Learning Games, Going Beyond Fun

By Ralph Vacca

Is there anything to the buzz about learning games, or are we walking down the road to another unfulfilled promise?

We’ve heard it at training conferences and read about it in countless magazines; learning games are increasingly being discussed as the new tool that can revolutionize the learning landscape and finally engage learners in a hands-on experience while still maintaining the anytime anywhere advantages of other forms of e-learning.

So is there anything to the buzz about learning games, or are we walking down the road to another unfulfilled promise? The problem with a lot of the buzz is that it focuses almost entirely on the fun aspect of games. The prevalent rationale for learning games is that learners are more engaged because they’re entertained while learning. Many people think of the countless hours their kids spend playing games and want to translate that same level of engagement to training. Not to say that games aren’t fun, or that this isn’t an important factor, but if games are truly poised to revolutionize our understanding of learning, they should offer more than just entertainment value; they should enable new forms of learning. What does that mean?

Defining learning games

Let’s start off with a broad definition of learning games. While there are countless definitions available, it is helpful to view learning games as an activity that engages the player in pattern recognition behavior, within a set of defined rules, all for the purpose of overcoming defined challenges. The mastery of this pattern recognition behavior to overcome a challenge is engaging and fun.

Another way to look at a learning game is to imagine a sandbox in which the player has been given a goal and a set of rules in which to play. While the players move around the sandbox, they begin to see patterns emerge that allow them to better approach and achieve the goal. In chess, great players see long patterns and select the ones most likely to lead to a win. The same goes for Connect Four, tic-tac-toe, and even Pac-Man. As these patterns become internalized, the player builds a mental model that allows him or her to make predictions and meet subsequent challenges that escalate in difficulty and complexity. This is exactly where the power of games lies.

Beyond fun, games can provide valuable learning experiences that cannot be replicated in a classroom or through other methods. While games aren’t the best medium for delivering information, they have tremendous potential to develop mental models that empower learners to better handle complex situations in the real-world that entail similar patterns. Consider the power behind flight simulators and military strategy games. These games help military personnel understand broad strategies and tactics for combat, teach them how to deal with aggressive players, and test the dangers of changing strategies midway through combat.

Design challenges

The challenge for most instructional designers in designing games is the focus on gameplay. While a traditional instructional designer often focuses on the content the course will cover, an instructional game designer defines the behaviors the learner will be asked to perform and the information required to empower them to perform those behaviors.  

This distinction can be best seen when looking at learning games that rely on encapsulated knowledge delivered via a predefined game shell. For example, in playing a Jeopardy-like game in which players are asked about information on automotive mechanics, the player would be able to develop a large knowledge base but not necessarily develop a sufficient mental model to allow them to actually fix automotive problems or understand the relationships between different automotive parts.

In other words, the rules that govern the game and guide the gameplay don’t help the player better understand the dynamics that underlie success in the real world. We want the knowledge to be situated and to be sought out by the player in order to address the challenges being dished out, not to be delivered in context-free chunks of information which can feel excessively didactic.

To better understand game elements in action, let’s go over the design of a simple fictional game we will call the Delegate Challenge.

The premise of this game is that the player is a supervisor and needs to delegate tasks to employees that she supervises. The objective of the game is to maximize the efficiency and engagement of the company by delegating tasks correctly. We want our game to help the player understand the importance of delegating tasks and following up with employees, the importance of preparing a task, the effects of mismatching tasks with an individual’s skills, and the importance of developing your employees.

So we’ll need to define the patterns we want the player to internalize, and keep them simple and manageable. Here are some patterns we’ll tackle:

The game would start with the player receiving a regular stream of tasks that need to be delegated to their employee or handled by the player themselves. The first challenge the player will encounter is to delegate a task.

To delegate a task the player must: receive the task, analyze the task’s properties, take a look at each employee’s strengths and weaknesses, prepare the task, and delegate the task to the right person. In this challenge, we’ve taken key behaviors we want the player to internalize and built it into the gameplay. How much complexity we build into the game in terms of preparing the task, and how many strengths and weaknesses are assigned to each employee, is purely up to the instructional game designer’s understanding of the audience and the project’s requirements.

