Slashdot Mirror
Videogames, Learning, And Literacy
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to a GameZone.com article interviewing Professor James Paul Gee, the author of a new book advocating videogames as a learning tool. According to Gee, "It dawned on me that good games were learning machines... Many of these [game-contained] principles could be used in schools to get kids to learn things like science, but, too often today schools are returning to skill-and-drill and multiple-choice tests that kill deep learning." He goes on to reference "good learning principles" built into games like System Shock 2, Rise of Nations, and Arcanum, and advocates early gaming for learning: "In my view - and I know it is controversial - kids should be playing games from early on, from three years old, say."
I wonder if he'd adopt me?
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
* Are you gay?
* Are you a nigger?
* Are you a GAY NIGGER?
If you answered "Yes" to any of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
Why not sign up now? It's quick and easy, only 2 simple steps!
First, you have to obtain a copy of "GAY NIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE" and watch it.
Second, you need to join the official GNAA irc channel #GNAA on EFNet, and apply for membership.
Talk to one of the ops or any of the other members in the channel to sign up today!
If you are having trouble locating #GNAA, you might be on a wrong irc network. The correct network is EFNet, and you can connect to irc.secsup.org or irc.isprime.com as one of the EFNet servers.
If you have mod points and would like to support GNAA, please moderate this post up.
-A Proud and Gay Nigger
-aaaaa--a-----a----a-------a----
a-----a-aa----a---a-a-----a-a---
a-------a-a---a--a---a---a---a--
a--aaaa-a--a--a-a-----a-a-----a-
a-----a-a---a-a-aaaaaaa-aaaaaaa-
a-----a-a----aa-a-----a-a-----a-
-aaaaa--a-----a-a-----a-a-----a-
unfortunately games are becoming like the movie industry, only the big titles with big budgets make it on store shelves. Hopefully novel gaming wont go the way of the Bruckheimer.
I would like to point out that his discussion of playing games "proactively," or thinking about the design of the games and how they work. From that point of view, just about any game, played that way, should teach some fundamental rules of logic.
I actually have some trouble thinking of which "entertainment" games would be good for teaching individual facts. Several discuss how to make gunpowder (hardly what you want your kids to be doing), but most really screw up most of the fundamental science. Perhaps the best use of video games (also discussed in the article) would be to inspire children (and adults) to look stuff up. It's kind'a off topic, but I've read a lot about mythology since Stargate, SG1 started airing. Video games should be able to inspire similar interests.
Galium Arsenide is the material of the future, and always will be.
...and build your own personal army of braindead little capitalist soldiers, ready to go off to die in some godforsaken desert or jungle, in order to cement a weak president in his position.
Machine9dotNet
Also, sim city 2000 and myst were great in terms of general intelligence building. And don't forget the EV series! Now I know a bunch of major star systems. Bernard's Star here I come! Yes, it really does exist, however not all stars from fiction are real. I don't think fiddler's green exists.
Anyhoo, a healthy dose of non first person shooter games can be good for the brain, and while those shooters certainly improve reflexes, the RSI, frazzled nerves and raised blood pressure of a good net match are hardly worth it.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
People only say 1 of 3 possible sentences.
Thou shalt now cross over the trees into that other land, for there are most largest beasts there to tear you apart.
Seriously though, I guess you can easily learn problem solving, the try and try and try again principle, patience, extended mental focus/concentration...which may be really good for ADHD children...I've never seen any stats but it seems resonable to me. You can also learn, in a well made game, that your previous actions will indeed have consequences - something that many parents in this culture do not teach their children.
Very reasonable man I would presume...and also some very reasonable ideas.
I wish I got paid to sit and make thoughts like this.
Who is this that even the wind and the waves obey Him? Surely this computer must submit also!
say...SAY WHAT? and this guy is suspose to be a Professor..PFFFT
In all the years I have spent playing games I can't think of much I've learned. I'm sure I would have learned more -- a lot more -- if the games were my only source of information, but reading and REAL LIFE covered 99% of any game long before I played the game. What kids should really be doing is reading and have parents that encourage and take part in teaching/learning.
This reminds me of the F-22 test pilot on the discover channel talking about how the new kids who grew up with video games are unbelivably good at flying planes.
Apparently flying a modern jet requires tracking lots of things at once and the gamer kids are pretty good at it.
I also recall many pilots saying that the number one cause of crashes was pilots believing sensory input over guages, and how easy it was to fool your inner ear. I'd say this would be an advantage to vid game based learners, because gauges are all you have to rely on in a PC game. Further, I don't recall ever seeing a guage in a simulator program of any type that gave inaccurate info, ever.
********* sig: If you don't like the law, get filthy stinking rich, and buy a better one.
When playing Grand Theft Auto III I got certain phrases on my mind("I kill you gringo!"). It occured to me that it might as well have a little wider repertoire of more useful phrases in some foreign language with optional subtitling, and I'd be able to pick up something while playing.
Of course, even better would be a game with a lot more interaction, something like a Sierra-style adventure game.
Actually, it's personal experience too, I learned quite a bit of English from 80s text adventures.
If you have a kid that doesn't want to learn in the classroom environment, but instead only wants to play games, then, yes, playing strategy, RPG or simulation games is better than just deathmatching Quake for hours on end.
However, if you're wanting to teach that problem kid, there's surely better ways than sitting them in front of a computer with a stack of games.
What's next, computer training by downloading pr0n - think about it - learn all about caching, searching for passwords, virus checking for trojan pr0n, proxies, ad blocking, ftp, IRC, KaZaA, etc. Excuse me, I must go now to write my book and get interviewed on GameZone...
In German we use the verb "begreifen" for the process of understanding something that you learn. That verb contains the "greifen" which means that you can grab something. And yes, I believe that kids of 3 years old learn the world by touching it and grabbing things and not by simulating the world on a TV monitor.
And BTW, for my kid I found a sort of "catalyst" to make her learn. Its simple, cheap, runs without batteries and she enjoys it a lot: Books.
While he may be right about games being a learning tool, they can't teach everything. The problem with video games is that they often replace other sources of entertainment such as reading. In your opinion, what is more educational, a computer simulation or a book? Even if they were equal in this respect, most kids play more games than they read books, or they spend the time watching TV (something for the most part uneducational and mind-numbing).
DO NOT WRITE IN THIS SPACE
okThis is a prescient interview. The market for gaming would explode if game publishers consciously took the time to embed learning scenarios into games.
