 Games,
Doctrine, Transformation
A Note of Caution On The Direction Of Serious Games
By Tim Carter (16 Nov 2005)
If it's stupid but it works, it's not stupid.
- Murphy's Laws of Combat
Having returned from the recent Serious Games Summit 2005 I find an
observation buried inside me, something nagging to be let out.
But meditating on this, I found myself lead into an exploration of
the nature of games - how serious games can teach. I am not an
educator by profession, but you may find this of interest anyway.
My Observation
My observation: a trend I spotted at the Summit. I find it
a little disconcerting, because I feel it may compromise what I know is the essence of the
power of games to teach.
It's the trend to develop serious games that measure everything a player does during every
given play session. Every communiqué logged, every action made,
every button pressed - certain serious game developers are
boasting their product will capture all at all times. Nothing
the players do will escape them.
Let me go on record here saying this: you will shoot yourself in the foot if you
implement
this too pervasively. Why? Because this can kill the very
thing that makes a game so powerful as a teaching tool.
Now, I do think serious games
can use the ability to fully log player performance. What I
take issue with is a game like Big Brother or the
All-Seeing Eye of Sauron. Build in this kind of
functionality then impose it on the players
and you cripple so much power your game has to teach.
When I was designing Code Orange, I convinced
the client to adopt a modified learning management system (LMS)
model, based on this view. As a
player of Code Orange (my spec went) you get to play as often as you
want, in any way you want, without the fear anything you are
doing is being logged. You get to take the game home, set up
disaster scenarios, slam your hospital with a mass casualty load
of patients - even a catastrophic casualty load if you wish (think of a bird flu pandemic times 10) - and none of
this will be officially logged. You could
even not bother to initiate MCI protocols, and just watch to
see how your ED handled the patient load (lots would die, trust
me...) - to see what the game would do. In short you could experiment. Discover.
Learn what the game was about.
Why would I let you do this? Simple. I want you to play. And play
and play and play and play. And after that, I want you to play it
some more. Followed by a little more play. With some sessions of
play on the weekends interspersed between some more play. And so on...
Then of course you would play to win! To save lives. And,
naturally, that was the ultimate goal: the idea that sooner or
later you're going to want to win, and we want to attract you to
that ambition - not force it on you.
So for this to succeed the game must be engrossing,
challenging, compelling - in short: fun. Why else would
someone devote good spare time to it - time not spent watching a movie or
ball game - unless they wanted to? I wanted the players to have logged so many hours playing
mass-casualty management they would squeeze out
every last drop of learning the product had. I did
NOT want them to feel they were being scrutinized, or they had
to play. That, to me, is what would defeat the purpose.
But the Code Orange specification included this: at some point you'd need to log into the official LMS
and play "for real" to register an official score - your
actions and so forth recorded for training and course
qualification.
This, I believe, is the route we need to follow.
Now I know I may catch hell from the traditional
educational field for this. They'll say the point for scrutinizing
the students/players is to critique them; to show them the error of their ways when they don't do things in
the "proper" manner, and induct them into the correct way
of thinking.
Well, let's take a look at this...
A Reflexive Meditation
What I have written above has a self-evident quality to it - at
least it may to some people. By this I mean certain persons may
instantly "get" what I'm saying without explanation.
Others, however won't be convinced. At least not right
away. They will want proof. Nothing, to them, will be self-evident.
And why should it be? Perhaps nothing is self-evident.
Well let's peel back this layer and ask the
question, "What exactly do you mean by this, Tim? Why should we
invest time and money in a learning process that demands nothing of the
participant, and indeed seems to pander to them?"
When we ask this, we start down a road that will get to the heart of what games are,
or can be. Peeled back, my argument is basically this: if you look
to games - serious or otherwise - to become surrogate Aristotelian teaching tools - say,
books, or classroom exercises, but this time they're
interactive!!! (the latest buzzword) - you're missing what games can do. Like
never driving a
Ferrari in high gear, you may miss the experience... And I believe
you will dull what we who will shift up are trying to do: the term
"serious games" will take on a tinge as dry
and dull as "edutainment" and other dusty old artefacts.
Clearly the issue isn't the games - it's the outlook.
Am I saying fun is intrinsically what games are about as
learning tools? Actually, no. In fact let's avoid this route as
well. Here we find the school that says we need to use games because they are
how young people learn; because they present information or
learning in a way that today's student's expect to encounter it. I
don't buy this. To me this is a cynical perspective - akin to
saying they're too stupid, impatient or whatever to learn any
other way.
And, what's worse, it sells games short. Games here become a candy
or a treat in their capacity as teaching tools. Using them is like
giving medicine to a dog by burying it in its bowl of tasty food:
the beast is too dumb to realize it needs it. Or like
giving your kids "Super-Frosted Super Pops" because that's the
only way you can get them to eat breakfast.
