Something of an argument is brewing over a recent article on Slate. Justin Peters wrote “World of Borecraft: Never Play a Game that’s Trying to Teach You Something.” His basic point is educational efforts generally tend to sap the fun out of games.
Ian Bogost, famed video game designer, professor, and author, took issue with some of the criticisms leveled by Peters. He outlined his stance in a nice discussion over at Raph Koster’s blog, then left a general summary on the comments section of the Slate article.
Bogost has some well-thought-out comments, particularly when addressing the “boring” aspect of serious games. It boils down to the fact that serious games serve functions besides just having fun. Comparing his games with multi-million dollar edutainment efforts such as the Civilization series is like comparing apples to oranges, Bogost maintains. Peters criticized serious games creators for making products more alluring to people who don’t like video games. Bogost counters, that’s the point.
Read the comments on Koster’s site to see what several prominent people in the field have to say about the whole issue. For a game to be educational, should it be fun, or more focused on the educational outcomes? Should a game be designed as educational from the ground up, or should educational outcomes merely reflect a side benefit from playing a fun game? These are interesting questions that practitioners are tackling.
References
Peters, J. World of Borecraft: Never play a game that’s trying to teach you something. [Online]. Available: http://www.slate.com/id/2169019/fr/rss/
June 30, 2007 at 8:37 pm |
I absolutely agree with Justin. Games must be fun, only for fun. Any educational element makes a game non-natural and always decreases an entertainment value of the game.
July 2, 2007 at 7:06 am |
Often times it seems like they are splitting hairs on this debate. Target the particular audience and tailor your approach. We should move away from the one-size fits all in ed. anyway and current tech allows us to accomplish this.
August 3, 2007 at 6:47 pm |
[...] Defends Serious Games I blogged in June about the controversy brewing between Ian Bogost and Justin Peters over Peters’ comments [...]
October 23, 2007 at 5:47 pm |
[...] is being bent and stretched to accommodate educational purposes. Wilson allows that people like Justin Peters are partly right: good game design is needed, regardless of the serious or recreational nature of [...]
November 13, 2007 at 4:19 am |
[...] saw this idea argued in the Bogost/Peters controversy earlier this year. It seems some feel that any serious elements within games automatically preclude the possibility [...]