If this was done in a way that didn't seem pedantic; that didn't detract form the 'fun' or 'challenge' of the game; that permitted the player to branch to new experiences once certain 'pedagogic principles' were mastered; gaming would reach a new plateau - both in terms of cultural influence and sales. Every parent would run out and but a game console, no questions asked.
This is the most compelling way to help people to "fail on the way to mastery".
Imagine that a parent hears that little Suzy will do better in school (or on her SAT's) if she plays games that help her to learn the principles of elementary geometry, grammar, etc. as a part of playing the game, *without her consciously realizing it*. Clever game design could accomplish this. (Why isn't Wolfram Publishing authoring math game?)
Of course, in many cases, conscious awareness that directed learning is taking place could also be permitted, as long as the game's design created stimulating scenarios that compel participation.
This is really just the very beginning for games as learning tools. Years ago, in cognitive science seminars, it became clear that the best 'artificial' way we had to instill learning skills was through simulation. This is still true, and remain so for some time.
Really, games are immersive, simulative, experiences. They will become more immersive, and sophisticated (in terms of simulation) as time goes on, processors get faster, broadband becomes a non-issue, and designers realize that learning can be fun.
The future for this sort of thing is absolutely unlimited. In fact, there's no reason why serious simulations and models of very complex environments won't eventually be brought before very sophisticated learners (politicians, medical professionals, genetic designers, etc.) to help them "think through" potential consequences of their actions.
Frankly, this is the most important pedagogical development in that last 100 years, if not longer. It will have import far into the future.
Just about every learning activity that children indulge in is a game. Shape puzzles, lego, etc. Even with animals learning has always been a game.
This makes you wonder why there is so much anti-videogame sentiment, and its sad that its only now that more people are looking seriously toward computer games for child learning.
A friend recently got married and has their first child. Both parents have firmly ingrained computing habits, and hence the child has spent a lot of time in front of a monitor. At age 3, he knew how to operate the window's quicklaunch in order to get to media player (kid loves to watch stuff from Pixar, and they use the PC as a VCD/DVD player). Near age four, he could navigate most of the start menu. And the child isn't a geek either, he runs around much like any other and is a bit of a bully in school actually.
It's true! Didn't you ever see that Seinfeld where George had to play real-life Frogger to get his Frogger machine across a busy street before the battery that held his high score ran out?
If only he had a little more practice..
-Rylfaeth
Those same kids, however, are very interested in TEH XBOZZZZ and all that. If you could somehow make education fun, like "Typing of the Dead", and things like that, i think it would work. The problem is, right now, that education games aren't fun. Not to most kids. Even the younger kids are being influenced by the older ones into thinking that anything that even remotely involves something other than porn or guns is bad. As such, i think i have a formula that may well be important to note in this instance:
*breasts* + *violence* + * = FUN GAME
Knowing this, i think we need to add more, like, shooting games and things to the educational genre. Quake III: Preposition Death Match. Dead or Alive Volleyball: XTREME Spelling Mastarz. Things like that.
YES, games CAN be good learning tools, but they also can be harmfull. It depends on the game. Almost "mindless" kill-em-all types of games seem to me as a waste of time as "educational tool" (one might argue "but they improve hand-eye coordination and... - and they would be right... but that's not education). Almost (and I repeat, almost) all games have SOMETHING that is good in them... even the crappy ones (oh well, make you realise that they are crap and help you build your own oppinions). PROBLEM is that not every type of game is good for "teaching" usefull things to the younger people... and the danger exists (in the nowadays MMOGs trend) that you will encounter vulgar language (which by itself, in small doses is not harmfull, but when in excess... no comment). What I want to say is... what happened to QUESTS (Lucasarts, oh where art thou), to REAL strategy games like "Gengis Khan", "Nether Earth"(that one's for Z80)... those were more than usefull, both entertaining and educative. The current "computer game industry" trend of "if more buy it it is good" and "more violence sells better" is a big problem. ___ As a "bottom line": IF it would be SCIENTIFICALLY proven beyond a shadow of a doubt for any dimwit (in the Congress or where they might be) that certain types of games ARE of educational value, it will be a major step forward.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
So instead of doing actual work, I can now play games all day and when my boss asks what I'm doing, I can say without lying to him that I'm working on a (art) project? I'm an artist.
Acting like it isn't real or important because it's on a monitor is stupid. People who approach games the right way can use them as very effective tools to improve themselves. I have seen this effect first hand in a close friend. Trying to get Mario to do some crazy jump or finish the level in one second less time or get another hundred points or whatever might seem useless, but only if you forget that excellence is a habit.
Playing through the campaigns, you certainly find out a lot about history. Shame microsoft didn't pause to get their facts straight first though, as now there will be a whole generation of kids who think that Erik the Red found America from Greenland (when it was actually his son, Leif Erikson).
Video games make kids fat and LAZY..
They learn nothing. And don't give me that hand eye coordination crap either. A good game of baseball does the trick.
As a parent I'm here to tell you that you can't blow that sunshine up my ass.
I see what it does to kids. It rots the brain and make them LAZY...
Press alt-F4 now and try again.
I am currently learning Japanese by playing Final Fantasy X-2. Maybe more "increasing the knowledge thereof" than "learning," but I do have the dictionary handy and would pause at instances where I don't understand and look up the word.
It works wonders because
1) it teaches you slang that's sometimes not in textbooks but people use often (must have good dictionary, however)
2) you brush up listening comprehension
3) you can pause the damn thing (try that with TV - well, one without TiVO and the likes)
4) subtitle
5) it provides a mental reference about the words, when I see "furikaeru" I would think to myself - ahh, Yuna says this in her final monologue and such and I can use the game scenario to remind me of the meaning; etc.
So, games can definitely be a learning tool. In fact this the most fun I have had learning yet.
Of course, as a friend puts it, an equally effective way may be to find a - ahem - sex toy who likes to talk during - ahem - activities. But looking up dictionary during such activities may be slightly inconvenient.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
ahem. hi, my name is p*something*, and i, too, was once addicted to video games. I started at the age of 6 when i got my hands on an early version of nintendo, 8 bits. i stood ground on every platform available to my mid-western-@ss, learning to program, hack, fix my gear.. i, because of a shear love for games, learned to program various languages, navigate and manipulate in serveral platforms, then versions, then chip set variants.. then came the short wave, then radio anten, wifi, war-driving, and all the meanwhile, i was enployed by companies who hired me due to knowledge of the technical world. - .. a world which will never leave us, so as long as the economy resides in modern western hands. (barring a miracle) so.. i should say from my experience, gaming can definitely lead one child to a situation of progessive learning curves, only mimited by his or her own imagination. please, mod parent down for bogaRTING.