(Of course, to be fair, some subjects are so boring - so
prosaic and dull [such as learning new tax
report protocols - or whatever...] - that maybe this approach might not
be bad... Sometimes...)
I don't think games should be viewed like this -
because it misses them. And really, in a way, not only does it
miss what games are - it misses a whole dimension of life. A
dimension you might see clearly if you focus when playing a game...
What would that dimension be?...
The Nub of It
If you ask, "What does that mean?" too much, like a true Aristotelian
philosopher or a
scientist - secure in your belief that That is which is and
That is not which is not; and all that That is or is not is real
and can be measured - you are missing a lot of what goes on in
life I'd dare say. You'd say if a thing cannot be measured it is not real.
Everything is relative. Nothing is evident. All conclusions are
opinions, and thus prejudices. You split off any possible
truly objective/metaphysical element from your criteria of what makes something
true. (There, I said it...)
This outlook is what the technology of games may help us see beyond.
Because it is an outlook, not reality. (I speak as if I know
reality here, as if I am a high authority on it, but bear with
me...)
By "technology of games" I am not referring to something
electronic. Rather I am referring to a protocol, or a way of
seeing and interacting with the world. The most fundamental
technology of a game is a system that allows you to play out some real
aspect of life in a make-believe, no-real-harm-done-if-you-lose
manner. Chess is such a technology. So is a fire drill; or a
tabletop roleplaying or wargame session. Or, of course, a good go
at a computer game like (for example) Counter-Strike. It
isn't the technology of graphics - it's the technology of
make-believe inside a consistent set of rules (which is different
from the technology of dreamlike or fantastic make-believe). Games, as I'm
defining them - good games - contain a system that lets you give birth to an inner
self that lies otherwise dormant within you, waiting for an
otherwise dormant aspect of the real world to appear (now able to
appear through the artificial sandbox manifested in the game) to be
revealed. You cannot be walking down the street any given day and
spot a house on fire with someone unconscious inside waiting to be
rescued with only you there to do the rescuing.
Please bear with me...
The famous psychologist Eric Fromm drew a distinction between
Aristotelian logic and something he said might be called
paradoxical logic. This is a form of thought differing from the
formal and "rational" western manner. Paradoxical logic is a
philosophy, largely eastern, where you may find Socrates, Taoism and Brahmanism. Lao-tse said "Words that are strictly true seem
to be paradoxical." Chuang-tsu said "That which is one is one.
That which is not-one, is also one."
How can this be?, is the rationalist's response.
Well... while It is It and It cannot be not It in
Aristotelian/western/conventional/rational thought - on the one
hand - according to
paradoxical logic It is and It is not is perfectly valid.
"Gravity is the root of lightness; stillness the ruler of
movement," said Lao-tse. Darkness enables light; fear enables
heroism; stupidity is the earth from which we grow knowledge.
These are things which cannot be proven, only known: you get them or you don't.
Nobody can explain them to you. That's the nub...
In spheres that embrace Aristotelian logic, the focus is on
correct thinking and dogma. Since It is only what It
is - and It cannot be what It is not - It
can be seen, touched, dissected (et cetera). And anyone
who varies from this is in opposition to the teachings and is
wrong. "Show us your work" - i.e. show us your thinking
through measuring - is just
as important as whether your answer - your act - was right
or wrong; succeeded or failed.
But paradoxical logic (or outlook) emphasizes, instead, a right
way of living. It emphasizes action. Fromm says...
The teachers of paradoxical logic say that man can perceive
reality only in contradictions, and can never perceive in
thought the ultimate reality-unity, the One itself. This
lead to the consequence that one did not seek as the ultimate
aim to find the answer in thought. Thought can only lead
us to the knowledge that it cannot give us the ultimate answer.
[Italics added.]
The world of thought remains caught in the paradox. The only way
in which the world can be grasped ultimately lies, not in
thought, but in the act, in the experience of oneness.
Think of that old oxymoron "action plan".
Read any US Army field manual, and think about the implications of
what you are to learn, and you'll see what I mean. You are
basically presented a checklist of things to think of - to
remember - indeed you are drilled to
learn the checklist; but as the subject expands in complexity,
the checklist becomes larger and larger and larger and larger and
larger and larger. Ostensibly you need to know it all - because
forget to do any point and you can die. The checklist is
presented as a mandatory thought pattern - a cycle, if you
will.
Thus the thought burden becomes greater and greater
and greater. Did I remember A?; did I remember B?;
did I remember C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K... and so on, and so
forth. There's nothing practical to it. You're going to forget
something - something that will kill you.
