Anybody thinking about Educational games?

[Jhale M.]

I think in the modern world, educational games are more valuable than ever, but a lot of potential game developers associate them with poor quality and weak entertainment. Do you think it really has to be that way?

My opinion, perhaps unsurprisingly, is that making an educational game is something I wouldn't shy away from. I wouldn't want to be aligned with a specific company or something, but if it was good enough, they would probably accept my idea mostly unchanged. The most useful aspect of a video game is the fact that you can simulate things that take a lifetime to occur. You can essentially live the core moments of many lifetimes. It is a mental experiment. Most people don't have many chances to experiment with things in life so video games give them something vital.

 

[Milennin]

Well, people go to school to learn.

And people play games to be entertained.

 

[bgillisp]

I say you can do both. I learned more about police procedure from the Police Quest games than anywhere else, and I learned how to drive from the old racing games. Granted, you won't be driving a car at 160 mph on a highway but the physics in most of those games are realistic enough for you to learn what you can and can't do in a car in a safe way.

 

[gstv87]

I've always found "educational" to be a translation of "very washed-down indoctrination"

let the kids experience content meant for older ages as they please....
what they don't understand, they'll ask about, just like they ask about anything when they're even younger.
I guess the problem with that resides in the parents not knowing how to cope with that curiosity, which they shouldn't have allowed to exist if they weren't ready to be parents in the first place.
if you won't take responsibility with regards to the education of your kids (the good way, or the bad way, but on your own) don't put a game to take care of the problem.

as a kid, I played a lot of these "educational" games, and with many of them I got bored to tears. (Apogee games from 1993? Atari games? Syntesoft games? remember those?)
I was playing Age of Empires (rated 12) when I was 8.... Doom, at 10....
I learned about physics with The Incredible Machine, at age 5 (and it had some wacky cartoony physics), and later with Ricochet at age 12.
I was already watching Star Trek and movies the like of Back To The Future or Terminator at age 6....
I aced Ancient History in 7th grade thanks to AOE and Caesars 3, when everyone else barely knew that there were genres other than fighting games or sports games.
every time I didn't understand something, some other content cleared it out for me, and from there some more questions popped out.

kids are smarter than they look, especially if they don't have people telling them what to think.

 

[Frogboy]

Educational games would probably have a gigantic market if schooling weren't so centrally planned. If we didn't force children into a 200 year old government institution, I'd wager that making it entertaining and having kids want to be there would be a much higher priority and that schools that embraced such ideas would do better, maybe even bankrupt the ones that didn't.

 

[bgillisp]

@gstv87 : Your post reminds me of the time I wanted Police Quest 2 for my birthday when I was turning 10. My father and I had a discussion about the content of that game, then once we talked about it, he bought me the game.

And yes, I did play doom at 14. In all cases my parents and I talked about the content as they just wanted to make sure I understood what I was dealing with, and once we had a good talk about it, they still got me the game.

 

[TheoAllen]

I think in the modern world, educational games are more valuable than ever, but a lot of potential game developers associate them with poor quality and weak entertainment

Because mixing educational in game feels so wrong in many way. Game means to be fun, take a break from studying, yet, you get back forced to study in educational games.

If I were to include educational games, I'd still thinking about the actual gameplay on how to make it fun, and insert the education part seamlessly. Think of Age of Empire where it includes the world history. Learning the history is OPTIONAL, and not forced you to know the knowledge to beat the game. I knew the term 'Dark Age' long before the school taught me thanks to that game. Granted, my English was still weak during that time so I didn't know how accurate AoE presenting the history.

 

[M.I.A.]

The games I make are always educational.. I'm telling the story and teaching the lessons I choose to teach.
If you aren't careful.. you just might learn something.

-MIA

 

[Mystic_Enigma]

Funny that folks are thinking about school, because in my game I want to make such institutions optional for youths; they're not obligated by any laws to stay in school, but will miss out on neat events/activities if they don't.

On the topic, I actually don't mind "Edutainment Games". They usually get a bad rap due to being done poorly. On the other hand, they can be really interesting! Take the show Magi Nation, it had it's educational moments out the wazoo without deviating from what was going on. Boy how I missed those Satturday mornings, but i'm going off on one...

I think I want to give my own projects an educational twist myself. Interesting fact here, moral lesson there, but still keep the fact that you're playing the game present!

 

[vap0re0n]

Interesting topic. As someone who worked as a relief teacher, I found games in education can be very powerful. When your having fun your usually more engaged with the material, and the more engaged you are and have exposure to a particular topic, the better.
I learnt quite a lot of English myself from games.

Many educators and parents would likely love efficient 'educational games', however usually people who make the games themselves do not have much knowledge of topics or how to actually make their target audience learn. Many educators also do not know how to make games or are limited in time.

Educational games are likewise, usually pretty stale, or do not have enough new dynamic content to engage for too long.
Not to mention kids or people usually have access to tablets/smart phones which have a ton of other apps that are more interesting, they really cannot see the benefit of a more boring game than less boring - unless there is nothing else.
It's becoming a particular problem too to be honest.