-P
** "It's not my job to stand between the people talking to me, and the ones listening to me." -- Pego the Jerk
Bad eating and exercise habits make children fat and lazy. Mostly it's bad parents that are responsible.
I got a nephew, he plays video games, he spends time in front of the computer but he's also very active with physical games -- a bit too active in fact I feel sorry for his parents.
Computers are now an undeniable part of society, and it is the responsibility of parents to prepare their children for entry into the modern world and there's no better way to start than with video games. I am appalled whenever I see people in their 20s who do not yet know how to operate a computer.
Ha, a bit of deja vu here. Wasn't that what they said when TV came out?
Problem: I've played a lot of educational video games, and all of them were boring. It certainly would be cool if a game could unconsciously teach useful things, but in 20 years of gaming it has never been done, and I see no evidence that it's possible.
E.g. I've played a platformer designed to teach math. In between the platform action, you would pick up items that froze the game and forced you to answer an arithmetic problem before you proceeded. Or a ecology adventure game that would bother you with popups about wildlife. Such things can only detract from the game. But can you propose any way to teach arithmetic without posing arithmetic problems?
Educational games are just another futile attempt to "make learning fun". The problem is that you can't make learning fun by mixing it with unrelated things that are fun, like shooting things and jumping around. You have to make children feel that learning is fun for its own sake. And the only thing that can do that is a good teacher.
Why the hell is this considered controversial? There's something horribly broken in the adult mind if playing games and learning are separated so badly. Why do people think kids have this urge to play anyway? Learning is the whole point! That's why they do it!
Play is a natural technique for young people and animals to learn the skills they will need as adults. Social skills, survival skills, everything. Our brains are wired so that we play to learn and learn best while playing. It's as simple as that. If educators got this into their heads we would have a much better school system.
[insert witty quote here]
Typing of the Dead (Japanese Version) helped me master my ability to type Japanese phrases really, really fast.
Back in the bad old days in '77 We had to program in Hex, 4K of memory was a GOOD THING, Jumped over to a college enrichment course in Senior year and HAD TO DEAL WITH PUNCHCARDS. Jumped over to electronics tech and HAD TO DEAL WITH PCBS WITH TRACES A MILE WIDE. Jumped into the Air-Force, figuring they have the cool technology. (Wrong, yes they have and still do have the best technology on earth, at this time and point they were using analog technology with digital keepers, O yes, this was (and still is) the ultimate in analog tech. I could go on and on. But you youngsters don't properly appreciate the marvels you have taken for granted.
So take that 12 mile hike through the snow, (I actually did that once) and tell me "life sucks because I am a teenager" Sorry Son, I can't hear so good in my left ear.
This is presented as though it is original thought, but it really isn't. There is lots of research into education and video games over the years, and in the UK I know of several current government funded programs explore the use of video games in schools.
The reason that we haven't seen more educational video games is not because nobody has thought of it, but because it is so expensive to produce them. In the early days of personal computing - when most software was written by individuals - there were loads of educational computer games, many of them very well designed and fun. But these days you need a budget of millions to create a game, so unfortunately there aren't so many educational titles around.
In my view - and I know it is controversial - kids should be playing games from early on, from three years old, say.
if i was a 3 y/o kid, i would chew on the controler , pull out the CD tray , drool on the ventilation fan and sit or jump up and down on the console box
d035 7hi5 100k 1ik3 4n l337 5i6 2 j00 ?
with Elastomania (http://www.elastomania.com) I play this game for hours on end.
Frankly, this is the most important pedagogical development in that last 100 years, if not longer. It will have import far into the future.
It is not an original idea. It has been said many times before, since the 70's. But unfortunately, nothing will come of it.
Games have aided me in my thinking process... i think. I used to get horrible grades in 1st/2nd grade and right after I got my sega... my grades went up... a lot higher.
:)
There is no way any games can compete with books and some other forms of non-gaming literature because of the sheer amount of info they contain. If you can efficiently take in info from those sources then thats great. Some people forget... fortunately i'm not one of them
Hmmm... Pie...
Stock brokers log in, they buy and sell items, talk to people to learn their opinions, and try to influence others with what they say. Sounds like an MRPG to me.
Salesmen and purchasing agents to similar things.
There are too many people out there who are bored with their jobs, this might be the way to make it more interesting for them.
Just my $0.02 worth.
Games where you have to interact a lot in a non repetitive way might be useful educational tools, as are books, as is a group classroom experiment, etc.
However, I have yet to see a game that really wins on any of these points, although they are all complements to real learning. Chat rooms do not even have conversations in English any more, it's all LOL and ROTFL and smilies. I've even seen people in chat rooms who barely type anything else, in fact they probably just point and click macros that someone else created instead.
Programming and logic, and of course hand to eye coordination, can be learned from computers. Doesn't beat real sport, which adds 3D sensory perception and much better spatial awareness. A good learning game will not beat a good book for improving literacy, but it might help with rule based learning, like mathematics, grammar and vocabulary building by repetition.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
now Game developers could put REAL messages in their games.
I remember Civilisation II, and how I was disapointed that the best way to run your government was 'Fundamentalism' and it was minerals for production, farms for food. Very Simple.
Also SimCity3k where the only people that mattered were petitioners who wanted a money making scheme. Just imagine if a SimCity player gets to be mayor of a major city.
After being in business for myself for awhile, it's dawned on me how similar a lot of strategic management games are like running a business in real life.
The best of such games taught me to watch expenditures, invest in productive items, make more money which gets invested in other productive items and services.
Sometimes I feel like I'm actually in a game,
but with a system of much more interesting and
gratifying rewards.
Really Prof. Gee, did you have to provide scientific proof that my kids are better off playing Counterstrike instead of working on their history? Some help you are.
i kid you not; i learned how to read playing the old school sierra games - king's quest and space quest. you had to be able to read and write (albeit pretty broken sentences, lol) to play them, and i got so jealous of watching my older brother playing them that i learned to read by watching over his shoulder and then playing by myself.
i even got skipped ahead a grade in reading when i entered elementary.
this guy's got a great point.
