No Indoor Plumbing, but Plenty of Ethernet

Thanks to Tony Bates for pointing out the latest issue of Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. There’s a very interesting article, complete with photo spread, on a Chinese gold farm for World of Warcraft by Anthony Gilmore.

Far from the sophisticated urban centers marking China as a world power, this rural tech outpost employs folks around the clock, and pays them a decent local wage for their efforts. The article is quite positive toward this gray market endeavor despite its violation of WoW players’ TOS.

I’ve never bought gold in WoW (at the higher levels, making gold is rather easy, particularly when gaming the auction house), but I’ve always been curious about gold farmers. This article is worth a read.

References:
Gilmore, A. (2010, February). China’s new gold farm. Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, 2(4). [Online.] Available: https://journals.tdl.org/jvwr/article/view/863/628

Is FarmVille Educational?

This blog has followed social gaming juggernaut Zynga’s progress for a couple years now. One of its most popular gaming apps is FarmVille, which runs on Facebook and touts an estimated 70 million players, making it one of, if not the, most popular games ever. Testaments to the game’s popularity abound. On the radio station I listen to on the way to work, the morning guys brought up the game recently. One complained he introduced his mother to Facebook, and now she spends hours playing FarmVille. Another said he avoids Facebook specifically so he won’t get caught up playing games like FarmVille all day.

Many players have noted the “work” in FarmVille seems somewhat educational. This, in fact, is what intrigues educators about video games in general. They are so interactive and require focused attention to progress. So, the thinking goes, if we can have students play with educational elements perhaps they’ll absorb some pedagogical content in ways they can’t through books or television.

Could FarmVille be a tool leveraged for classroom use? In November I was invited to sit on a panel of school district tech directors at a regional technology conference to discuss the educational value of social networking. One fellow tech director indicated her school board suggested the district open their network to Twitter, Facebook, and other social tools to students as well as staff. She described the various issues involved, how teachers treated the new access as a classroom management issue, and ways in which the tools were being incorporated into the school day. Then, she said the high school Ag teacher was investigating ways to bring FarmVille into the classroom.

So, is FarmVille educational? Can it be used effectively in the classroom to teach useful things? I turned to the net to see what the hive has to say and also try to find some academic research on the issue.



Math and Organization Skills
Like many games, there are things you can count in FarmVille, and a modest amount of math skills might prove helpful in the game. An eHow article offers six steps in using FarmVille to teach math. Here’s a sample:

Teach fractions using the Chicken Coop and Dairy Barn. There are 4 windows in each building and each building can hold 20 animals. For every 5 animals a head pops out a window. So you can show them how 4/20 is 1/5 of the animals.

CommonSenseMedia.org, which purports to rate video games for parents and teachers, notes that FarmVille requires “simple math and organizational skills.” Later in the review author Carla Thornton writes:

The game itself is clean, safe, and loads of fun, if not especially educational. In FarmVille players plow, plant, and harvest crops to earn virtual coins, raise animals and improve their farmsteads with fences, windmills, and other objects. The more Facebook friends a player can convince to become FarmVille neighbors, the bigger and more successful the farm will be.

Lisa Russell, writing over at the home schooling section for Suite101.com, shows how players can exert a little more math effort to figure out the fastest way to earn money in the game:

Initially, the only seeds available are strawberries, eggplant, wheat and soybeans. Strawberries cost 10 coins and after 4 hours are harvested for 35 coins, a ROI (return on investment) of 25 coins, or 6.25 coins an hour. Using the same method of calculation, it can be seen that the eggplant is worth only 1.31 coins per hour, the wheat breaks down to only 1.1 coins per hour and finally, the soybeans are worth 2 coins per hour. Clearly, the strawberries are a better investment for the player who has time to return in 4 hours to harvest.

Later, she offers a formula for the calculation:

H=harvest value

C=initial price

T=time (in hours)

ROI=(H-C)/T

Players can use a similar formula for comparing the value of their trees (both purchased and gifted) as well as their animals. … FarmVille may have absolutely nothing to offer on a scientific level. In fact, if an entire generation of humans were to learn farming skills from this game, humans might starve to death. However, for math skills and virtual applications of algebra, as well as estimation and strategic planning, FarmVille is more than just fun and games.

