CFP: Submissions Sought for Book on Serious Game Design

Dr. Janis Cannon-Bowers and Dr. Clint Bowers over at UCF are putting together a new chapter book on educational videogames, and sent out a call on the Serious Games listserv:

CALL FOR CHAPTERS
Proposals Submission Deadline: 9/5/2008
Full Chapters Due: 2/28/2009

Serious Game Design and Development:
Technologies for Training and Learning
A book edited by Dr. Janis Cannon-Bowers & Dr. Clint Bowers
University of Central Florida

Purpose and Goals of the Book
The use of gaming approaches for more serious purposes is not a new phenomenon. Teachers have used board games, memory games, and others in classrooms for decades. However, the advent of video gaming technologies created a host of opportunities for people to use the immersive, interactive, environments provided by such technology to deliver pedagogical content in a simulated environment that is thought to engender deeper learning in a more entertaining environment.

The use of video games for serious purposes was largely fostered by the US military, which saw the low-fidelity simulation abilities of these platforms as a low-cost way to deliver training. Buoyed by successes in this market, developers have expanded their activities to a whole range of serious applications, including K-12 education, advertising, and social change, to name a few. The increasing use of these games has now drawn the interest of various disciplines within the scientific community, who seek to understand the nature of effective games and to provide guidance for how best to harness the power of gaming technology to successfully accomplish the more serious goal.

At this point, several serious games have been fielded, with varying levels of success. Many of these games have not been formally evaluated, while others have been, but the results have not been published. Conversely, scientists are beginning to report results about effective game elements, but there is not a clear conduit to get these results to the developers who could most use them.

Our goal, therefore, is to create a volume that seeks to “bridge the gap” between development and science. Specifically, we will approach leaders in the game development community to share their successes and the area where they could benefit from scientific guidance. Similarly, we will invite prominent scientists to describe their current findings and to provide their input on the future of the field.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
Serious Games in K-12 Education
Serious Games in Postsecondary Education
Serious Games in Business and Industry
Serious Games in Training
Serious Games and Health
Serious Games as Social Tools
Research in Serious Games
Serious Games in the Military
Serious Games and Communication

Submission Procedure
Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before September 5, 2008, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by November 30, 2008 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by February 28, 2009. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference) and “Medical Information Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit http://www.igi-global.com/.

Inquiries and submissions can be forwarded electronically (Word document) or by mail to:

Dr. Clint Bowers
Department of Psychology
University of Central Florida
Orlando, FL 32801

sgbook at me.com

Games Empower Learners: Gee’s Speech at GLS4

James Paul Gee over at Arizona State is renowned among educational gamers because he wrote what is widely considered to be the first scholarly book on educational applications of videogames: What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy (2003). Recently, he keynoted the 4th annual Games, Learning, and Society Conference. Michael Abbott over at Gamasutra caught up with him and detailed the meat of his speech here. Some excerpts:

Gee sees the current U.S. educational system as inadequate to the task of addressing the problems of an increasingly complex world. He stated that “21st century learning must be about understanding complex systems,” and he believes many video games do a better job at this than the antiquated sender-receiver teaching model that dominates American classrooms.

Passion communities encourage and enable people of all ages to do extraordinary things. Gee believes the ‘amateur knowledge’ that arises from this immersive involvement often surpasses ‘expert knowledge,’ and cited fantasy baseball as an example.

Other highlights:

- Passion communities give users power and control, not necessarily money.

- He cites a young lady who learned PhotoShop in order to make better clothes for her Sims characters, later for avatars in Second Life. She remains uninterested in fashion, though, preferring computers because they empower her.

- Gee cited the game Portal, which could be construed as a parody of school life, as a means of allowing players tools to construct reality in the game’s environment. RL schools should be like this, Gee mused. “Education isn’t about telling people stuff, it’s about giving them tools that enable them to see the world in a new and useful way.”

- Complex games engender involvement in whole new ways for players. Mods allow players to manipulate the environment in ways they see fit. Mods are tools allowing players to put personal play theories to the test.

Abbot sums up:

Gee clearly situates video games within an overall theory of learning and literacy with genuine power to transform students and equip them to address complex problems.

References:
Abbot, M. (2008, July 14). Analysis: Games create ‘passion communities’ for learning. Gamasutra. [Online]. Available: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=19389

Study the Wii for Your Ph.D.

Reporter Joanna Smith has an article today in The Toronto Star about Future Play 2007, held last week at Algoma University College.