But, what's worse, you won't know what to forget. It can be
knowing what to forget is more
important than knowing what to do. Any veteran has this native to their personality in action:
the best go in light and fast, focused on the most important
parts; the amateurs go in burdened, so as to anticipate all
threats from all directions - i.e. crippled by their thought;
by remembering everything - and thus unable to fend for
themselves against any single one thing that will kill them for all the baggage they have. Their checklist of right thinking
has crippled them. Paralysis analysis.
If we are speaking about training tools, this is where games come in
swinging. As
game designer I speak to my players. What do I say? I say: This
world, the world of my game, is the world you are to learn.
Don't think about it - do it!
We are not talking about rote knowledge: we are talking about
true knowing. Transforming.
It is in the power to transform the player that a game
works as a teaching tool. Simply put: the learning is achieved by
experiencing and by doing within a context - a model; a system of
rules; a game - that embodies the mechanistic dynamics. And in fostering experiencing, we seek
to open the mind's eye - which is to engage the player. We want
the game to be fun. We want them to play...
We give the player a sandbox that fosters self-transformation
through doing.
But Where Do The Facts Fit?
Still, I hear some of you saying, we need them to learn some
facts; the correct ways to do things; the What
that happens if you do A, B, C, D, E... et cetera.
Well, believe it or not, now I agree. This is where I believe a traditional
view of learning becomes warranted in serious games.
The nub, here, lies in the existence of black boxes in
games. Their assumptions or understandings, and how we can
penetrate them.
I said, above, that a game was a system or set of rules which
enable a player to experience a simulated reality in order to
accomplish self-transformation. But because the world is such a
complex place, to make this system we need to assume things and
build those assumptions into the game at hand. We, as game
designers, create black
boxes.
Black boxes exist much more so in electronic games. Here
you make moves and then get results. These results - in the form
of in-game events you see are... well... seen: they are in the
open. But the machinations that govern how these results come to
be are hidden from you; they are inside the black box of code and
circuitry.
In a tabletop game, this is much less the case. You, as player,
are the computer: you follow the rules, but you resolve them as
well: you physically move the units,
calculate the success odds, roll the dice (i.e. inject the chaos
element) - all as per the rules - then manifest the outcomes. You are
inside the loop: the "box" is not "black" - it is
more transparent. While there are still
assumptions, by being in the loop you can better see what the
assumptions are. And since you run the loop you can, if you wish,
alter the assumptions. You can even debate the assumptions with
fellow players: like you they are also in the loop. The system is opened up for you
better to see.
This points to a fundamental difference between electronic and
tabletop games - and why I continue to emphasize the power of
tabletop games. This is also why tabletop prototypes are so
excellent for explaining a new game design to your team; this is
why they can be so good to teach with. And being inside the black box
of tabletop gaming has
taught me a great deal how to win during electronic gaming.
The power of electronic gaming in the serious field is the ability
to run through many many more actions than you can do in a
tabletop game (as well as depicting an audibly and
visually realistic world). The drawback, in my observation, is
that one seems to resort to reactive measures rather than
proactive ones; or that one seems to become lost within the world
of the game without being able to draw a connection to the outside
world. A tabletop game has blurry edges - as I said, the box is
not "black": you compare the loop you see with your own
understanding of an external reality (the real world) and can change the rules as you see fit
if you wish. An electronic game
truncates all this deliberation: it will crash if you try to change the rules (i.e. you'd either have
to hack it, or you just can't change the rules). You just cannot
easily debate the designers' assumptions with an electronic game.
Thus some electronic serious games are well to maintain an instructor in the
loop to maintain that critical human-in-the-loop -
and thus an objectivity factor.
Now the spell the game casts over the player by the graphics can be broken by the
interjection of a human instructor who debates with the player the
moves he has made: once the human view is predominant, you can debate the game; there is perspective; you
crystallize thinking around those parts of the game that ring true
and those parts that are "artefacts" of either your
reaction to the "kewl grafix" or the designers' assumptions
that form the necessary black box engine.
Conclusion
It seems I have come full circle. Now I am arguing for humans in
the loop in a traditional instructor fashion in our serious games
- which can be very Aristotelian/western/rational. But really I am
not. I'm still against an LMS that records everything all the
time. I still want to reveal the power of a game as a means of
teaching through doing and experimenting rather than
indoctrinating.
This is, in some ways, a classic debate of theory versus practice;
classroom versus field. The classroom gives you grounding and
structure-of-mind, but the field let's you find out what
works. The whole point of games is they bring the field into the
classroom. So why then cripple them with the dogma of the
classroom? It's counter-productive... unless, it's a dogma that
leads to what works... (Think about that one...)
You play a game, and it does two things: it makes assumptions in
order to yield moves. There is great educational value to be had
in debating the games assumptions. There is also transformative
value: the moves you see form a mirror - a mirror held up to you.
If you are wise, you see yourself when you play a game. Play
then speak - find yourself; take the wisdom offered. |
