State of the Blog, September 2008

It’s time for some navel gazing as we take a look at who is taking a look here. I could tell school was back in session when the numbers started spiking in September. Judy Wilson and librarian Katy French over at Palomar College in San Marcos, California added an old post of mine to a list of web sites for students to examine in a course on website evaluation. Learning Family Values While Killing Monsters was written back in November last year, and discussed an article by Robin Torres over at WowInsider.com. I suspect it was included over at Palomar College not just for my excellent writing (haha), but also for the fact I referenced the source material. The instructor indicates sourcing of materials lends credibility to a post.

Those opinion-meisters at Reddit posted a link to my post from late July regarding the new ESA survey indicating females comprise 40% of the gaming audience. Discussion so far has centered around whether females truly comprise 40% of the audience for advanced MMORPGs and not just casual games. Read the profanity-laced conversation here.

Lee Wilson and Nicola Whitton, both of whose opinions I respect, linked to my post on Seven Questions to Ask Before Using a Video Game In the Classroom. Both disagreed with Question 7: Are the graphics and gaming quality on par with contemporary entertainment titles? Both seemed to suggest the graphics in casual titles may not compare with the newest $60 games for home consoles, but were adequate in relaying pedagogical content. I suppose I should have elaborated and indicated I was concerned with really basic graphics that are even below casual game standards. Probably I was thinking of the research outcomes from the old AQUAMoose project at Georgia Tech, where programming a game from scratch (not the programming language Scratch, but literally from scratch) led to some disappointing feedback from the target audience.

To sum up, I’m still here and posting, and thanks for the feedback. The old goal of one post each weekday has been suffering of late, but I should manage to get something of interest up on a regular basis. As always, shoot me an e-mail if you’d like to call my attention to something.

Learning Survival Skills in World of Warcraft?

Rising high in the Digg rankings this week is a story over at WoWInsider about a boy in Norway who saved himself and his sister from a wayward moose. According to the account in the Norwegian press, the boy drew the moose away from his sister, then pretended to be dead, causing the moose to lose interest and wander off. Explaining his tactics to the authorities, the boy said he was mimicking techniques learned playing World of Warcraft. He “drew aggro” away from his sister, “Just like you learn in level 30 in World of Warcraft.”

Mike Schramm over at WoWInsider remains skeptical, but the story seems at least possible in theory. The fact a child would implement strategies from a game for the sake of survival lends an air of plausibility to the story. I doubt an adult would follow a similar line of reasoning.

World of Warcraft and Baby Grace

In recent weeks, Texans have been riveted by the Baby Grace saga, which started when a plastic storage box washed ashore in Galveston Bay with the body of a two year old girl inside. In due course after national exposure, the parents of Riley Ann Sawyers were located, and a tale of alleged death by abuse has unfolded. When news broke the parents met on World of Warcraft, my wife asked when WoW would be blamed in the little girl’s death.

Eyder Peralta, writing in the Houston Chronicle on Thursday, offered a sober and balanced look at the question of blame for WoW on the death of children (a couple other cases have occurred in Korea). Peralta spoke with Dr. Celia Pearce, director of Georgia Tech’s Experimental Games Lab, who said, “We have to be cautious and not think everyone online is crazy.” Dr. Pearce also pointed out that with membership approaching 10 million players, two or three negative occurrences show little in the way of supporting a relationship between playing WoW and the death of children. Dan O’Halloran, over at WoWinsider.com, and Frank Pearce (no relation to Dr. Pearce), senior VP of product development at WoW parent Blizzard, also receive prominent mention.

Dr. Pearce is allowed to wrap up the article, maintaining that relationships beginning online are substantially the same as relationships beginning in a bar or some other RL place. After all, people are people, wherever they first meet.

It is unfortunate that every murder case where somebody played a videogame, be it the victim or the suspect, will be trumpeted in the press. This continues to make acceptance of instructional videogames that much more difficult in school settings. Peralta does a good job this time, however, in bringing in the experts and getting a much clearer perspective.

References:
Peralta, E. (2007, November 29). Did meeting online have tie to baby’s death? Houston Chronicle, p.E7. [Online]. Retrieved December 2, 2007 from http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/life/main/5336859.html

Learning Family Values While Killing Monsters

Robin Torres posted an article on teaching family values to children over at WoWInsider.com, a Joystiq site. It may seem somewhat incongruent to non-gamers, but Torres makes a good case for the idea of instilling positive attitudes in children while playing popular MMOPRGs like World of Warcraft.

Torres warns against the potential negatives that may occur when children spend hours on end in these gigantic virtual worlds unsupervised. But, she insists that with proper parental supervision, valuable life lessons can be imparted to the youngsters.

Children go to school to get educated, but they are supposed to learn their values at home. I believe that playing WoW with your children can be a great way to instill them with some very basic yet important values.

Torres relates a story of playing in EverQuest back in the day with an 8-10 year old boy she never met in RL:

His typing was good and his spelling wasn’t too bad (I’ve seen much worse in adults) and there was no leetspeak. He didn’t volunteer any other personal information about himself — though he did say that while he was sometimes allowed to play by himself, he often played with his father. He showed me his most cherished (virtual) possession: the sword (not too uber) that he had acquired when hunting with his dad. Over a few months, we often hunted together. Sure, I couldn’t say naughty stuff in front of him, but I never felt like I was babysitting.

This is the kind of good family fun Torres feels is highly beneficial for kids. And really, her bigger point is it doesn’t matter where family time occurs, whether playing together in a virtual world or going on a trail ride. It’s the together part that truly matters.

But the virtual aspect of playing together in World of Warcraft will surely raise eyebrows. Even so, Torres states that with good parental supervision the following characteristics can be instilled in children while playing in WoW: manners, respect, computer skills, following instructions, teamwork, achievement, independence, problem solving, self esteem, and preparedness. I have to say, she has a point.

References:
Torres, R. (2007, October 8). Azeroth interrupted: Using WoW to teach children values. WoW Insider. [Online]. Available: http://www.wowinsider.com/2007/10/08/
azeroth-interrupted-using-wow-to-teach-children-values/