So the general consensus seems to be, FarmVille requires a little math skill and some attention to organizational details, but it was made more for fun than education, as are so many popular games.



Academic Interest
As far as academic consensus, a lot of the research interest in FarmVille has revolved around the game indirectly. It crops up in lists of popular social games in academic papers, for instance, but specific studies focusing on the game itself are rare if not non-existent.

A great example of FarmVille serving as a framework for a presentation is one loaded onto Slideshare.net by Sidneyeve Matrix over at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. It is titled Pedagogy Inspired by FarmVille, or Seeds of Engagement, From Social Games to the Classroom: Educational Design Inspired by FarmVille.

In it, she highlights three videogame design principals that can be extrapolated for classroom courses. They are derived from a discussion at the recent Social Games Seattle meeting led by Amitt Mahajan, who is part of the core team and lead designer for FarmVille.

First, instructors should design games with broad appeal. FarmVille succeeds because playing farm is something many kids have grown up doing, sometimes using plastic toys provided by companies like PlaySkool. In the classroom or lecture hall, Dr. Matrix suggests this can translate to humanized case studies, current events, and pop cultural references to widen the appeal of the subject matter to apathetic students.

Second, FarmVille uses something Mahajan called “microsociality,” meaning social connections become painless. Players don’t have to go out of their way to keep up with contacts; they’re all easily accessible in the game. This has become “a viable alternative to offline face-to-facetime,” according to Dr. Matrix. So, for classroom incorporation she suggests instructors build or use existing social sites where students can share and divide workloads and resources.

Finally, FarmVille succeeds because it adds “visual pleasure.” There is a certain graphic appeal to the game, common among most successful commercial titles, that enhances player engagement. Instructors should be sure and incorporate visually appealing graphics in lectures and discussions to help focus attention on the subject matter.

Conclusion
All told, FarmVille is a major hit, sure to be popular for years to come. Educators, as well as perhaps classroom students, can certainly learn a thing or two from the game. But, ultimately, it was designed more for fun than for teaching essential knowledge.

A List of Dissertations on Gaming

Here’s a nifty list of dissertations and master’s theses on gaming Electric Archeology found over at Serious Games Pathfinder. So far, it has Canadian research only, and Katrin Becker at SGP is soliciting details for others to add to the list. Click here for her current list.

Study: HopeLab’s Re-Mission Game Is Effective

The serious gaming community was buzzing today about the publication of results from a major study in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ official journal, showing that HopeLab’s cancer education and encouragement game, Re-Mission, is effective in accomplishing its objectives.

A total of 375 subjects, ages 13-29, were recruited from 34 academic medical centers in North America and Australia in 2004-05. Subjects were screened by language (if they couldn’t communicate in one of the languages Re-Mission uses (English, French, & Spanish), they were screened out), ability to follow directions (if they ignored screeners’ directions, they were screened out), and, “history of seizures as a result of photosensitivity,” (if the flashing lights of the videogame bothered them, they were screened out).

Subjects played the game at least one hour per week for three months. The control group (n = 178 ) played, “A PC version of Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb … because the play structure and controller interface closely resembled that of Re-Mission.” All subjects were given a computer. Control group subjects received a computer with only the Indiana Jones game while the experimental group subjects’ computers had both the Indiana Jones game and Re-Mission.

Here is the conclusion:

The video-game intervention [Re-Mission] significantly improved treatment adherence and indicators of cancer-related self-efficacy and knowledge in adolescents and young adults who were undergoing cancer therapy. The findings support current efforts to develop effective video-game interventions for education and training in health care.

“Treatment adherence” means subjects took their medication. Therefore, the study shows an increased willingness to continue chemo or other treatments by young cancer patients when offered the videogame intervention.

The pilot study took place in San Antonio, so local coverage was heavy. Visit the San Antonio Business Journal and WOAI for more details.

Learn How to Manage a Music Label with ‘Rise of the Band’

Here’s a different educational game, available as a free download from Trinity Western University. Label: Rise of the Band sends players on a quest to take an independent label to dominance by recruiting bands of different genres, venues, and making judicious budget choices. Read a write-up on the game and the story behind its development here. Download the game from its main site here.

