Pem’s Tech Blog

What I love about this talk (and the TED talks in general) is the general visionary idea.  Hours spent on gaming could have stronger real life productivity benefit, beyond just “having fun”.  I’m definitely not in what seems to be a fairly popular (and sometimes narrow-minded and/or extremist) camp that wants the sole purpose of any game to be “fun”.

Just using the word “fun” instead of “enjoyment” sounds limiting.  A lot of my favorite games tend to be more strategy-driven or thought-provoking.  Fun has a connotation that can suggest inane simplistic thoughtless enjoyment (ie, mirth and amusement).  I worry that “fun” can have a connotation of cheap senseless silly amusement.  To some extent, I am all for that kind of fun – I just don’t think it’s required for a game to be great.  I also like games that have a more serious feel.

I liked some of the Nintendo DS and iPod touch games, just because they were innovative, and had some great touch screen interfaces (yes fun was important here).  I like Bioshock because of its feel and experience, the gameplay strategy, the storyline and visuals, and especially the integration of some ideology / philosophy debate.  I like Magic the Gathering because the game is heavy on math (statistics), creative problem solving, a focus on planning and development (of decks and gameplay strategies) outside of the actual game matches, and learning how the different card rules work (though often I think the details should be more intuitive) (I was also excited to see some vocab words – and I’d love to see more).

Some examples of game ideas that have more practical benefit are…  Edutainment games.  Training simulations.  Games like McGonigal references, that focus on real world problem solving and edutainment.  Games that focus on solving more specific problems, such as the FoldIt protein folding game.

But one thing I’d personally like to see a lot more of, is just more educational content in regular non-edutainment games.  Two great examples are (Vocabulary words in Magic the Gathering) and (ideology / philosophical ideas and debates in Bioshock).  This can at least solve real world problems indirectly, by having people be more educated (and more capable of intelligent thinking and problem solving).

Pem (Admin) :: Aug.19.2010 :: Games :: No Comments »

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