Everyone was there to talk and learn about video games and their psychological, sociological, political, technical, metaphorical – what have you – dimensions, which are all lumped together in the emerging field of game studies.

That’s right: video game studies, which is busy establishing itself as a bona fide academic field.

Scholars might spend hours discussing avatars – the identities people adopt in online virtual reality games – but they are doing so in post-secondary institutions, peer-reviewed journals and in societies of the learned, such as the Digital Games Research Association, which held a large conference in Tokyo this year, or the fledgling Canadian Game Studies Association, which publishes a mostly online journal called Loading.

Smith goes on to briefly discuss the history of game studies, including Huizinga’s Homo Ludens and his discussions of “the magic circle.”

Professors mentioned prominently in the article included Mia Consalvo over at Ohio University and author of the new book, Cheating: Gaining Advantage in Videogames; Jennifer Jenson at York University and co-President of the Canadian Game Studies Association; and Jayne Gackenbach over at Grant MacEwen College in Edmonton who is studying effects videogames have on dreams.

References:
Smith, J. (2007, November 24). Pursuing a Ph.D.? Considered Wii studies? The Toronto Star. [Online]. Retrieved November 24, 2007 from: http://www.thestar.com/News/Ideas/article/279372

CFP: Inaugural Issue of IJRP

Credit Virtual Economy Research Network:

The International Journal of Role Playing (IJRP) is now accepting submissions for the 1st issue, due out in early 2008. Deadline for submissions is January 1st, 2008.

The International Journal of Role Playing invites researchers, designers, developers, academics, artists and others involved in the growing field of research related to role playing to submit articles. The IJRP is a peer-reviewed journal, and welcomes submissions from any sphere of interest, knowledge network, research field or development sector that directly or indirectly relates to role playing interests.

Potential topics include but are certainly not limited to the following:
• Role playing games, e.g. frameworks, storytelling and graphics; art, design and creative industry
• Role playing culture, psychology, media, economics, and sociology
• Role playing technology, surveys, vocabulary, training and education
• Other aspects of role playing and related research and development

The International Journal of Role Playing is a biannual international journal that covers all aspects of role playing, irrespective of the medium, platform or intent. The IJRP specifically aims to act as the focal point, for pushing the limits of role-playing knowledge, and to improve sharing of knowledge across the knowledge networks involved with role playing- and related work, notably the industry, the academia and the arts. The journal will encourage the exchange of ideas and experiences, and will be a free, online forum where knowledge can be harvested. In realizing that the knowledge networks involved with role playing- and related work are based in a variety of interest spheres, which write and publish their work in different ways, the IJRP will accommodate the knowledge sharing principles of the various networks.

The International Journal of Role Playing is an innovative, novel platform for knowledge sharing that reaches across traditional fields, and will treat submissions from academia, industry and creative forces on an equal basis through a joint publication framework, which is specifically designed to accommodate contributions from all of these diverse sources.

All submissions will be peer reviewed by three members of the multi-disciplinary editorial boards, who represent the diverse interests of the knowledge networks involved in role playing and related work, e.g. academia, industry and the arts. All submissions will be reviewed by experts from the knowledge network of the submission, together with at least one reviewer from a different network. Through this and other initiatives, the IJRP aims to assist authors in promoting cross-network aspects of their work.

The International Journal of Role Playing is an online publication backed up by on-demand printing. The IJRP aims to have all papers go through their initial review within three months of receipt. Manuscripts should be submitted electronically, following the instructions on the IJRP website: www.play.blogs.com/rp , which also contains important dates and deadlines.

The IJRP specifically aims at providing authors with a higher than usual degree of freedom in composing their manuscripts and expressing ideas. Consult the journal website for more information.

The IJRP invites contributions from the industry, arts, research, academic and other knowledge networks involved in or working with role playing

Positive and Negative Uses of Race in Video Games

There has long been interest among academics in examining things along racial and gender lines. For one thing, race and gender are easy to code: 0 for male, 1 for female or vice versa. The racial characteristics of subjects can likewise be easily coded. Coding leads to data crunching. Once subject characteristics are coded, relationships with other data become more readily apparent.

Much video gaming research we’ve looked at recently has at least given lip service to the differences in gaming habits of boys and girls; such easily coded research will no doubt continue to be published. Social scientists will continue to be interested in investigating race as well as gender, and the relationships both groupings have with media and consumers of media.