Free Mind Exercising Games from FitBrains.com

Canada is now the third largest videogame producing country, overtaking Great Britain’s former position. Marke Andrews over at The Vancouver Sun reports on Vivity Labs, producer of FitBrains.com.

With mostly private money (from five hi-tech industry investors) and some public funds (Telefilm Canada, Industrial Research Assistance Program) behind it, Vivity Labs seeks to replicate the success of Nintendo’s popular Brain Age game, which is also aimed at greying boomers and seniors, and Electronic Arts’ Pogo, a game popular with boomer women. The company’s partners include Vancouver’s Michael Cole, who’s worked in the brain fitness field for the past seven years; Dr. Paul Nussbaum, an American clinical neuropsychologist who specializes in aging; and Mark Baxter, a Vancouver games developer … Prior to the launch, Cole has struck a deal with health magazine Prevention to put three Fit Brains games on its website, and another that licences Fit Brains games with Seattle casual video game site Big Fish.

The site offers nine games with a tenth on the way, aimed mainly at users 40 and over. The games focus on language, concentration, logic and spatial skills. The site will remain in open beta until August, when a monthly fee will be assessed for accessing advanced features of the site.

References:
Andrews, M. (2008, July 3). B.C. company takes aim at brain games geared for boomers. The Vancouver Sun. [Online]. Retrieved July 3, 2008 from http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/business/story.html?
id=7dcc2a05-1825-4245-bbdf-b5ff786a30e3

UK games industry ‘dead man walking’. (2008, July 2). Politics.co.uk. [Online]. Retrieved July 3, 2008 from http://www.politics.co.uk/news/opinion-former-index/
opinion-former-index/uk-games-industry-dead-man-walking–$1229794.htm

McGill Lab Studies Wii Fit

As expected, the Wii Fit has made quite a splash on North American shores, and now researchers are taking note. Jill Barker, with the Canwest News Service, notes interest fomenting around videogames for physical pursuits.

Research money is flowing into the digital and video game market, with studies looking at how games can promote healthy eating and physical activity, improve cognitive skills among the elderly and stroke patients, and teach respiratory exercises to children with cystic fibrosis.

Barker followed the Wii Fit into Tania Taivassalo’s kinesiology research lab over at McGill University in Montreal. This was lab research, and has not yet been published as far as I can tell from the article. It is nonetheless interesting.

After viewing several of the [Wii Fit’s] games, we decided to measure the energy expended while playing two of the aerobic activities: running (which is done on the spot) and a hula hoop game where users rotate their hips and try to catch virtual flying hoops.

According to Jean-Philippe Marchand, a kinesiology master’s student who tested the product in the lab, both the running and hula hoop game required the testers to work out at the equivalent of 60 per cent of maximum aerobic power for children. These results classify the games as light physical activity with the potential to improve fitness among those new to exercise, but with little potential to do the same among the fit population…

“It is definitely meant for sedentary people or for kids to have fun while exercising – as opposed to sitting and moving their thumbs only,” commented Julie Robillard, a master’s student who performed the testing with Marchand.

To sum up, researchers decided the Wii Fit was no substitute for “real” exercise, yet was beneficial for the truly sedentary, for whom exercise is not a regular occurrence.

So while Wii Fit is no substitute for regular exercise, it is a step forward in the emerging field of using video game technology to improve the health and wellness behaviours of children and youth. “Considering that we have miserably failed at convincing kids and teenagers that physical activity is more fun than video games, encouraging exercise through video games is probably a good compromise,” said Robillard.

References:
Barker, J. (2008, June 20). Fun fits into life, too. Canada.com [Online.] Retrieved June 22, 2008 from http://www.canada.com/topics/technology/games/story.html?
id=a2494468-1b52-41d5-b06c-082fcc7e53b4

CFP: DIGITEL 2008

2nd IEEE International Conference on Digital Games and Intelligent Toys Based Education (DIGITEL 2008)

November 17-19, 2008, Banff, Canada
http://www.ask4research.info/digitel/2008/

Submissions due: May 30.

