Question How to move from destructive games to educational games?

[Urwumpe]

Correct me if I am wrong...
If software developers get to create educational entertainment that entertain a lot and make people to learn, like Orbiter, you could have a great gaming hit.

OK, correcting you.

The primary goal of all games is entertainment. Any educational value is secondary and should never limit the entertainment. That is what many "Humanity improvers" do wrong.

I remember somebody complaining about humans suppressing emotions, but then on the same time attempt to suppress emotions in games, they consider distasteful. Are likely the same people who also classify animals in useful and vermin...

The fact that someone tried to sell Orbiter at eBay tells me that if Orbiter was commercial it would have enough entertainment to become successful. So educational games could have a good chance if game is designed properly.

Or that people sell all kinds of freeware on Ebay, if it is just good enough to be sold - even a small price is almost 100% gain for them.

 

[Dickie]

What a job...!!

I think you hit the nail on the head with that statement. What a job indeed, a job that a lot of people would love to get the chance to have a go at, hence there is a market for games which allow people to live out their TopGun fantasies. In a similar vein, Orbiter does well as it allows people to live out their Pete Conrad fantasies, not because it is educational.

Like people have already said, it's about entertainment, excitement and escapism, not whether a game is educational or not.

Me personally, I grew up building airfix kits and reading Biggles books. I've wanted to be a fighter pilot since I was knee high, and when I got into games I was drawn to stuff like IL2, Falcon 4.0, CFS etc because it allowed me to fly my virtual Spitfire round the skies chasing ME-109s, living out my dreams Snoopy-stylee (obviously minus the kennel).

As for your friend keeping his children offline because of violent games, he won't be able to shelter them in naivety forever. Allowing them to go online would also allow them to explore various educational things on their own as well. Sooner or later they will find out that the world isn't always a nice place whether he likes it or not.

The point to remember is that games are not real, so what you do in them is also not real.

 

[thomasantony]

Games are there for our enjoyment. I just recently spend nearly 17000 INR on a single graphic card. ( Which was unfortunately DOA and now I have to apply for RMA ) . That may be only like around ~ $360 but its a big sum of money around here. Many people with normal jobs dont get that much money as salary in a single month.

Me? Well I made some pocket money doing some freelance programming.

The reason I bought it is JUST FOR GAMING. And Orbiter is more of an on-and-off thing for me and I haven't really done any orbiting in many months. Meanwhile, I am itching to play Crysis, Crysis warhead, Assassin's creed, Call Of Duty 4 and 5, Half Life 2 Ep.2 etc. Its FUN, dont you get it? Killing zombies, aliens, bad guys, enemy soldiers, blasting buildings and tanks, high speed cop chases, lying in cover, giving cover for your team mates ( whether AI or human ).

That doesn't make me want to take a gun and shoot every living thing should I get a chance. For starters, I wouldn't even know how to use a gun.

Same thing about racing games. My mom saw me drving around in NFS most wanted driving on the pavement, breaking down lamp posts. I would NEVER drive that way in real life.

It is just the fact that what you do in games are not real, that makes them all the more fun. The more realistic it looks, the more the fun. You can do it, without worring about anything else. The adrenaline rush and the pure fun of FPS games and also racing games is something to be experienced.

Thats why those games become so popular and become cash cows for game developers.

 

[Usquanigo]

Games ARE educational. It's up to the person to learn sometimes, but in nearly every case *something* or other is being learned. And no, I'm NOT talking about the touchy-feely hippy crap about violence being acceptable or any of that other BS.

Platformers (side scrollers and the like) and the like enhance coordination and reflexes. They often improve the ability to identify things quickly.

Pseudo-RPGs improve imagination (to a point) and encourage teamwork and planning, and goal orientation.

Air Combat Sims get into some of the same teamwork (depending) but also get into move/counter move tacitcs at high speed. It's like chess at 300kmh (and 1Km up - speaking of prop sims, jets would be higher and faster, but a totally difference kind of strategy, prop simmers sometimes scare jet simmers because we can knifefight. :hotcool: )

FPS combines many of those elements.

Beyond that, games are made to entertain, but(!!), the reason they actually get made in the first place is because some people get together and think of something cool to do and set off to do it. That's how all games started, and that's how some of the best games ever have been created.

And the best selling games are actually not violent - the Sims is near the top of the chart. It's about accessibility and marketability, never about "education".

