Waldemar 1

Spencer Waldemar
Mrs. Warneke
English 12
10/18/2015
Gaming for an Education

The power of a virtual world on a human mind is limitless. The games around us are a
vast interconnecting world with more than 1.2 billion people playing worldwide (Soper).
Games today are just starting to come alive. Developing and evolving each day, with americans
spending over 25.3 billion dollars a year on them(Takahashi). Much like the movie business,
games have genres. They use complicated mathematics and neurological science to get players to
delve deep into interactive stories of courageous victories, romantic relations, and powerful
leaderships. Interactive situations have a long-lasting influence on our minds and that is learning.
They teach powerful multitasking, and productivity skills along with achieving more, building
stronger relationships, and getting more feedback(Jane..). Educational games or e-games are
the genre that tries to focus on the aspects of learning that are being used so that students can
actively participate instead of passively watch (Buckley). It is a hidden alternative to lecture
style classrooms that few teachers have tried to use. E-games have the ability to teaching a wide
range of cognitive, reading, math skills, but it is not being utilized and built effectively for
consumers. These games are essentially a impressive type of hands on learning that teachers
struggle to find as they search for the workings of a perfect educational system.
The conflict with these e-games is that they are currently inept. The concepts that other
genres flourish at, they lack. The way educational games are made is much like a classroom

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lecture when they are both very different in the ways people learn from them(Gredler). The
games made today are of poor quality but the developers behind them are hindered by the
insufficient market behind this kind of game. Platform games often have over 30 people making
a game, but e-games developers cannot afford that much man-power resulting in a lower quality
game. A wide range of skills and subjects that necessary are absent in e-games. This turns games
into interactive worksheets that do not latch onto players; rendering it ineffective. E-games are
boring and motivation is the most important factor that drives learning. When motivation dies,
learning dies and playing stops (Gee). If learning is fun then learning is more beneficial. Games
are also often not used widely enough for learning in the classroom. It is non-existent to scarcely
used in curriculums for students because It is difficult for teachers to identify how a particular
game is relevant to some component of the curriculum, as well as the appropriateness of the
content within the game(Gros). Schools have a tendency to force everything to stay the same
because they do not want to look bad when a new type of learning does not work. These issues
are not immoveable, and are fixable if the industry can come together and make games of higher
quality, incorporate them into the curriculum and build a market for them.
Products that efficiently influence players are the quality products of the industry.
Players interests are the pillars holding up the game industry. Games have to balance on how
well you can keep a players interest. If you want players to keep focus and enjoyment while
learning you need purpose and competition. good games give information on demand and just
in time not out of context of actual use apart from people purposes and goals(Griffiths). A game
will grasp a player if it contains the aspects of seeking novelty, challenging yourself, thinking
creatively, doing things the hard way, networking and giving achievements for the right
responses (Gabe..). Developers have to sit down and start deeply thinking of these concepts

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while making the games. Reward systems are used everywhere in our life and is fundamental
game logic. They use rewards to pull motivation out of people. Credit card rewards are a great
example of how they get people to make sure they use their cards so they get the double miles
from their plan. If educational games use this logic to pull players in for the cause of learning
then this genre would explode with users. Making of user rewards, personal challenges, or
changes in color or graphical surroundings to maintain interest some games can hold player
interest for long periods of time(Griffiths). There is a long-run problem that goes along with this
fixing this issue and that is when developers try to make something more interesting to the
consumer there is a tendency to stray away from the goal at hand. If developers focus mainly on
attracting consumers to make money they will lose the point of the game. On the other hand,
focusing on making the game educational will lose consumers. Developers just need to take the
time to make distinctive products that blend these specific goals, then making quality games will
not be an issue in the game industry.
Educational systems and e-games should work hand-in-hand. Schools rarely use this type
of learning when schools are the best place for it. Games can best be used to teach students
mental models of complex situations as well as their problem solving strategies(Grendler).
Adding e-games to the curriculum can give students guidance to using these kinds of games on a
typical day. A bulk of educational games are not effective because they are not given a chance.
Incorporating them in a student's everyday life could spark the real influence that they have on a
human brain. This strategy has been proven to work by a man named Ananth Pai. He was
unhappy with the education system in White Bear Lake, Minnesota so he got his masters degree
and changed his classes curriculum. He rotated kids on different games teaching math and
reading skills. The curriculum was designed to have kids learning at all different paces yet

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competing with others in the class. He was able to turn his classes math and reading scores from
a below third grade level to a mid fourth grade level in just 18 weeks (Gabe). A growth like that
on a larger scale could prove to have massive changes on many lives today and just by adding
these types of learning strategies to classrooms you can evolve the way the world looks at egames.
All great markets in our economy have one thing in common and that is money. E-games
do not have the backing from investors and corporations to be a strong market. It is essential to
to change the marketing of educational games to progress on their effectiveness. To do this calls
for a hybrid of the last two solutions. Getting kids involved in this genre and pulling developers
together to make good games will in turn create opportunities for revenue. The market of
platform games started off slow many years ago and built on itself slowing making more money.
As money comes in more high quality products are possible to make. Getting funding from the
government or organizations to kickstart a new idea like this is essential to the change in egamings. The money between developers and consumers has to flow or products will cease any
progress in improving.
E-gaming has the power to change societies. It has been proven to be new source of
learning but continues to be poorly made and displayed for consumers. To change these problems
we need to get developers building quality games, get students involved in the genre, and build a
market for them. The world is already an interconnected game but it's all about how we place our
pawns that make the difference between our progress.

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Works Cited
Buckley, Katherine E., and Craig A. Anderson. "A theoretical model of the effects and
consequences of playing video games." Playing video games: Motives, responses, and
consequences (2006): 363-378.
Gabe Zichermann: How games make kids smarter. TED. Technology Entertainment
and Design, June. 2011. Web. 6 Oct. 2015
Gee, James Paul. "What videogames have to teach us about learning and literacy."
Computers in Entertainment (CIE) 1.1 (2003): 20-20.

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Gros, Begoa. "Digital games in education: The design of games-based learning environments."
Journal of Research on Technology in Education 40.1 (2007): 23-38.
Gredler, Margaret E. "17. Educational Games and Simulations: A Technology in Search
of a (research) Paradigm." Technology 39 (1996): 521-540.
Griffiths, Mark. "The educational benefits of videogames." Education and Health 20.3
(2002): 47-51
Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world. TED. Technology Entertainment
and Design, Feb. 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2015
Soper, Taylor. Study: 1.2 Billion People Are Playing Games Worldwide; 700M of Them
Are Online - GeekWire. GeekWire. 25 Nov. 2013. Web. 8 Oct. 2015.
Takahashi, Dean. "Americans Spend $25.3B Each Year on Video games." VentureBeat. 9 May
2010. Web. 8 Oct. 2015.