"In my view - and I know it is controversial - kids should be playing games from early on, from three years old, say."
"In my view - and I know it is controversial - kids should be traveling back in time and start with playing the C64 games from early on, from three years old, say."
I think playing through the great SNES RPGs of the Golden Age (Final Fantasy, Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Tales of Fantasia, Secret of Mana, and so on) was a very important, formative, and educational experience for me.
Among the things I learned:
You can never carry more than a certain fixed number of objects.
People may be small moving 16x16 blobs from far away, but up close they turn into large still images.
Don't hit anyone, because if you do a little number will bounce out of them and it's kind of unnerving.
When just wandering around in life, you'll need a wide range of area attacks to keep little problems at bay. But when facing a major crisis, such as Kefka or the Profound Darkness, you need big heavy single-target attacks.
Two or three people co-operating can be much more effective than one -- but only if the game supports combo attacks. Unless it's Chrono Trigger in which case the combos are weaker than individual attacks. I guess there's a moral there.
It is possible for an art to flourish and die out completely not only within one lifetime, but within just a couple of decades.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
And I didn't learn squat. What am I doing wrong?
I grew up on a strong diet of board games, card games, word games and later video games - I thought it obvious that games aid learning.
In fact, this is how most of us learn pretty much everything at an early age.
Why is it that these 'revelations' keep on cropping up when it's been known for so long that kids playing aid thier learning, no matter what form the game takes ?
Have the 'power that be' that critisise video games got so powerful that people have forgotten the fact that games are good learning tools ?
Still, it's nice to see this kind of article and more articles praising games could help to balance out the crazies who blame video games for all social ills.
A slashdotting - you get the stick first and then the carrot !
Likewise I think we need to emphasize online pornography as teaching tools in our schools. Too often children are taught that human sexuality is wrong or immoral. Being introduced to human sexuality through healthy doses of online pornography at an early age would stimulate the understanding of children. The Internet was probably the greatest teaching tool I could've ever encountered for developing my own road to sexuality. Before I started downloading "hard-core" pornography from the Internet early in high school I still thought the female's vagina was right below her stomach for heaven's sake! Afterall, when a man lays on top of a woman, how else would it work? My silly 6th grade nerd mind couldn't comprehend it until I saw actual pictures of the act instead of the spoonfed garbage they were willing to present in 5th grade health classes. Thank you online pornographers, you've enriched and brought fulfillment to my mediocre existence. Because of you I was able to avoid embarrassing conversations with my parents regarding the subject and develop a healthy sexual relationship with multiple sexual partners throughout my high school career. I now am involved in not one, but three relationships and have strong hopes for bringing the three women together for the first time sometime later this month for what I hope will be a stimulating experiment!
Basically, if it weren't for Wizardry (and, later on, Matrix Cubed), I wouldn't be posting this now. This is enough proof for me that computer games can be more than just pretty distractions.
>|<*:=
/say Tell me about these game-contained principles
/boo
grrr... This quest must be broken!!
My daughter loves to play games from the Jump Start series. I have seen her learn quite a bit about logic and language from these. She has also become quite proficient at operating my aging PowerMac 7200.
I don't let her play to the extent I used to play my Atari 2600 ('til I had blisters on my thumbs). I use it as another tool to teach and amuse along with more traditional methods.
Don't limit your options because something isn't tangable. It is equally difficult to 'grab' something in a book.
I think Lemonade Tycoon is a great mini-course in how to run your small business. There's more practical knowledge in there than a lot of people get with a business degree!
Nothing like feeling the pain of not selling a single cup of lemonade all day, because the temperature dropped below 50 degrees and you forgot to lower your price to accomodate for it!
The notion that we can significantly improve people by strictly feeding them one or other social diet has been the basis of much misery inflicted in the name of social progress.
Children need, above all, to be free to play the way they want to, in a varied and challenging environment that includes many other people.
Children learn best and most from other children, not from games or books, and yet role of child culture in the learning process is almost totally ignored by this kind of pronouncement. Games - even well-designed educational games - cannot replace a robust and healthy child cultural, and I would suspect they actually damage this culture.
If there is one lesson that the last century taught us, it is that a dogmatic approach to human nature inevitably screws us in the worst ways possible.
Yes, you may raise a generation of children who understand subtle rules about social interaction. Or you may simply raise a generation of kids who are out of synch with the world around them because while this was changing and moving, they had their faces in a simulation.
Ceci n'est pas une signature
Internet porn downloaders make better lovers, according to a poll of internet porn downloaders.
I understand that many people would find it inappropriate for 3 year olds to be playing any FPS, as this would probably instigate violent behavior later in life. However, after a certain age, many children would be affected very little by playing games where the sole objective is to blow everyone else away. Due to this immunity, I believe that allowing these children to play FPS would benefit them greatly in the real world, not just in school. I don't know whether or not frazzled nerves and high blood pressure occur from these games, but I am assuming that these effects are determined by the person playing the games and how often they play the games. However, it has been proven conclusively that people who play FPS on a regular basis have quicker reflexes and better multi-tasking abilities than people who don't play them. These enhanced reflexes and multi-tasking abilities are also instigated by games with large amounts of micro-managing, such as starcraft or warcraft, but the results are not quite as drastic. If there are no unfortunate side effects to playing FPS (such as "frazzled nerves" or raised blood pressure), then I am all for allowing children of a certain age access to them.
Blacksnake
Here are some suggested curriculum:
MECC's Number Munchers (simple math)
Popcap's Typer Shark (typing, spelling)
Popcap's BookWorm (spelling, word creation)
Microsoft's Age of Empires (history)
Where in the ** is Carmen Sandiego (geography)
There are TONS of educational games from funbrain.com, learningplanet.com, gamequarium.com, and many, many more.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Your anecdotal evidence about smart kids owning these games, if true, would indicate correlation, not causation. A correlation means two items are related, but it doesn't indicate which causes which, and there could be lurking variables. I recommend you take a course in statistics.
When I was in frickin high school, call it about 1983, our physics teacher and resident hacker Steve Kremer told me, "There's no such thing as games, only simulations." Man shoulda written a book.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
The market for gaming already exploded without this, and I think that's likely why we'll see little change. Publishers have already found a gaming business model that works. I doubt many of these publishers would want to gamble on introducing something like "edutainment" into an already successful business.