 

[Onaxanuro]

So far, our schools have not yet reached the level of technology use, and the developers provide boring games. On the other hand, students read reviews regarding educational resources, and the rest of the time they can devote to studying the subject of interest to them in books or online. All the same, to combine study and at the same time allow the brain to relax especially after a working day is not so easy.

 

[Finnuval]

I think the number one mistake educational games tend to make is they forget what medium they are. A game shoud be fun and relaxing first, that is its primary goal. If it teaches you something it should do so almost by accident. A good educational game, to me, doesnt try to teach me anything yet makes me learn stuff through its story and gameplay without 'teaching' me rather it engages me in a way a game should and there by makes me learn.

Thats my two cents anyway

 

[Elissiaro]

I think the best educational games would be history.
Cause a lot of history is actually pretty exciting. And most games do have a story.
So all you have to do it tell a historically accurate story.

 

[Kellyw]

I've made a couple of educational games in the past. One of them was to move around an environment and photograph animals you see, recording information in your journal and details about what you see. This info and image would be used to help you navigate another program and determine the exact species of the animal. Different animals would come out at night.

Another one was a murder mystery for ESL students. They had to locate and share evidence with different people, speak to them about the other guests involved, and record any potential motives, alibis, or other clues on paper. My students really loved both of the activities. I put them up for sale on teacherspayteachers, but they haven't really taken off -- probably due to the difficulty of installing the games and using them in class.

<--snip-->

 

[Kes]

@Kellyw I have removed your final paragraph as this is not the place to discuss getting resources, paid or free. As a new member you do not yet have access to the Classified section. This post explains why.

 

[LycanDiva]

Educational games are viable, but they have to be made just right. Take games like Universe Sandbox and Birthdays the Beginning for example. They're sandbox simulation games that deal with astronomy and the origins of life, respectively, and they allow the player to learn more about how the world works by playing around with the forces that shape it. There's no need for a lesson plan, just put the game in the hands of an interested player and they can perform their own experiments and see what happens when you, say, turn our sun into a blue dwarf or how climate change affects how organisms develop over time. An educational game that allows players to mess around with a system (the above mentioned games, Sim City and Cities Skylines, Civilization, Age of Empires, the various Tycoon games, etc.) is much more beneficial than a game that's just about memorizing facts and giving the right answers like you do in school (which, in itself, is less conducive to deep, meaningful learning than it is to a "I'll remember this junk info long enough to pass this obstacle, then I'll forget it to make room for something important later," mentality). That's because learning through experience, play, and exploration fueled by personal interest and curiosity sticks with us far better than forced "learning" through the "drill-and-quiz" method used in schools (a method we can all blame the Prussians for popularizing, by the way).

Educational games (and their cousins, the faith-based games) occupy this place of infamy for being poorly made, boring to play, face-palmingly corny, and barely games at all...but they don't have to be. So long as they're more about exploration and experimentation than wrote memorization and regurgitation, they can be both fun and educational.

 

[watermark]

It’s hard to make an education game because you need to sell it to not only the user (the kid), but also the buyer (parent or school). Often these two groups have very different needs.

To the kid, it’s mostly about “Is this game fun?” while the tiger moms and overzealous teachers of the world ask, “Will this help my child/student improve her grades within a relatively short period of time?” (Which we all know the short answer is: No.) While Mr. Principal will probably ask, “Does this contain content in line with CCSS/CEFR/Some other in vogue Country Standard and contains zero references to sex and violence?” (Let’s see...maybe the Telltale..wait...nevermind.)

Still, I definitely believe games and education can go hand in hand. In fact, it might be the new way we learn in the future. I myself learned a great deal from games, especially those that aren’t intentionally educational. (Except Carmen Sandiego. That was awesome.)

Can education games be fun? Well...I think it follows this formula:

Edutainment Fun = Long Term Benefit - Short Term Benefit

Games such as Age of Empires are incredibly fun and will ingrain in your long term memory facts that you will remember for years. More important, it will actually teach you to love history. These are great long term benefits not achievable by textbooks. However, will playing AoE help you pass that history final tomorrow? You are better off pulling an all nighter on those textbooks. It’s simply not efficient in the short term.

On the other hand, “games” that give you millions of problems and make you memorize facts (Quizlet, Duolingo, Math Blaster, etc.) might actually help you with that final. Are they efficient? Sometimes. Will they be fun? Probably not.

 

[L.W. Flouisa]

That depends. I would love a good that could help me develop and hone my French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and some other romance languages.

I've tried the classroom method, and it sucks when one of your classmates has an ego problem, and they take over your lessons.

 

[VitaliaDi]

When I was a kid I really enjoyed those educational video games. Learning your colors and math put into the story as puzzles. They were awesome. I considered doing it too, though I'd say it's more fit for a younger audience. But it can be done for older audiences too, you just have to figure out what people are learning.

 

[Eleneid]

Learning video games is always a good idea, but on the other hand, it is quite dangerous. If this is, for example, a game for children, where they will learn colors, numbers, solve different puzzles, this is good. But if the game will border on an alternative reality, then this is not the best game. Since a person can get carried away and not accept the real world. And he will have to work with a psychologist for a very long time. me. So this has its pros and cons.