game-based learning

[Joe Lewis Wilkins]

Richard,

I'm a little reluctant to expose this thinking to public scrutiny at  
this time, but almost ten years ago I was prepared to launch a major  
endeavor that was combination electronic book and game; however, I  
got distracted - big time, and never really got back to it. One of  
the reasons was that I really didn't have the programming  
capabilities to do it without major funding from some source and I  
was unwilling to sell the idea to anyone else who might eventually  
distort my goals. Please disregard all the references to financing,  
and a few others  with respect to anticipated goals and a phone  
number that is no longer is service. The basic tenants are still  
sound and desirable. Perhaps, with Revolution's cross platform  
capabilities and multimedia aspirations, I may eventually be able to  
start work in ernest on the project.

visit:  <http://members.cox.net/pepetoo/>

Some will call it a pipe dream; others may go even farther with "who  
in the hell does he think he is?" You can make your own decision.

TIA,

Joe Wilkins

On Feb 2, 2007, at 10:32 AM, Richard Gaskin wrote:

> Great stuff, Marielle.  I was especially interested in the comments  
> about girl gaming.
>
> I saw Brenda Laurel give the closing keynote at CHI-98, where she  
> talked about her experience doing usability research to found her  
> company Purple Moon (since killed by the Mattel juggernaut).
>
> Reinforcing the observations you noted, one of the most interesting  
> things she noted about girl gamers is their attraction to  
> complexity. According to Laurel's research spanning a 10-year  
> period, the reason girls don't play a lot of boy-oriented games is  
> not because they're too difficult, but just the opposite, that the  
> game play is often too simplistic.
>
> With Purple Moon, Laurel tried to create games that appealed to  
> girls' appreciation for complex relationships.  Much of the game  
> play involved ethical questions in social simulation scenarios  
> (e.g., do I go to the birthday party for the unpopular girl or  
> accept the invitation for the party by the most popular girl for  
> the same day?), and the complexity of the issues involved certainly  
> carried greater variance in play than "shoot the zombie".
>
> One of the key aspects Laurel touched on was the self-fulfilling  
> prophesy of game designers:  having delivered games aimed at boys,  
> game designers look to low sales among girls as a false  
> reinforcement of the notion that "girls aren't into gaming".
>
> That was one of the things I loved most about Myst when it  
> premiered.  I don't play a lot of games, but Myst appealed to a  
> much broader market than games had previously addressed.  It was in  
> many respects the first truly literate game, and its focus on  
> environmental immersion and long, complex puzzles was a radically  
> meditative departure from the shoot-em-up twitchers that continue  
> to dominate the market.
>
> A thousand Myst-like games have been created since (including the  
> great Alida <http://www.runrev.com/spotlight_on/alida1.php>), and  
> while they've been fun I keep wondering if there's an entirely new  
> type of game waiting to be created, something as different from  
> everything else we've seen as Myst was for its time.
>
> Somewhere out there is a game waiting to be created, something that  
> will open up the world of entertainment software to a whole new  
> audience that isn't currently into games.
>
> Or as I once put it at a game developer meeting:  Where is the  
> "Catcher  in the Rye" of games, the thing that will appeal to  
> people who like rich, provocative entertainment but aren't  
> attracted to current game play models?
>
> Maybe it'll be made by one of the readers of this list....
>
> -- 
>  Richard Gaskin Managing Editor, revJournal
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