There is a lot of "educational" software out there. Most of it is crappy, from my experience (I have three kids, all of which I've bought educational software for and, in turn, witnessed a lot of dissapointment). Most of it retails for much less then non-educational, mainstream games. I think the educational software market has kind of established itself already as a bit of a loser by comparison.
So... to make the point again... I don't see it as being likely that a publisher is going to want to incorporate concepts from a lower profit, lower sale market into their existing non-educational first person shoot 'em up massive online cash cows.
I am a full-time (senior, even) web db-based app. developer and a part-time (evenings) senior CSE student at a major Uni. in VA. (No, not UVA.) I learned what I do for a living by a top down approach. (ie, How'd they do that? Borrow the code from webmonkey, etc, go to a commercial school for 3-5 days every couple of years, & figure out the rest "under fire") I appreciate the bottom-up approach of my CSE curriculum, but, oddly, we haven't got to the point where any of it is useful in my job, yet. I look forward to that day. Really. (I am, of course, assuming that the two approaches will, one day, converge.) I enjoy both approaches. I think there is room for both ideas, rather than the dogmatic exclusive-OR approach employed by both (encamped) camps.
I'm reading another book, Digital Game-Based Learning by author Marc Prensky.
Strategy/logic games like Slay are excellent for teaching arithmetics. Arithmetic (and math in general) is an extremely useful thing later (and early) in life and it's a pity that so many people cannot master its secrets. For example, my sister (she is not considered stupid) had difficulties calculating 1+1 (when that was a part of the problem) and guessed that 2/2*2 might be 0. :) One of the Russian Ministers thought that when you fire 50% of people and spend the same amount on salaries, average wage will increase by about 50%... And he said that live during his meeting with the President. O tempora! O mores!
:)
Anyway, there are many games that need math skills as an integral part of the gameplay. And once basic skills are taught, children are ready for the theory, for formal problems, for algebra, for higher mathematics, for sets theory, for linear programming and after they know that, they can start learning mathematics.
Same with ecology. You can download a free game "Save the Leopard" (120Mb), created by professional game developer studio and financed by WWF Russia (don't know if there is English support). I never played it, but the reviews are pretty good. And in this game the ecology is the integral part of the game, not an annoying addition. You play ecology.
That's it.
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
This isn't some great new insight; people have been railing against "rote" learning for about a century or so. More, in some places.
So why was there more literacy and learning (among those attending school, with access to books, etc.) before all these wonderous theories of, er, non-rote learning?
I know this is a bit off-topic, but I find that DMing pen and paper RPGs has helped me become a better public speaker. It has also helped me develop the ability to use rich descriptions where appropriate. Games that encourage interaction, even if only amongst a few people can be beneficial. Especially when people cannot shorten "you" into "u".
/me skulks away.
I really, really loathe those people.
I assert that my comment is only my opinion, not that of any employer, past, present or future.
Well, since this is ./ news for nerds...At the age of 10, I started playing Dungeons and Dragons (D&D). I kid you not, that game has been responsible for a major increase in my interpersonal, problem solving, creativity, research, and public speaking skills, not to mention a vastly increased vocabulary. I'm not sure if anyone else experienced this phenomenon but that game contributed a lot to what I am today. With a good DM, I say D&D can aid development as much as if not more than good schooling.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
Honestly, I might not have been interested in learning how to count in hex if it weren't for Questron and the Commodore 64.
You could edit the character files in a hex editor and give yourself gazzilions of $ or HPs:)
These are all real issues, and since he doesn't address them it's a big problem for his interview. It's very easy to talke about games, but there are a lot of games and to treat them all the same is extremely problematic. There are non-computer games (lots), computer games, violent computer games, multiplayer... etc. I am so sick of people conflating computer games and violent computer games, you get this script kiddies here who think anyone who dares to question the violence in computer games is attacking everything including Myst.
His article really isn't news either. It's been well known for a long time that all smart species play and learn from games. Human babies? Love to play! Primates? Play! Lions? The same! Kittens and puppies? They play all the time! It's a form of learning.
It's also been known for some time that stories are an important part of human history. Before we had writing, everything was an oral history, essentially, a story. Storytelling is a vital and ingrained part of the human experience. The Odyssey? Beowulf? Stories! (That makes four problems.)
Possibly because all the families that had enough money to buy these toys were generally better off families...
Not here. I studied in a lot of (poor) public Brazilian schools, and most "smart" kids were in the lowest social classes (including me).
It's true that most of them played videogames (well, the boys, at least), but around here we generally play older systems wich are cheap; for example, the first Playstation is still the most popular console.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
It seems that people are missing the ramifications of this guy's conclusions.
IF we all agree (and it seems to be a generally-accepted proposition) that kids can learn from games, then do we also agree that children can be negatively influenced by video games?
Does this not take us a giant step toward the people that believe the school shooting incidents (like the tragically infamous Columbine shootings) are a result of kids playing first-person shooters?
Personally, I think I agree with both points, to a degree. (FWIW I don't think Dylan Kleebold (sp?) was a perfectly normal, well adjusted kid with a happy home life who 'suddenly' snapped from playing shooters.)
BUT. Kids CAN learn a lot from computer games that is vitally important - everything from simple cause-effect, to complex conditional planning, to understanding complex rules systems and lateral thinking. Kids can also learn an excessive reliance on violence to solve problems, an overdependence on rules, and simplistic solutions to complex problems.
That said, I think both results are deeply subject to parental involvement, like most things. If you sit and play through games with your kids, not only do you get to spend quantity time with them, but it's fun. On the other hand, if you are a worthless wretch that uses video games as a babysitter, and lets your 9 year old play GTA3, well, frankly you suck as a parent and shouldn't be suprised when your kid goes homocidal.
-Styopa
On the flipside, he loves action play, acting out scenes from books and movies, and reading books. He has us read with him morning noon and night. Video games are just one aspect of our child's vast play space. And that's how it should be. He has wanted to play on his computer for longer than what his mother and I deem healthy for the day, so we guide to other activities. It's what parenting is all about. We provide him with a many avenues to exercise his intellect that we can, and guide down those avenues in a way that makes his experience as positive as it can be.