Canadians Argue Over Videogame “Addictions”

In light of the ongoing arguments regarding whether or not a true “addiction” in the traditional sense exists with videogames, GamePolitics.com has an entry detailing a televised debate up in Canada between Liz Woolley of Online Gamers Anonymous (yes, the similarity to Alcoholics Anonymous is deliberate), Marc Ouellette over at McMaster University in Ontario, and Christina Winterburn at 4thegirlgamers.

This is a good example to watch typical media treatment with easy to digest sound bites and oversimplification of complex issues, all crammed together in a tight time slot between advertisements. Here’s my summary of the segment, FWIW:

The segment opens with a tragic discussion of how Ms. Woolley’s son committed suicide after overuse of EverQuest, leading her to start OGA. Winterburn concedes gaming can become addictive in the sense that games can fill a hole in the lives of certain socially repressed people. Ouellette tries to get into an explanation of the research surrounding videogames, bringing up Loftus & Loftus (1983) regarding inherent reward schedules in games.

But, the journalists wanted to focus on the suicide related to EverQuest and ask Woolley if games like EQ should simply be banned. Ouellette gets back in to the conversation, and points out that comic books were blamed for youthful degeneracy in the 1950s, back-masking in rock lyrics were considered bad in the 1970s, and that basically each generation embraces a medium parents don’t understand. However, now parents have grown up with games and are more accepting. Woolley tries to ask that because Ouellette is a gamer and understands the medium, would he be more careful with his children playing, but this line of discussion is cut off due to lack of time. The journalist wraps up by belittling Ouellette’s last point, saying we’ve come a long way from the days of Pong and comic books with these videogames.

References:
Loftus, G. R. & Loftus, E. F. (1983). Mind at play: The psychology of video games. New York: Basic Books.

Will Mean Girls Get Meaner in a Mean Girls Game?

When bad news comes out about a videogame, or salacious details are leaked, many are those quick to jump on the bandwagon deriding the game. This seems to create a perpetual cycle of bad press regarding various games (and the medium in general) as they come down the pike. We saw suggestions from local politicians that Bully be banned, even before it was released. The Grand Theft Auto series has had its share of bad press, with the Hot Coffee incident being the worse. More recently, Manhunt 2 has garnered plenty of bad press for being over-the-top violent.

Now, a new game due out in January is garnering criticism for teaching girls how to behave badly. Coolest Girl in School is like Bully, with protagonists as females who must “lie, bitch and flirt [their] way to the top of the high school ladder.” As such, teachers are seen as rubes to be manipulated, rumor mongering is seen as a social tool, and sexual experimentation is rife with potential.

In an article for the CanWest News Service, Misty Harris writes that the Aussies are upset with details concerning the game (beta testing has occurred in Australia).

“The activities in the game have been shown through vast amounts of research to cause significant, long-term problems for young people,” a spokeswoman for the Australian Family Association told the Daily Telegraph this month.

But, the developers insist they’ve been unfairly tarnished:

“We have had a lot of press and, unfortunately the game has been misrepresented in some articles,” says [Holly] Owen [creative director of Champagne for the Ladies, the game’s developer] . “It is … a very tongue-in-cheek look at the perils of the quest for cool in high school. Key word: irony!”

Owen notes that although activities such as smoking or using drugs “might seem obviously cool,” they can work against a girl in the game because she could be sent to virtual rehab or have foul-smelling breath when a love interest approaches her.

Academics in the article express their doubts. Christine Daviault at Concordia U. in Montreal is quoted as saying she doubts young girls will get the irony, and are at a developmental crossroads where negative influence may hold sway. The final quote:

Anastasia Goodstein, a noted youth media consultant, believes the game’s premise might hit too close to home for some.

“Coolest Girl In School sounds a lot like high school,” Goodstein writes on her marketing blog YPulse.com. “Do girls need to play a game to remind them of high school’s depressing social hierarchy?”

On one hand, negative press about any videogame hurts the cause for educational products that seek to do good. On the other hand, any publicity is good publicity, and public outcries against games for whatever reasons ultimately lead to higher sales than otherwise realized.

References:
Harris, M. (2007, November 22). Videogame teaches teen girls to slither up social ladder. Canada.com. [Online.] Available: http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?
id=e581f83c-77a5-4dd8-a589-0b8db5ad3a1c&k=21807