Learning to Play: An issue in games for learning?
Elizabeth A. Evans
interesting worry. (I can't remember who said this, if it was in a
personal conversation, in one of our discussions, or where.)
If we require game activities for courses, how do we level the playing
field (so to speak) between those who are expert gamers and those who
are not? Multiplayer online games generally offer multiple player
experience levels, right? You start out as a novice and advance through
the ranks as your skills improve.
Would courses that had a game component list game experience as a
prerequisite?
Related to this question, you might find this master's thesis
interesting:
"LEARNING TO PLAY: THE DESIGN OF IN-GAME TRAINING TO ENHANCE VIDEOGAME
EXPERIENCE," by Bradley Stephen Paras, Fall 2006. Available on the Web
(PDF format) at
http://www.gamecareerguide.com/thesis/paras.pdf.
Unfortunately, I've only skimmed short pieces of it so far. I hope some
of you might take a look and post any interesting follow-ups you find.
Other thoughts on this issue are welcome, of course.
-- Libby
Tyler Boyd
winning strategies that are characteristically beginner, in other words,
being "cheap".
One game I play often with other people is Super Smash Brothers Melee
for Gamecube. It's a fighting game with 30 or so characters. One of
those characters, "Roy", is known as the cheap character. Everyone knows
that choosing Roy as your character makes you more likely to win at the
game, regardless of how good you are. So no one picks Roy because no one
wants to be cheap. No one wants to win with Roy because it's meaningless
and everyone else just gets mad at you.
But it does give people who don't play as much an equal chance to win.
It sort of throws them a bone. No one's going to get mad at a beginner
for using Roy, because otherwise they just would get creamed, and not
want to play again. But the funny thing is, it creates social pressure
to get skillful. The idea is that if we let you use Roy now, one day you
will have to graduate from Roy and pick Mario or something. So its sort
of like a handicap, only more subtle. OK, Just an idea -tyler