There was a boy at my old apartment complex who was mostly orphaned, he was being raised by his grandparents. He was well behind his age group at the age of 10 when it came to reading. Be it the Yorky I walked regularly, or the fact he liked checking out all the computer gear I worked on, he attached himself to me. It didn't take long for me to notice he could barely read. I got a pretty good handle on what the kid liked and I hooked him on two video games. I got him hooked on Illusion of Gaia for the SNES which required great amounts of reading admist quite a bit of overhead action. I also got him hooked on Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers on the PC (he didn't know it was capable of talking, and I turned the voices off). Granted, a somewhat scary adult targeted (and old) game, but considering his stacks of Playboys and scary movies okayed by his grandparents I deamed it acceptable in his case. After just two to three weeks his reading skills had more than doubled. He never compleated eaither game, but he did spent quite a few hours on each.
Later he found a 486 in the dumpster with Debian installed on it. Well, hated to do it, but I reformated the drive and put Win98 on it, after I gutted it and put a P166 in it. Hey, he was only 10 or 11 at the time. His grandma had heard all about ebay and wanted to check it out. Perfect! I worked for an ISP at the time. I spoke to my boss/CEO, he allowed no setup fee and the first six months free, I paid for the next six months after that. He knew that I was on IRC at work all day (it was part of my job), I showed him how to bring up the JAVA client (I had more control over that than a normal client would allow) and he chatted all day. At first it would take him serveral minutes to type a poorly spelled short sentance in the room, to the point you almost didn't realize he was there if you weren't looking for him. Within six months he could keep up.
It all started with video games.
Before I moved out of that complex his grandmother left a thank you letter under the windsheild wipper of my truck. It's framed and hanging in my computer loft at home now.
Two months ago I got married. That kid, now 16, was my best man.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Another important lesson that can be learned largely from multiplayer gaming is Teamwork. More specifically, leadership/followership skills. FPS games (i.e. quake series, counterstrike, Return to Casltle Wolfenstein) offer tremendous opportunity to interact with people as teamates in a stressful situation. The ability to work with others under pressure is a great skill that is practiced daily by the world's FPS gamers. Capture the flag - style games virtually require teamates to coordinate efforts and improvise as needed to accomplish their goals together. The US army clearly hasn't missed this observation, as evidenced by their own FPS intended to be used as a recruiting tool.
Online community debates aside, cyberspace interactions in games provide an opportunity for games to hone thier interpersonal skills. Questions like "How do i get people to listen to me", or "When should I do as I'm told and when should I make my own decisions" are easily answered in the context of team-based combat online.
Many of the top 10 games list are great for kids. Look at Sims, Warcraft, Rollercoaster Tycoon, etc. Kids love that kind of open-ended gameplay. The trouble is that there's no kid-friendly mode of playing. What would it take for a "dollhouse" Sims mod with simplier objectives and interfaces? How about a "toy soldier" style Warcraft 3 mod...same game with more play objectives. They're great games...that's why adults like them. Why wouldn't kids like them too!
System Shock 2? Are you kidding, it's an awesome game, but it scares me at age 24! Only thing a 3-year old is going to learn from playing it is how to never sleep w/ the light off, ever again!
Chaos is the order of the day...
From all the King's quest, Police quest, and Space quest games I learned how to type quickly. I can still type "unlock door" "open door" incredibly fast
My older son, now 8, learned how to read by playing Pokemon. Over time he began to learn what letter combinations were (from my telling him over and over) like Potion, Water Gun, Poke Ball, etc. and it started to click. He was 3 and was getting no other instruction w.r.t. reading at the time.
I've always wanted to learn to fly, and it looks like I'll finally have the opportunity in a year or two. I must have logged thousands of hours in flight sims over the years, including (at a rough guess) at least several hundred hours in FS98 where I was actually trying to do things 'right' in a Cessna (using real FAA Approach Templates and IFR/VOR and stuff).
I'm very curious to know how much, if any, of my FS98 skillset will transfer over to flying a real Cessna. Certainly I have the principles of flight down pat, I know about approach patterns and basic flight maneuvers, crosswind landings and takeoff, recovering from stalls and equipment failures - aside from radio use and 'hands on' experience, I think I ought to be pretty good.
Of course, the temptation to do an 'acrobatic' style landing in a Cessna may be too strong... some of my approaches have been a little... adventurous. Anyone here flown for real after logging plenty of Sim time?
This has been discussed many times before. For example, I first encountered this idea formally in Digitial Game-Based Learning by Marc Prensky. The premise is that in order to reach kids, you have to use the medium they are growing up in. Today, video games are a significant part of most children's environment.
I believe that while games can teach certain skills, such as reflex, pattern-recognition, problem-solving, etc., I am not sure games can successfully teach actual subject matter.
As several people have already noted, if the games inspires the child to find out more about a subject, then the games has been a catalyst for learning. But the game itself is not teaching the subject matter.
I think the reason for this is that we are not yet good enough to be able to seemlessly integrate the subject matter into game play without making it obvious that you are trying to teach it.
I would like to hear about examples that prove me wrong.
Kids playing Quake may learn how to navigate through a maze and blast enemies, but it's a huge jump to conclude that they're being programmed for the behavior at the same time. Learning involves a completely different set of skills than stimulus-response conditioning, which is what you're talking about.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
Civ and Civ2... infact... i still play those games
the advance menu and the wonders were cool... also made me look up stuff about them on the net
My favorite titles such as Civilization or SimCity do give insight into how things work - after weeks of Civilization marathons the history class seemed a lot easier what it used to be and the material made more sense to me. On the other hand when you play games such as Quake or Doom you will probably just waste time rather than get smart (both games are fun though).
I've been playing computer games since about the time I learned to read. It's amazing the things I've learned.
I've learned TONS of geography. For example, I can tell you approximately where Bombay, Calcutta, and the Himilayian mountains are in India, thanks to games like Railroad Tycoon 2. I know where a lot of cities are in the Caribbean thanks to Pirates!
I was reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and he was talking about how fledgling societies that start near an abundance of natural resources tend to grow more quickly and advance faster. Anybody who's ever played Civ could have told you that.
I've developed more of a vocabulary through encountering words I didn't know in an understandable context. I learned about storytelling through adventure games like Grim Fandango.
I learned tons of problem solving. Wasteland and Everquest reinforced that often, using a little bit of brains is more important than using a lot of might. I've learned about consequence (killing NPCs randomly means you sometimes can't finish quests that involve them) and diplomacy.