Key to structuring this challenge is the rules that add tension and difficulty. For example we can say if the task is assigned to the wrong person, or if the player forgets to “prepare” the task, it will take longer to complete so that employee will not be available to receive additional tasks. Or, the player can choose to do the task themselves, making him or her unable to do other things until it is completed, leaving incoming tasks piling up.

A second challenge that can be presented to the player, adding another layer of complexity, is following up with employees while at the same time continuing to delegate tasks. Again, to structure this challenge in the right way we’ll have to define the rules that add tension and difficulty. For example, let’s create a rule that if the player fails to follow up with someone it will take the employee longer to complete the task, which means the employee is not available for other tasks.

Finally we’ll have to design opportunities for failure which would end the game. If the player has too many tasks piled up, tasks start to become “overdue,” and engagement and efficiency goes down, leading to a failure. The failure would result in a thorough analysis of his or her performance in the game, and help the player to deconstruct their behavior and determine where improvement is needed.

Notice how the game abstracts and simplifies the complex endeavor of delegation. It does not address the interpersonal elements involved in delegating tasks or reporting details. This can be very challenging for traditional instructional designers who often fall into the ‘fidelity trap’ in which they feel the more realistic the game, the better. The fact is that one of the core strengths of learning games is their ability to simplify reality, and filter out the noise that can overwhelm the learner and hamper learning.

Now we can begin to add layers of complexity to this game depending on our audience, the patterns we want the player to internalize, and our subjective preference for a particular kind of gameplay. For example, we can build in an organization’s policy on particular tasks, or maybe the player can request specific reports from employees. We could even build in an element of fatigue for the employees depending on how much the player relies on a particular employee’s skill.

It is important to note how we’ve created that sandbox in which the player can become sensitized to the importance of particular behaviors in overcoming specific challenges. They can walk away with a sense of how matching tasks with skills, preparing tasks, and following up can affect the success of completing a task and the time it takes to complete it.

One criticism often expressed is that games oversimplify complex relationships. One might say that the Delegate Challenge doesn’t truly let the player understand the delegation process because they don’t actually get to prepare a task, or talk to an employee when assigning a task. Beyond the fact that the Delegate Challenge is a very simple example, such an argument has its merits. Not only because games often have a narrow focus that limits the players ability to do anything and everything, but also because only in the past few years have games begun to break out of the shoot, move, defend interactions common in entertainment videogames.

Looking ahead

Games are still growing as an art form, and the emergence of games like Guitar Hero and Nintendo’s Wii are creating new forms of interaction that move into physical and audio environments. In addition, games like Façade are paving the way for new forms of interactive fiction, while Will Wright’s “Spore” is pushing the boundaries of simulation games. These new forms of interaction are bound to trickle into the learning world.   

As game design continues to develop as a field, we’ll begin to see new forms that allow more complex gameplay to occur. For example, perhaps the Delegate Challenge could be redesigned as a multiplayer game in which teams of actual players compete to finish projects. The possibilities are truly endless.

To really be able to understand the power of games within the context of learning, the industry as a whole will need to develop a deeper understanding of game design, and how game design principles can be integrated into the existing frameworks of educational psychology and instructional design. It will require us to give birth to a new field of instructional design that can be called instructional game design.

Those interested in becoming involved in instructional game design can start by playing a few games. Whether evaluating the integration of games into training offerings or looking to design a game, observe the patterns that a player identifies and attempts to master and take note of the rules that are guiding the gameplay.

This exercise can be taken a step further by taking an existing training course and re-evaluating its value in developing learners. Does the course truly provide the learner opportunities to practice? Can a game help bridge the gap between information delivery and the transfer of knowledge to on-the-job performance? What kind of sandbox can be created that will enable this kind of learning? 

Without a doubt, games will continue to play a role in shaping the way we learn. It’s up to us to go beyond the fun factor, and understand the strengths and weaknesses of learning games so that we can foster the development of real products that redefine what is possible.