I am sorry this second message took so long to arrive but a sizzlingly beautiful (42c) Sydney weekend was hard to resist! Back on deck now and posting each day this week.
It might be best today to take a closer look at what should actually be considered games and to weed out some of the hype that surrounds them. One thing that really bothers me is the way that, in marketing and much of the popular media, any virtual space is touted as a game. (perhaps much the same way that almost every web site is a community - sigh).
For their social learning potential, I am a big fan of three of today's most engaging online enterprises; MySpace (personal portfolio, networking and social communication), Second Life (virtual world architecture) and World of WarCraft (massively multiplayer online game). All have the potential to involve us in identity and relationship building, within perhaps some varying degrees of fantasy ;-). But only one of these can be unambiguously and by design considered a game.
Programs and services such as Active Worlds and Second Life allow us to build, enter and share 3D spaces. These spaces contain objects that we can act on, and engage in, amidst opportunity for real time dialogue with others in the space. Instead of wandering in text, visual representations of ourselves known as 'avatars' wander around in a three dimensional spaces. Instead of clicking on hypertext text links we click on objects in the world. These virtual worlds might have a dedicated purpose or require goal-driven behaviours or they might be purely social spaces. In the media these architectures are often described as games but to me that denies the role of intent, design and implementation in game making. Three dimensional virtual spaces are no more inherently games than buildings are amusement arcades.
What is a game then? Diana Oblinger suggests "...games include elements of urgency, complexity, learning by trial-and-error and scoring points. They also support active learning, experiential learning and problem-based learning. Games make it possible to use information in context and are inherently learner-centered and provide immediate feedback". There is a great deal more infrastructure and complexity in a game than simply embedding traditional learning activities in a simulated or fantasy world.
Marc Prensky suggests there are 6 key aspects to complex game designs:
1. Focus on the user's engagement
2. Have frequent important decisions
3. "Level up" toward clear, important goals
4. Adapt to each player individually
5. Work by iteration & playing, not theory
6. Emphasize Gameplay, not Eye Candy!
One virtual world implementation that does appear to take up the challenge of game design is Well's Fargo's Stagecoach Island where young adults explore financial management. Stagecoach Island contains, in a simple form, many of the elements described by Prensky and hints at one element Prensky overlooked; a community of players supported by many-to-many communication in forums, zines, and online events.
We might need to ask ourselves how much has the current rash of 'virtual world' learning environments seized upon the sexiness and 'eye candy' of 3D worlds. Many instantiations of Second Life are dedicated training spaces or distance education classrooms. Take a look at the SimTeach list of organisations building Second Life islands and you will get the idea that many are 3D implementations of rather conventional online curriculum delivery processes.
A fantasy world designed to hold together thinly veiled learning tasks cannot be called a game. Just ask Sasha Barab and the team at Indiana University designing Quest Atlantis. They discovered early in their R&D work that a virtual world, even with a rich and integrated backstory, can lose its lustre very quickly. If the environment does not offer a critical mass of others to communicate with or some ultimate game challenge to match yourself and others against, then one might just as well be downloading course materials in a Learning Management System.
Clay Shirky , Dan Farber & Larry Dignan , virtual world economist Ted Castranova and others have asked is what’s happening in educational and organisational contexts in these virtual worlds as innovative or exciting as the headlines might have us believe? Are they leveraging what the technology and game design affords? When you consider the research trajectories being explored by Constance Steinkuehler , Diana Oblinger , Lisa Galarneau and Melanie Zibit (and yes deliberately all females) we should answer 'no'. There is a great deal for us to learn about the skills, competencies and practices gamers are developing and the enormous motivation and commitment they have to do so. I want pick up on what these gals (and some guys) have to say about the value of games for 21st century skills tomorrow.
- Bronwyn
