

Perhaps the problem in modern education is that we’re too focused on telling students what tools they can use to solve problems (such as learning, knowledge acquisition and skills building). Instead, let them choose their own tools. Why can’t a pyramid be modeled in Minecraft? Why can’t student presentations be done via youtube?

The best part is that teachers don’t even have to think of tools that students might choose. Students will do that! Technology? Not a problem, students will use the technology they have and whatever they’re comfortable with. Teenagers are happy to work when doing so on their own terms. Whatever students are studying, just give them core ideas and let them figure out the rest. Study after study proves that student will work when they work for themselves.

Motivation goes up. Creativity goes up. Original content and content creation goes up … all without the teacher lifting a finger.

Win!

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Shut Up and Write The Book!

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Shut Up and Write The Book!

Sometimes we focus so much on coming up with ideas, or thinking about what to write, or spend too much time making sure there’s academic value in what we’re doing … but sometimes we just have to stop messing around and just write!

Good philosophy and some nice tips for getting the writing flowing. For my own writing I’ve realised that I don’t do enough and that I’m not happy with my writing style. From now on I’m going to try and write more. I want to make my writing simple and approachable – none of this academic quasi-smartass mumbo jumbo. 

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More Fun Writing Than Playing: The Critical Videogame Blogosphere as Emerging Approach to Knowledge Creation

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More Fun Writing Than Playing: The Critical Videogame Blogosphere as Emerging Approach to Knowledge Creation

Blogging has risen as a powerful form of community on the internet. I’m writing a research blog at this very minute. You’re reading these words and, as such, we are both part of the research or academic or education communities. Maybe all of them, maybe a mix, maybe just one. But that’s how you found me, through your interest in research relating to education.

The blogosphere is an umbrella term for those who write blogs and consider themselves a part of the blogging community. Within that community are categories of blogs such as ‘tech blogs’  or ‘news blogs’ or ‘education blogs’.

Abraham, in talking about blogging, identifies the community mindset relating to bloggers. They have a kind of collective knowledge or extended mind which is a way of thinking beyond the individual human idea of knowledge.

This is an interesting notion. An analogy could be suggested (by me) that the way we think is becoming less individual and more collective – like a hive. The community pools its knowledge and uses that as to become a self-perceived community of experts. This community perceives itself to be creative and productive, as if providing something to the wider internet. Indeed there is an apparent relationship between expert bloggers (who are positioned as game critics) and their readers. The blog acts as an intermediary for the ideas of their authors.

The community that bloggers are part of is an imagined community; all communities (excluding small face-to-face villages) are imagined. Such communities are distinguished by the style in which they are imagined. Any perceived falsity or “genuineness” is irrelevant.

I’m mostly interested in Abraham’s notion that bloggers are a form of knowledge creation. While they might compete within their community for prestige or to become elite, game bloggers are working together to create a community. That community creates a kind of collective knowledge through a distributed network of overlapping ‘extended minds’. This is an exciting notion as it has implications on social networking and other communities such as web forums. If bloggers (working on independent blogs as part of a game blogosphere) are creating knowledge then this idea can be applied to other areas and communities – especially those with a closer and more collaborative mindset.

I also like the assertion that through the action of repetition (practice) one can become an expert without any formal acknowledgement. 

An expert is someone widely recognized as a reliable source of technique or skill whose faculty for judging or deciding rightly, justly, or wisely is accorded authority and status by their peers or the public in a specific well-distinguished domain. 

An expert isn’t a person with a PhD, it’s a person who has achieved domain-specific knowledge through the repeated act of writing about that topic over a period of time. This puts anybody with domain-specific knowledge into the realm of expert. Even more interesting is the realisation that expert no longer has to be a embodied as a person. Wikipedia, a collective resource, is recognised for being an expert source – an aggregation of many points of view. Collective knowledge. Extended minds.

When did the definition of an expert change? When did it become acceptable to cite wikipedia as a source? When did an anonymous blogger become an expert? The redefinition of expertise changes the way we see knowledge and knowledge creation,

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Teachers, Students, Digital Games: What’s the Right Mix?

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Teachers, Students, Digital Games: What’s the Right Mix?

There’s lots of buzz around computer games in education now. Various studies are being conducted to ascertain how much access kids have to computers, how often they’re being used in class and how effective games are as a learning tool. 

While more and more teachers are starting to use games in the classroom, there’s concern that tech resources aren’t being used effectively.

What’s more important is drawing a line between “educational games” and everything else. COTS computer games (according to Zichermann) are much more suited to educational purposes than education-centric games. 

Further, this kind of analysis doesn’t consider related factors such as social networking, which is a natural extension of modern gaming culture.

The shift away from an educational focus is gaining momentum. Even Prensky, known for his loathsome “digital native” theory, acknowledges the attitude that learning is becoming a background to achieving goals. This is the direction which education should be taking – how are students learning beyond classroom walls? By playing games, sharing and socialising, and being a part of a community, students are learning valuable knowledge and skills … which is secondary to having fun and hanging out.

The best learning occurs when we forget we’re learning at all.

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