Can Video Games Be Good For You?

Previously Published in Game Daily

Opportunity is Knocking – Somebody Open the Door

What is it about games from designers like Will Wright, Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, Sid Meier and Hideo Kojima – to name an elite few – that sets them apart?  Certainly, there could be many answers to that question. For instance, they are original, creative, and fantastic game designers who execute brilliantly. And, something I think they also have in common is that they seem to take games beyond mere entertainment, providing us with something extra – an added value, you might say – on top of a thoroughly entertaining, absorbing and fulfilling experience. Perhaps we learned something new, challenged ourselves with complex puzzles in unique and imaginative worlds or experienced a story that moved us to consider our personal relationship with good and evil.

Despite many obvious examples of how great game design can combine with learning, great stories and a deeper exploration of what it is to be human, there seems to be little emphasis in video game discussions on seeking any deeper quality, however you may define it. In fact, some game designers actively oppose game stories, arguing that only the emergent story of each player should be considered. However, stories or no stories, I personally hope to see more games that teach us something or grab our emotions, challenge us and take us on a journey of self-discovery.

In all-too many game discussions, any perspective or feature that doesn’t involve the latest and greatest graphics processors, physics engines or the single-handed destruction of hordes of enemies by your tireless hero is often dismissed as unnecessary or not fun. So-called “educational” games are often reviled as boring or crude, yet a few notable exceptions have managed to crawl out of a crowd of games that’s admittedly about as stimulating to most of us as a gathering of mathematics professors. These few exceptional games, like an exotic dancer at the professors’ gathering, enliven the situation and at least help to prove that the addition of something really fun can make even the dullest subject interesting. They point out that learning and fun can go hand in hand, with proper matchmaking of their teaching and entertainment goals.

There are groups dedicated to applying game technology to very useful purposes, and these groups are coming at the problem from a very focused and productive angle. They have already accepted that video games are, or can be, learning environments. In time, I expect that movements such as the Serious Games Initiative, Games for Health and Games for Change will produce some very successful games, although I have not yet seen how they will blend into the more mainstream segments of the game market.

Meanwhile, we have millions – by some counts hundreds of millions – of people playing video games of one kind or another worldwide. For the majority of these people, the game experience obviously serves a purpose – or purposes – such as entertainment, social interaction and escape or even self-empowerment. That more and more people are playing video games is testament to video games’ powers of attraction and retention, both of which are desirable where the goal is to inspire people to learn or to experience something that adds to and enriches their lives.

So where is the mainstream game designer in the discussion of games that offer some added positive benefit? Why is it that trying to discuss games that are totally kick-ass fun and that also somehow teach or inspire players is frequently met with a blank stare, a polite nod or a flat-out denial?

Look at the dominant paradigm. For the most part, the general public still thinks that video games are good for nothing but wasting time. And that’s the best case. At worst, video games turn players into spud-brained couch potato addicted losers or antisocial psychopathic mass killers. I think even many game designers harbor doubts about whether what they are doing has – or can have – any positive social value.

Despite this conventional “wisdom,” in my travels and association with many fabulous industry people, I have found a variety of highly-placed, successful designers, producers, executives, visionaries and even other authors who concur with my premise – that video games can be simultaneously fun to play, successful in the market, and beneficial to players in a variety of ways, not all of which have been thoroughly explored so far. So I don’t feel as alone as I once did.

Little by little, games from major companies seem to acknowledge the value of learning and of expanding people’s mental horizons through games, but most of these are aimed at specifically narrow audiences, and never the core player. And although I think I understand why that is so, I still shake my head that, after years of motivational lectures at the Game Developers Conference (back when we had such lectures) about our social responsibility and opportunity, and so many great inspirational examples of games that go that extra step, the idea of games as a positive social force is still not considered as a prime directive in our industry. For the surprising number of people I find who agree with me when I suggest these ideas, I see little public focus on the opportunities present in mainstream games. I think every game design course in university should teach new designers how to conceive of games both from the fun and marketability angle, and from the opportunity, again, to go further and consider their potential impact on players.

I did my best to summarize my thoughts on the subject in my recent book, “Reset: Changing the Way We Look at Video Games.” After spending a good deal of time researching theories of human play and how we learn, I realized that video games do seem to have a unique combination of qualities that, when taken together, explain why they are such potent learning environments. I’m sure there are many ways to look at this, but the five qualities that emerged from my research – motivation, immersion, identification, interactivity and choice – are all simultaneously elements of games and effective learning environments.

I won’t go into detail about each of these of the five qualities. I’m sure you probably understand them intuitively anyway, but as I considered these qualities, I also began to look at how games actually can, and do, offer a learning experience. I came up with four ways – teaching, modeling (by showing), simulating (in a sandbox atmosphere, for instance), and inspiring. I know that not all video games will equally teach or inspire. Some games are just for fun, and that’s good enough. And clearly games often seem to teach, model, simulate or inspire some very antisocial ideas and messages, probably not always intentionally. However, my goal is to get people thinking consciously about this potential, because with conscious design, a great deal of positive impact is possible with video games. The impact doesn’t have to be accidental, simply emergent effects or generated only by a few really dedicated genius designers. Any designer who adds this kind of thinking to their design goals can do it, at least some of the time.

As an aside, I also conducted considerable research into the most common negative charge leveled against video games – violence. After reading a shelf full of books, interviewing most of the top experts on both sides of the discussion, reading court cases and articles of all kinds, I have concluded that there is no compelling evidence that people learn to be violent from violent media – video games included. Why? I don’t know the exact answer to that, but my theory is that it’s like hypnosis. They say you can’t make anyone do something under hypnosis that’s against their deepest morals, such as killing someone. If this is true, then perhaps there’s something similar in the learning effect of violent games. However, it is also true that proper conditioning and propaganda can turn ordinary people into killers. All wars are fueled with soldiers by using that premise. So, if there is a real danger inherent in video games, it may be the possibility of propaganda more than simply violence without realistic context.

Perhaps one question any game designer can ask is, “What impact do I want to have on my player? Do I want to frighten them, amuse them and make them laugh, confuse or mystify them, challenge them in various ways, or even offer something that will positively impact their lives? Or all of the above?”

 Positive impact can be a checklist goal in the design process. Quoting from my book, when I asked Louis Castle about this, he surprised me by saying, “We want to know how the game will make people feel more fulfilled, feel as if they’ve learned something. We want to make sure every product has you feeling enriched. That’s the real imperative for us.” He went on to say, “We believe that if you leave people with some positive benefit, they’ll play longer, talk about it with their friends and feel better about the experience.”

How to do it? What’s the way? I think there are myriad answers. I’ve given very light sketches of some scenarios in Reset, but the book was written to be accessible to non-gamers, so I kept the design detail limited. However, I believe that the first step is to acknowledge that it’s possible to expand the range of what video games can teach, model, simulate and inspire, and, in the end, that to do so can help change people’s lives for the better, and any time we can do that, it’s a good thing.