Now, The Escapist magazine has an interesting article detailing the history of race in video games. And by race, we don’t mean elf, dwarf, orc, or human; we mean what non-gamers think of when discussing race. Andy Chalk writes a brief history of gaming’s darker side, with a look back at patently offensive games brimming with racial epithets and put-downs. He examines the following games: Prey, Daikatana, Shadow Warrior, and the infamous 1982 title for Atari, Custer’s Revenge.

Chalk ends by pointing out the positive ways many current titles have dealt with race, mostly by presenting minorities in positive roles. The titles he brings up include F.E.A.R., Half Life 2, Deus Ex, and Grand Theft Auto (though some might argue that although the GTA series do show minorities in leading roles, the violent nature of the games do not lend themselves to positive portrayals).

Chalk’s article may be good for academics looking for a primer on race history in video games, as well as a good reference to both good and bad racial presentations within popular games. Foul language alert for those more sensitive to swear words. Chalk also has a brief history of game ratings here.

References
Chalk, A. (2007, August 16). A short history of race in games. The Escapist. [Online.] Available: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/
1353-A-Short-History-of-Race-in-Games

Researching Morality Through Video Games

Recently there has been a spate of articles and online discussions regarding the study of morality in video games. Wide open spaces allowing a seemingly endless array of options in open-ended environments such as those offered in the Grand Theft Auto series let players do pretty much what they want to do, within the confines of the game. So, what do folks do? Do the straight-laced and moral types go on virtual killing and stealing sprees? Do the morally ambiguous in RL stick to codes of honor in games? Or do folks try different things, within a safe “playground” environment where their actions don’t harm anyone?

Alexander Gambotto-Burke writes in today’s online Guardian that gamers want a panoply of choice within the three dimensional environments they roam. He focuses on Ken Levine, president of Irrational Games, with key title System Shock 2, and the forthcoming BioShock.

Levine calls the type of environment in which BioShock players will engage, “emergent spaces.” Things become a lot more interactive in emergent spaces than the three dimensional gaming environments of yore. For instance, games renowned for their AI capabilities such as Half Life or Call of Duty were programmed for NPC events to occur within specific areas. But, “in a game like BioShock, AIs will wander around and follow you around.”

One becomes intrigued with the possibilities. This advanced programming creates a much richer open-ended environment, one in which players can do “good” things, “bad” things, or perhaps nothing of much use at all (or task neutral activities). This wide open arena has benefits for exploration of touchy issues.

Indeed, one of the videogaming’s greatest strengths is its ability to construct “moral playgrounds” – safe arenas in which people can explore different philosophies, principles and personalities. This has, however, also attracted most of the criticism and controversy surrounding the games industry in recent years.

Gambotto-Burke then pulls Mike Jaret, chief designer for Postal 3, into the conversation. Jaret makes an interesting point regarding ratings of games versus ratings of movies. The latest Die Hard installment goes light on swear words, but is heavy on action, with violence, things blowing up, car chases, etc. It received a PG-13 rating from the MPAA. Postal 2 was likewise low on swear words, but heavy on action and violence. It received a rating of MA from the ESRB, or the equivalent of an R rating for a movie. There is apparently a double standard with newer forms of entertainment.

***

Researchers are curious regarding the moral playground possibilities within these types of games. The burning question is, if a game provides opportunities to do morally bad things, like killing people, will this trigger homicidal tendencies in people? The short answer is no, but with the caveat that an emotionally unstable person may decide to go on a killing spree following any number of stimuli … a perceived slight from someone on the street, a bad day at work, a jilted lover, etc. All the blame for all the killing in the world can’t be laid at video games’ doorstep.

On another note, props to Chris Kohler over at Wired for pointing out a couple posts on the topic of moral studies through games that Henry Jenkins put up this week. Dr. Jenkins, everybody’s favorite gaming academic (certainly one of the better writers out there) points out the work of one of his grad students, Peter Rauch, who has been researching and thinking about the use of the game Fable as a Petri dish for studying the moral decisions people make.

Peter Rauch came to CMS with a strong background in Philosophy; what he wanted from our program was the chance to employ those tools to think deeply about games, trying to explore in what sense it was appropriate to think of games as ethical and moral practices.

You can read Rauch’s thesis excerpts here and here. On a side note, Fable caught my eye when I was looking at the possibilities for higher order thinking in video games.