I learned a bit about math and statistics from playing RPGs like and influenced by AD&D from all that dice rolling and min-maxing.
I learned about the principles of the stock market and speculating from playing BBS games. And about supply and demand economics from online MMORPGS.
Games often tend to mimic real life, even when they include imaginative elements, and often do a great job of taking a complex system and making it simple and understandable by putting it in a larger context. It gives people the opportunity to explore a subset of a subject thats accessible to someone without much of a background in that topic area, and the knowledge gained can then be used as a stepping stone into more complex topics that are more directly applicable to the real world.
As you can see, the above topics hit a wide variety of areas. I think that playing games gave me a better appreciation and a better foundation for the multitude of topics that I would encounter later in life. I've always wondered if it would be possible to write an interesting book entirely on the multitude of areas that computer games reflect real life -- because I think non-gamers simply don't realize how broad the correlation is!
I agree partially with this guy insofar as video games are a subset of the activities human do in simulated manner. Playing a good game of chess will shake your mind, and so do sports (and sport will shake BOTH your spirits and your fat), and that's a good thing. When you fight with your little brother, you are often acting out a simulation (though you can easily fall back into 'real mode', i.e. hurt each other). But his article then is hardly new stuff: even the lion cubs play with each other and gain a lot of benefits from fighting without hurting. Video games are another method of creating a simulation, and it can be technically very advanced (although I admit that most games are for morons, still the possibilities are there). But no video game will ever teach you how to cope with the unexciting, boring stuff that is pervasive in human life. Yes, it will teach you to persevere, but only if there is a shiny gold treasure at the end, or a big-boobed princess. I'm sorry, but this is rare in the real world. You need to persevere also for less glamorous things. Books (and to a certain extent theater/cinema) are probably the only make-believe place where you will confront these things. Read any Beckett lately? The thing is that you can't learn everything through exciting simulation. And simulating isn't the end of learning. You may be expert in an educational video game about butchery, but if you've never touched a hindquarter, you can't be a butcher. Same thing with life: it's good to have a top-notch simulation area, but in the end, you have to go out and play it in the world.
That they perhaps have a flatscreen or low-radiation monitor. Even that doesn't really help against the oncoming shortsightedness.
No, this isn't to mock using PC's at an early age, it's personal experience. A few years of working in dimly lit rooms in front of screens leaves me squinting more in bright light or requiring shades. After years of screen-watching, only by changing my habits (eye-distance to screen, etc) did I prevent totally screwing up my vision.
If I were the type that wears glasses/contacts all the time I'd be worse, but luckily I take them off at the PC (ever notice that not wearing glasses constantly decreases how your vision goes downhill, seems your eyes adjust to the assistance and get lazier).
Computers are a great learning tool for kids and adults alike, but it's a good idea to be aware of the physical side-effects that are often overlooking in leui of the psychological ones.
Quite honestly, I think kids playing games is great. In almost all games you practice memory, patience, hand eye coordination, and basic strategy to solve the game (which can be simple or greatly complex). Yes, they need to be outside playing, being active and experiencing the world first hand, but if you don't think there's plenty of time for them to do both of these things then I'd be suprised if you actually have kids. If there's one thing on this earth kids have it's plenty of free time, and I'd much rather have my kid playing video games then watching TV and that's a solution that's probably acceptable to both you and your child because they'll look at it as an adequate switch. You can try to get them to read or play outside more, but in the end, those activities are probably taking place an ample amount of time already and increasing them may be difficult sell because your kids will get bored with any activity you force on them for too long. I think video games would be a much easier sell to replace tv time with and provide different and still important skillsets that wouldn't be acquired as readily through other things parents typically promote.
I agree, games that teach things can be more fun and more memorable. Some of the most enjoyable games I've ever played had a large learning curve.
However, the brainless will always sell better than the mentally difficult. Quake sold better than Hexen, because ID insists that if a gameplay element slows things down, it gets kicked to the curve.
You hit the nail on the head: only serious players will get educational benefits from games, video or otherwise.
I developed language skills from reading source books and writing up my own RPG quests, but I know lots of players who were just looking for something to do. I learned probability and resource management from collectable trading-cards, but I know lots of players who played medicore without worrying about that (or even bought their way to the top). When I play RTS I worry about tactics and troop manuvers, but I know lots of players who just concentrate on building a couple big monsters and hope they catch their opponents defenses at a weak spot. When I play FPS I do a lot of the things you mention, but when my girlfriend plays against low-difficulty bots she runs randomly through the map, twitching a response to enemies or goodies as they appear on the screen.
Masting many games requires developing skills that have positive educational side-effects, but just playing them casually doesn't.
Games aren't meant to tell a story, or teach kids, or put you in a movie. They're meant to be games. As such, they are a worthwhile endeavor in and of themselves. When a child learns to play an instrument, we accept that as a valid pursuit in and of itself. Games should be treated the same way.
To try to shoehorn science and math and poetry and other subjects into gaming, by making that your and the game's PURPOSE, you'll succeed only in creating a miserable excuse for both a game and a learning tool. Drills are used because they WORK. What's 5 times 7? You know the answer because you were drilled. For simple items like this, games might actually help (i.e. MathBlaster), but you're not going to learn the history of late 19th-century labor relations from a game, at least, not in any depth.
YMMV.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You can never carry more than a certain fixed number of objects.
...
As anyone who has to travel should know... Travel light and you'll be happier for it.
People may be small moving 16x16 blobs from far away, but up close they turn into large still images.
Distance hides many things =)
Don't hit anyone, because if you do a little number will bounce out of them and it's kind of unnerving.
Don't hit anyone, period.
When just wandering around in life, you'll need a wide range of area attacks to keep little problems at bay.
Versatility is the key to everyday life.
But when facing a major crisis, such as Kefka or the Profound Darkness, you need big heavy single-target attacks.
Given a crisis situation, you have to look at things and come up with a solution specific to it.
Two or three people co-operating can be much more effective than one -- but only if the game supports combo attacks. Unless it's Chrono Trigger in which case the combos are weaker than individual attacks. I guess there's a moral there.
Teams are great! So long as your boss isnt of the Dilbertian variety.
It is possible for an art to flourish and die out completely not only within one lifetime, but within just a couple of decades.
