“These violent video games are learning tools for our children and clearly result in more aggressive behavior,”
-- Randall Hagar, Director of Government Affairs, California Psychiatric Association .
“First person shooters have made up physics. Take being a sniper, for example. Sniping is a lot of fun in a FPS. The programs don't worry about wind and they don't worry about gravity. The distance from your target is irrelevant. In contrast, sniping in real life is very scientific. Some people say these games train people to be snipers. If people are learning from FPS, they will be pretty bad snipers.”
-- Kym Buchanan
At the heart of the videogame violence debate beats an important assumption—that videogames have the power to change us, that games can teach us to hurt and kill.
At the heart of the serious games effort is an important assumption—that videogames have the power to change us, that games can teach us to think and solve problems.
When we look at the idea of using videogames in an academic setting, as a part of programs to teach people new knowledge, skills and abilities, we make similar assumptions. We believe that games have something special to offer. We question the classic tools of education and look for new techniques for reaching a digitally savvy audience. We want games to teach.
If the computer can revolutionize book selling and letter writing, we ask, why can’t it stimulate a new era in education?
But even as we hope to bring the allure of “SimCity” simulation, the dramatic involvement of “Final Fantasy” and the gripping tension of “Doom” into our classrooms, we need to recognize that we are still at an early point in our understanding of videogames as a medium. We are still in the process of figuring out how games work and why they are fun. We don’t really know what it is about a game that makes it compelling or what kinds of messages and meanings people take or make from them. As James Newman points out, “…glib assertions of what videogames are, based on beliefs about the way that they are played, are problematic.”
Now we want to push the world of videogames into the service of teaching. We want to use games to produce learning. Yet, at the same time, those who study education continue to question some basic assumptions these desires rests upon.
“How do we know what we are teaching is what students are learning?” is a perennial question of learning outcomes.
As an example of the kind of ongoing concern that surround this question, consider the remarks made in 2001, by the National Research Council: “The time is right to rethink the fundamental scientific principles and philosophical assumptions that underlie current approaches to educational assessment.”
Even as the world of education is rethinking how to assess when learning is taking place, we are busily trying to change how people learn.
Perhaps nothing points out these tensions more than casting the question of games that teach against the videogame violence debate. Why? Because media effects are the core of the argument around the censorship of violent videogames and should be a strong point of caution with educators looking for a new ludological learning balm. If games are a magic medium for teaching, then the videogame violence crowd is right. Games can easily teach you to kill. If games are something else, then we need to recognize that we might not quite know what we are doing.
Videogames as a medium
“When people learn to play video games, they are learning a new literacy,” James Paul Gee explains. The basis of Gee’s book “What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy” is that videogames are different from other kinds of media. While they may resemble television, film or even literature, they are fundamentally different. To play a game is to learn a new language, one native to the medium of videogames, rich in the culture of gaming and spoken fluently by its players
Of course, the notion that different media are different in deep, meaningful ways is not new. Marshall McLuhan championed a view of media summed famously as “the medium is the message”. When McLuhan argued, “…any technology gradually creates a totally new human environment,” he pressed for a deep reading of new media. The emergence of a new medium does more than require mastery of a new vocabulary. The media itself starts to reshape our vision of the world.
While McLuhan (unfortunately) did not live to see the rise of the modern videogame industry , his perspective remains a valuable touchstone when examining the new medium of videogames. Looking from McLuhan’s point-of-view we can see that videogames are not just a unique medium, but also one that we have just begun to study in earnest. As Espen Aarseth notes: “2001 can be seen as the Year One of Computer Game Studies as an emerging, viable, international, academic field.
Even more, our object of study continues to grow and evolve. Mark J.P. Wolf’s points out the medium has “evolved with astonishing speed, and it is still changing—rapidly.” Perhaps this liquid nature of the videogames is what encourages Wolf to insist that games should borrow from the theoretical works of film and television to increase our grip on the new medium. But scholars as Aarseth have consistently rebutted that assertion taking a very McLuhaneque read of this new medium:
“To see computer games as merely the newest self-reinvention of Hollywood, as some do, is to disregard those socio-aesthetic aspects and also to force outdated paradigms onto a new cultural object.”
What we know is that videogames are a unique medium. We know that they operate differently on us that other media and that we are still learning about them.
What we don’t know, with any certainty, is how they work and what we take from them.
Difference In Action
To show how troublesome this issue is, I want to return to the example set up in the quotes that introduce this paper—the issue of videogame game violence.
The reason videogame violence is such an interesting case study in an article about videogames as a tool for teaching and learning is that both critics and pro-videogame educators agree on a central point—videogames can be used to teach.
Perhaps no one embodies the videogame and violence link more than retired Army Lt. Colonel Dave Grossman, who asserts:
“Where does a 14-year-old boy who never fired a gun before get the skill and the will to kill? Video games and media violence.”
But when we look at the games Grossman and others use to make their argument, we find a disconnect. We’ve played these games and spent time with people who have played these games. Yet we are not violent, murderous criminals.
Focusing on a game such as ”Grand Theft Auto: Vice City”, we can see the paradox in action.
An editorial published in the San Francisco Chronicle reported:
“Yee, a child psychologist, correctly notes that ‘games’ such as ‘Grand Theft Auto: Vice City’ and ‘Postal 2’ are not just benign fun. In ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ the players have a chance to kill police officers (with blood splattering in high-tech animation), have sex with a prostitute (car rocking, with sound effects) -- and then punch and kick her afterward.”
Side-stepping the dubious claim that GTA’s blood qualifies as “high-tech animation”, the editorial summarizes a typical response to the game. The argument continues from here to urge a connection between the violence in GTA and real world violence.