References
Gambotto-Burke, A. (2007, August 16). Real moral choices in virtual game worlds. The Guardian. [Online]. Available: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2007/aug/16/
guardianweeklytechnologysection.games4

Do Racecar Video Games Affect RL Driving?

Here’s an opportunity to download a free, full text PDF of a paper from one of the APA journals dealing with video games. In this instance, researchers looked at racecar-themed video games promoting a high level of risk taking, and researched whether playing them led to increased aggressiveness in real life driving.

The paper was by Peter Fischer over at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Jörg Kubitzki at the Allianz Center for Technology, Stephanie Guter and Dieter Frey, also at Ludwig-Maximilians University. All the institutions are in Germany. The paper is entitled “Virtual Driving and Risk Taking: Do Racing Games Increase Risk-Taking Cognitions, Affect, and Behaviors?” and appeared earlier this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

The paper reported on three related studies. The authors began by tying into the research on violence in video games, (“Several studies have revealed that the playing of aggressive games elicits aggressive cognitions, affect, and behavioral responses,”) and concluded their introduction by stating little research has been performed on racing games and other aggressive driving simulators.

The first study involved 198 participants who were queried regarding their video gaming and driving habits. These people, selected at random in public places, were asked to answer questions regarding their need to display competitive behavior while driving, their need to impress others while driving, reflect on their attitudes toward cautious driving, and quantify their number of tickets and accidents. The researchers subjected the answers to hierarchical regression analysis and concluded they had initial evidence of self reported aggressive driving linked to racecar video game play.

The second study involved subjects playing an aggressive racecar game. Eighty-six students at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich played one of six games on a Sony PlayStation 2. Three racing games were selected for the study: Burnout, Midnight Racer, and Need for Speed. Three non-racing games were selected for the control group: Crash Bandicoot, Tak, and Fifa 2005. (On a side note, I have to wonder how Crash Bandicoot always seems to wind up in so many of these studies.) Participants in the experimental and control groups were selected at random.

Basing their work on Anderson, Carnagey, and Eubanks (2003), the authors devised a system to measure aggressive cognition in participants. The participants were given ten words that could have dual meanings and asked to choose the definition that fit. Also, participants were asked to rate their feelings on a scale of 0 to 10 regarding certain adjectives such as “aroused,” “excited,” and “bored.” The researchers left the participants to play in seclusion. After playing the game they had been assigned to for 20 minutes, the researchers re-entered the room and administered the survey.

After performing ANOVA on their dataset, the researchers concluded subjects playing the racing games, “exhibited a higher accessibility of risk-promoting cognitions than did participants who played a neutral game.” They also indicated a stronger level of arousal/excitement through playing the racing games versus the neutral games.

Put simply, Study 2 showed that exciting video games generate more excitement than games that are less exciting. That’s not the way the researchers put it, but that about sums it up. They realized this, and sought to show a direct linkage from the racing games to RL situations. Thus their third study, in which participants again played a racing game or a neutral game. This time, after concluding play, participants took the Vienna Test System, which seeks to rate willingness to take risks while driving. It is a defensive driving simulator using video taped traffic situations. Participants respond to risky situations by pressing a button indicating when they would be willing to abandon a driving maneuver. It was sufficiently dissimilar to the video racing games that the researchers commented on it.

A total of 68 participants were in Study 3. The researchers swapped out Crash Bandicoot this time with Medal of Honor, in an attempt to see if an aggressive game that did not deal with simulated driving affected the results. They could find no statistical correlation to increase willingness to accept risk in driving with the participants who played Medal of Honor, although the sample size was small. However, again, those playing the three racing games were more willing to take on risks, this time directly related to driving, especially if they were male.

In conclusion, the researchers allow that a young male consistently playing racing video games in which risky driving is promoted through game play, could possibly extend their willingness to drive risky in real life situations. Of course, it’s not altogether as simple as that. A young man may drive in an irresponsible manner for any number of reasons, not just the video games he plays.

This paper is well worth a look. A final note of interest: the references include several German examples of research in this field that we in the English speaking world are not normally privy to, including such intriguing titles as this one …

Vorderer, P., & Klimmt, C. (2006). Zum Einfluss von Computerspielen mit Fahrzeugbezug auf das Fahrverhalten junger Fahrer: Abschlussbericht an die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen [The influence of vehicle-related computer games on the driving behavior of young drivers: Final report to the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt)]. Hannover, Germany: Hochschule für Musik und Theater.

References

Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L., & Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media: The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 960–971.

