Why should organisations buy into the popularity of what could seemingly be dismissed as recreational activity? Did we take this much notice of television? It would be seriously wrong of us to see broadcast technology, even with developments in interactive TV, as comparable to the many-to-many social capacity of today’s MMORPGs and virtual worlds. Interestingly, research does suggest that the hours devoted to game play have been stolen from TV viewing. Interaction with people seems to be the lure not just vivid technology.
Two aptly titled articles might give us a clue to where this technology could be all taking us. ‘The labor of fun: How video games blur the boundaries of work and play" by Nick Yee and Hans Christian Arnseth’s research paper titled "Learning to Play or Playing to Learn
Playing to learn
Games are socially complex environments where players are continually required to deal with chaos and emergence, being called upon to strategize, make decisions and take on social responsibility. The games allow them to develop as sense of mastery of many real world skills. As the article that I launched this guest spot with suggests, most players do not just engage in the pursuit of mindless fun. Learning in games is less about acquisition (other than goals and rewards) and more about interaction Arnseth would suggest that the games encourage a "practice-oriented approach" and the reflection on that practice can clearly be seen in the accompanying community forums, fan sites and blogs.
Morrison (quoted in Galarneau and Zibit) suggests the key 21st century skill is learning itself. "The most valuable skills someone can acquire are the skills to learn rapidly and efficiently and to go into almost any situation and figure out what has to be learned". Gamers are learning to learn not just through a relationship with the technology but through relationships with others. The games establish a real reason to collaborate and build social capital.
The labor of fun
Fun is much more than escape and friendship. Jen Dornan suggested these games represent the new rituals; the places to build shared experiences.
Who are the people engaged in these rituals? Are they all spotty post adolescents? Yee suggests that "The average MMORPG gamer us is 26 years old. About half of these players have a full-time job. Every day, many of them go to work and perform an assortment of clerical tasks, logistical planning and management in their offices, then they come home and do those very same things in MMORPGs"
Yee proposes that MMORPG are work for the players and at the very least they are causing the boundaries between work and play to become blurred. Constance Steinkuehler’s view of MMORPG as third places would in part be supported by findings in Nick Yee’s Daedalus Project "On an aggregate level, the general categorization of why people play seems to be quite robust and can roughly be described as: 1) achievement, 2) socialization, 3) immersion, 4) vent/escape, 5) competition."
We don’t need to envisage our workplaces transformed into massive game spaces but we do seriously have to contend with understanding how games and virtual worlds motivate, enable and sustain learning and build effective learning systems. Whether we design games and worlds, or adapt and coopt them, we need to learn from them how we can in our workplaces sustain a labor of fun.
I am very grateful to have had chance to highlight some of the issues that intrigue me.
Thanks
~ Bronwyn
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