Does this argument add up? First, let’s make an objective inventory of possible offenses in this game:
• First-degree murder
• Second degree murder
• Third-degree murder
• Illegal drug use
• Drug smuggling
• Extortion
• Racketeering
• Armed robbery
• Solicitation of prostitution, and, of course
• Grant theft auto
Looking at this list of behaviors, it’s easy to question the game’s social utility. Then again, common sense asks, “With so much negative behavior on display and rewarded in the game, and considering the millions of copies sold, why hasn’t the game triggered an avalanche of real world violence?”
The response to this question most relevant to the current discussion runs--Players experience one thing but take away from it something else. That is, players pretend to be a criminal but appear to only take away un-associated pleasures from the game, not felonious instincts and a desire to act.
I have long argued in terms of the videogame violence debate that it is wrong to tell players what they will take from a game. In GTA, you cannot assume that the game will pour criminality into the player’s heart. It’s just as likely the player takes away something completely different.
Consider these examples of “lessons” you could take from the game:
• At the beginning of the game, the lead character and player avatar Tommy Vercetti notes of the title’s namesake Vice City, “There are more criminals in this town than in prison.” The story portrays the city as a corrupt locale where no one is innocent. From this a player might internalize a lesson about how evil begets evil. “Live by the sword, die by the sword.” It’s also worth noting that there are no children in the GTA games. In this world, no one is innocent.
• In the game, take a bat and beat an innocent bystander to death. Blood pools on the sidewalk. Now wait. Within a few minutes one of two things will happen. In one case the body will evaporate, leaving a white chalk outline. Weird. In the other, an ambulance will arrive, paramedics will hop out, revive the corpse and leave. The previously assumed corpse will stroll off down the street. In either if these cases, the lesson might be—death is impermanent. Everyone gets a second chance. Redemption is possible.
• Drive a car as fast as you can through the street. Sooner or later you’ll crash. The lesson? Reckless driving leads to accidents.
• Play the game hour-after-hour. Complete the missions, master the game and reach the closing cinematic. The lesson? Hard work is its own reward. You really should stick with things.
Is this a sarcastic list of lessons? Hardly. These morals are as evident in this game as, “Killing is fun and prostitutes give extra health.”
Of course, this puts pressure on the videogame violence pundits to explain why one set of messages is more likely to form the basis of learning than the other. If the medium is an impartial distributor of messages, then players are as likely to gain positive as negative messages from a game like “Vice City”. On the other hand, as any videogame player can tell you, most people can tell the difference between the game and reality.
The real question then is, “What do players of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ learn?” Or, “Do players learn anything in the game that is transferable to the real world?”
When Newman warns:
Presenting a summary of the extant research into the effects of violent videogames is problematic in itself as the findings of various studies, as Kline (199) and Griffiths (1999, 1997a, 1997b, 1993) have noted, are inconclusive and often contradictory
Can we simply sit to the side and excuse our optimism about games for learning? Why should we assume positive outcomes anymore than the others should assume negative outcomes?
When we turn to the desire to use games to teach, we run into the same problems that violent games encounter. What meaning does a player take or make from a game? What do they learn? Certainly, we can create games that ask chemistry questions inside a “Doom”-like world. We can simulate a third-world economy as easily as “SimCity” recreates San Francisco and Detroit. We can stack boxes in 3-D space to teach physics and we can traverse virtual landscapes to explore geography. But what we can’t do is assume learning.
This is the lesson of McLuhan.
Warning: Curvy Road Ahead
Even though we may not have a complete theoretical picture of videogames, that does not infer we should not use games for learning.
Researchers such as Gee directly attack the issue of understanding games with learning in mind. The fast growing world of videogames research continues to clarify and contextualize what games are and what they mean. And, of course, the videogame industry itself moves forward on its continual march to improve games and make them more attractive to consumers.
As the medium of videogame develops, so will our understanding and sophistication of the medium.
How we respond to what we don’t know at this point is as important as how we work with what we do. As long as we carefully approach games and learning, we can capitalize on successes and learn from mistakes. As practitioners in the field, we need to balance advocacy with critical introspection. If we assume videogame-based learning benefits we will find that we are not teaching as often as we are. And in the meantime we will be open to accusations of squandering time and money and distracting students from real learning.
And we need to look no further than the last great wave of technologically-motivated education to give some urgency to the warnings.
With the arrival of CD-ROMs and, eventually, the Web, educators were quick to proclaim “eLearning” the next big thing. During the eLearning heyday, overreaching proclamations were made far and wide. A particularly wild predication, maintained “eLearning is 50% faster, 50% cheaper and 50% more effective” than traditional methods.
Of course, the best eLearning could show after millions of dollars of investment was an occasional equivalent transfer of learning at slightly lower cost.
If we return to McLuhan for some advice on this matter, we come to a stern warning. Writing 40 years ago, his vision into the future of education frames both the risk and the opportunity:
“The young student today grows up in an electronically configured world. It is a world not of wheels but of circuits, not of fragments but of integral patterns. The student today lives mythically and in depth. At school, however, he encounters a situation organized by means of classified information. The subjects are unrelated. They are visually conceived in terms of a blueprint. The student can find no possible means of involvement for himself, nor can he discover how the educational scene relates to the “mythic” world of electronically processed data and experience that he takes for granted.”
Where McLuhan leads us, and where I’d argue he’s left us, is that we do learn from videogames. Even more so, we need to learn from videogames. But what we learn is not wholly in some educator’s control. We need videogames in our schools so children can learn about digital media, so they can experience the thrill of control and the science of interaction, so they can build intuitive models of cause and effect and develop a sense for complexity that a pre-digital education could not impart. But when it comes to teaching “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic” we might find that our new digital techniques are as likely to confuse and to educate. Both outcomes lie ahead.