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| 08.07.2007Kudos to Ian Bogost and Persuasive Games
Ian Bogost has hit the nail on the head with his refutation of the Slate article that damns the idea of educational games. Almost all the discussions of the subject that I've seen have come from professional game developers, who instinctively privilege the idea of "fun" over everything else.
To quote Bogost quoting Tim Holt, "If you have to make a mistake in the fun versus educational balance, it’s better to be a bit too fun and a bit less educational than the other way around." It is? Better for who? This is, naturally, the professional game developer's perspective -- we're obliged to provide fun or we don't get paid. But educators have different priorities. It's their job to teach facts and skills and principles to their students, whether the process is fun or not.
Obviously it would be nice if it could be fun, but that's not what educators get paid for, and not the metric by which they are judged. A student who thinks that school is a blast, but who still can't spell, is being failed by that school.
I see Bogost's editorial games as being somewhat analogous to editorial cartoons. Editorial cartoons are not always laugh-out-loud funny, but they are intended to make a topical point. An editorial cartoonist would, I think, take the exact opposite of Holt's view: it's better to err on the side of making your point than it is to err on the side of being hilarious.
If an editorial cartoon is merely amusing without being pointed, it belongs in the funny papers, not on the editorial page -- and the funny papers are the equivalent of conventional video games: enjoyable, but irrelevant to the real news. Bogost's games might not generate as much adrenaline as the latest Crytek extravaganza, but that's not what they're for. If you want big yucks, stick to the funny papers.
For game designers and educators to work together, we MUST learn to respect each others' priorities; and ultimately, if the goal is to educate (i.e. that's what the funding agencies are paying for), then that is what the product must do, fun or no fun.
We can do a lot to improve educational software, but just saying, "I understand gaming and you don't" won't help.-Ernest Adams
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