Understanding rules, developing long-term (strategic) thinking, co-operating and competing with other 'gamers' are all highly valuable skills which can't be overlooked. More complex games, such as those on computers give even better insight into game theory/payoff matrices that can translate into success down the road.
I would say games provide a far better learning experience than the mindless repetition and memorization used in most classrooms.
Computer games give the added bonus of encouraging the child to take command of the computer in an active way, providing confidence in using the machine to accomplish a goal. It's not much of a stretch to apply the lessons learned from operating and naviging games to other software packages (like word processors and spreadsheets and databases for example) which can provide a big payoff in the workforce.
pan sex!
happy troll tuesday!
i don't think at any point video games were presented as a replacement for books, but as an additional learning tool. if people see games as a learning tool instead of just a scourge on a child's mind, games will be more productive.
tell a child he's rotting his brain while doing it, he will rot his brain. point out structure and artistry, the child will try to understand the structure and artistry.
the base reason something like quake (or any shoot-em-up) is valuable is the human brain developed as a result of tactics of hunting, and our brains appreciate on occasion being able to use such abilities. speculation about how hurt your opponent is, WHERE he is, what he's going to do when he runs into the room.
what makes a good deathmatcher is mental ability. twitch reflexes and a low ping definitely help, but so does a functioning brain.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
a child can play a game to learn. this guy's point is noneducational games are educational if viewed as educational tools.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
the interview didn't mention that many educational game titles. since people view videogames as bad, people are more reluctant to buy educational video games. you can learn studying the structure of video games. quake is a structural wonder. the first real 3d open world with decent physics. quake's gameplay could be boiled down to a science, and you could kill any and all monsters with your axe if you had the stucture down. except zombies.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
... not INTERESTING!
Rise of Nations? How about Civ2? If chess is educational, theres no reason some of these strategy games aren't. Just make sure your kid is playing it on a hard difficulty level and not using cheats ;)
The main thing a student needs to learn is the motivation. In a lot of the poorest countries in the world, kids don't have much or any education and yet unlike in most places Slashdot readers come from, they want to learn.
But I don't think there's anything critically wrong about students who don't want to learn IN SCHOOL. What it is, is that they have other pursuits, such as video games. Learning to master the game, perhaps if only for the purpose of ranking on a scoreboard such as Twin Galaxies( http://www.twingalaxies.com/ ), or maybe to become the best one around at a board game like Chess or Go, is more motivating to us than what our school systems can offer today.
People who achieve total concentration in learning the game also learn how to learn: at first haphazardly trying anything, then developing patterns, consulting with others to share ideas(research!), and of course trying to expose flaws in the system and exploiting them, which is sort of a mirror of how you see many math algorithms and equations developed as a workaround for problems of inconvienence.
As such, I would take this guy's advice seriously. A game concept can be applied to almost anything imaginable, and if integrated properly can draw on almost any academic subject(and not just the facts and figures). Games, by themselves, are very much "learning machines" - if the power were off our button presses would be random, but when it's on they achieve meaning and we strive to do them better.
I have always held the belief that [certain] video games are healthy for a child's development. I grew up with a TI 99-4A that I played with since I was 4 years old. I wrote my first program in TI-BASIC right about the time I learned how to read. Games like Alligator Crunch, A-Maze-Ing, Hunt The Wumpus, etc., I feel contributed greatly to my brain development and whom I am today.
:-) They'll be too young to realize how outdated the system really is. :-)
Later, I played games like Sim City, Sim Earth, Civilization, etc. and I believe these taught me a great deal about ecosystems, both social and natural, and how the world works.
When I finally have children of my own, I'm going to give them my 99-4A (which I've archived in my closet) so they can play the same learning games I did when I was little.
There are many other games today that I think are good for a child's development too. Oddworld and other problem solving games come to mind...
When you actually study it, massive drilling doesn't work so well. It is more effective to link up what you are saying with something that has meaning, give the person practice with the kind of problem, or at worst have them drill lightly once a day over several days (rather than 2000 times one day).
All I learned from Wolfenstein was how to shoot Nazis with really big guns. I used a sprite editor to make it gorier and cheats to ensure I had enough ammo.
All I learned from Dune 2 and the Bard's Tale series was how to isolate hex values in save games to give myself huge amounts of cash, experience, or god-like stats.
All I learned from Mario Bros was (with apologies to Jefferson Airplane) "One mushroom makes you larger; One mushroom makes you small. The mushroom your mother gives you doesn't do anything at all. Go ask Mario -- when he's 32 pixels tall!"
I learned from SimCity that parks are good for land value and reduce pollution, but that Godzilla can smash them just like anything else.
And from Sierra games, I learned to save early, save often, save before interacting with a NPC in case they don't like how you act around them on the first try.
And in all that, I didn't learn much of anything about real life. So MUDding was quite a shock. So was college. I'm kind of surprised that I survived at all...
Moral of the story: As with television, a good parent should be involved with their child's media intake to ensure that the child is actually learning useful information about the *real* world.
Kaze!
likes "Crash Bandicoot 2" and "Simpson's Road Rage".
I don't let him play "GTA: Vice City" _quite_ yet.
I don't know if the games help him with anything ( except yelling "jump! jump!" ) but thanks to lots of Sesame Street videotapes, he counts to 12 ( and backwards from 10 ) and knows his colors...
He also often askes for Mozilla to be launched, he loves to yell "Rrrooowwar!!!" when the startup screen with the 'zilla shows. Then it's on to the Teletubbies website...
Believe it or not, he also spends a *lot* of time outside playing.
Quake sold better than Hexen, because ID insists that if a gameplay element slows things down, it gets kicked to the curve.
No, Quake sold better than Hexen because Quake was fun and Hexen sucked dangly goat testicles. Hope that clears things up a bit.
You're right, of course, but drills are still useful. I should have said "Drills and Books are used because they work."
All children like to play games like tag and hide and go seek, in ancient times these no doubt helped to enforce specific behaviours and social attributes that were deemed necessary. With new technology and new developements in our sciences, we need to create some sort of system similar to the classic physical games, and I think that video games are the new option. It makes sense logically.
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
Really? I suppose I was just imagining all that junk I learned about Boolean logic from "Rocky's Boots" in 1986. And what about all the Caribbean geography I learned from playing "Pirates!" a lot back in 1992? Granted, learning through commercial games is more the exception than the rule, but it can be done.
Give a monkey a brain and he'll swear he's the center of the universe.