Fischer, P., Kubitzki, J., Guter, S., & Frey, D. (2007). Virtual driving and risk taking: Do racing games increase risk-taking cognitions, affect, and behaviors? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 13(1). 22-31.

Two Articles from JAET

Many readers know that besides this blog I run EduQuery.com, where Dr. Chris Calvin and I have published (along with our editorial board of other academics) the Journal of Applied Educational Technology these last few years. I’d like to point out to readers two articles from JAET dealing with educational video game research that have been written by fellow doc students at University of North Texas.

Last year we published an article on classroom simulations and situated learning by Les Lunce. Dr. Lunce successfully defended his dissertation earlier this summer on pedagogical applications of computer simulations. His article has been well received and widely read, and was required reading in one of Michael Barbour’s undergrad courses at University of Georgia. Check out Simulations: Bringing the Benefits of Situated Learning to the Traditional Classroom here.

This year, we published a lit review by Mary Jo Dondlinger that focused on the design aspects of successful educational video games. This paper provides a good selection of articles on learning theories and outcomes as well as gender preferences. The paper provides a nice selection of publications and should prove a useful resource to other researchers. It is available here.

References

Dondlinger, M. J. (2007). Educational video game design: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Educational Technology, 4(1), 21-31. [Online]. Available: http://www.eduquery.com/jaet/JAET4-1_Dondlinger.pdf

Lunce, L. (2006). Simulations: Bringing the benefits of situated learning to the traditional classroom. Journal of Applied Educational Technology, 3(1), 37-45. [Online]. Available: http://www.eduquery.com/jaet/JAET3-1_Lunce.pdf

Runescape Study Shows Academic Benefits

It’s curious how the media and academia seem to work together. A professor publishes a study. A press release is written about the study. A newspaper reports on the study. In this instance, the press release is from back in February, and The Scotsman is just now reporting on it. Perhaps the press release was re-released since the book the study is appearing in has been recently published.

The study is by Nic Crowe and Simon Bradford over at the Centre for Youth Work Studies, School of Sport and Education at Brunel University in the UK. Crowe and Bradford performed a three year qualitative study of teens playing Runescape. Apparently Runescape, web-based, British, and free, offered ease of research and attracts youthful players. These two factors made the game highly suitable for the authors’ study.

The study reportedly found elements in Runescape that contribute to academic development and assist youth in transitioning between school and work. The book containing the study was published last month. From a quick glance at the TOC over at Amazon, it looks like there are a couple other chapters dealing with virtual communities and youth, although this is the only chapter with gaming in the title.

References
Bradford, S. & Crowe, N. (2007, March 14). How gaming is all work and no play. [Online]. Available:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4774534.stm

Crowe, N. & Bradford, S. (2007). Identity and structure in online gaming: Young people’s symbolic and virtual extensions of self. In Paul Hodkinson & Wolfgang Deicke [Eds.] Youth Cultures: Scenes, Subcultures and Tribes (pp.217-230). New York: Routledge.

Edward, R. (2007, July 2). Computer games ‘may be good for children’. [Online]. Available: http://news.scotsman.com/uk.cfm?id=1028652007

Instructional Design: Leveling

Charles Reiguluth, in his book Instructional-Design Theories and Models: A New Paradigm of Instructional Theory, Vol. II, discusses four major characteristics of design theories. First, they are design-oriented, offering guidance on achieving stated goals. Second, they offer good feedback and strong motivating factors. Third, overriding methods can be broken down into simpler component parts, and fourth, the methods are what he terms “probalistic,” meaning that adhering to the methods will probably help the learning goals to be realized, as opposed to certainly seeing the goals realized.

Good instructional design is certainly a key element in good educational video games. Commercial games hold good instructional design, as well. One of the key design elements in many commercial video games identified by James Paul Gee in his book, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy, was the notion of level mastery. Players can’t progress to the next level in a game until they’ve mastered their current level.

An old college buddy of mine owns a tae kwon do academy in Ft. Worth. While watching him put my kids through the paces one afternoon, I noticed the same instructional design element of level mastery in martial arts that Gee pointed out exists in video games. My kids were practicing jump kicks, where they ran, jumped, and split practice boards with their feet. Once they had achieved mastery, the instructor raised the bar by making them jump higher, break thicker boards, etc. Likewise, the whole belt system in martial arts is based on level mastery as well.

It does seem a promising notion in educational video games: if designers can meld level mastery with their desired academic objectives, then pure academic learning may be realized within a good video game.