The bit about it being up to the person? An interest in a combat sim can spark an interest in aircraft, history, and aerodynamics, and lead to a LOT of education (particularly with the air of web fora).

Urwumpe is dead on right. Humans are animals, and the thought that one could know better than nature (the very thing that created you and you are a part of) is beyond arrogance. And it's also straight up wrong and disgusting as well.

 

[Urwumpe]

Urwumpe is dead on right. Humans are animals, and the thought that one could know better than nature (the very thing that created you and you are a part of) is beyond arrogance. And it's also straight up wrong and disgusting as well.

But that should also never be an excuse to fail improving our own nature.

Before you can improve the nature of mankind as huge diffuse mass of individuals, which you can only access in a coarse way as population, you have to know what it is. And IMHO, you should also always start at yourself.

Perfection is not achieved, when there is nothing left to be added, but when there is nothing left to be taken away.

One day, I will overcome all my weaknesses and ballast, and work on perfecting myself as I see me. I will shutdown my computer and learn smithing swords in my own small forge. When I have grown up. Later.

 

[Andy44]

The rediculous notion that removing violent video games results in less-violent people is shown false by the number of people murdered in the millions of years before humans invented violent video games. Violent games give you a chance to take out your agression on something imaginary instead of real people.

If it keeps a few people out of the bell tower, then it's all good.

Why am I responding to this thread, anyway? It's just another of ar81's rants.

 

[T.Neo]

people murdered in the millions of years before humans invented violent video games

There. You said it.

 

[Urwumpe]

The rediculous notion that removing violent video games results in less-violent people is shown false by the number of people murdered in the millions of years before humans invented violent video games.

Also, we had been far more creative in the forms of violence. Just look at the Medieval ways to punish capital and not-so capital criminals. Or look at Africa, where you have still only very little numbers of gamers, but where instead, the kids are dragged away from the families to serve the higher good. As child soldiers or child prostitutes, depending on the current priorities of the higher good.

 

[cjp]

Learning is fun, basically. Children have a built-in instinct that tells them to explore the world around them. You can especially see this with younger children.

Even the most popular games have some learning aspect in their gameplay. It's either about developing driving skills, or war tactics, or fighting skills. The first levels are easy, and when you advance, the levels become more difficult, so you have to learn how to play the game.

The problem with our modern learning system is that it somehow doesn't manage to catch the interest of all children. I don't know whether it's possible to improve this (after all, the skills people need in modern society are very different from the ones in the stone age, so the built-in learning instinct is probably not adapted to modern learning requirements), so I'm not criticizing anyone, but I do recognize a problem.

Somehow, games are much better in attracting people. Of course they are, as they are designed to be attractive, and their design isn't complicated by requirements like it actually has to be 'useful'. This is where the whole 'educational gaming' comes from: Have the attractiveness of games, while using the learning element for real education. Unfortunately, most educational games are very poorly designed.

Orbiter is good in the sense that it has a lot more 'coolness' than most educational methods, and it can actually teach you something about math and orbital mechanics, but I'm afraid that, to most people, it isn't nearly as attractive as the big commercial games. And this isn't about how well it's implemented: it is about the genre. The same applies for Flight Simulator, for instance.

 

[T.Neo]

@Urwumpe
Yeah, cases like Columbine, etc are because of mental illness, social rejection, etc.
Same goes for people who think listening to dark heavy metal rock music will make you mad...

Why, just the other day, a student in SA tried to slice another student's head off with a samurai sword. Blame was quickly put on metal music, where, in reality, it could be put on social rejection, etc.

People could easily be driven to that without playing violent video games or listening to dark metal music.

@cjp
What about "mass kill simulator". Would that be cool enough for the general public?

 

[Andy44]

What about "mass kill simulator". Would that be cool enough for the general public?

I use GTA Vice City as my mass kill simulator. It's especially fun when you start a gunfight with the cops and hole yourself up in a storefront and see how many you can mow down before you get bored or run out of ammo.

It's even more satisfying because people whine about the game being anti-police, which just makes it more cool to play. Appeals to the rebel in you.

 

[Urwumpe]

I use GTA Vice City as my mass kill simulator. It's especially fun when you start a gunfight with the cops and hole yourself up in a storefront and see how many you can mow down before you get bored or run out of ammo.

I play BF1942 for that desire. Nothing is more cruel than playing Germans on Ohama Beach, especially if you have opponents who are easily scared from charging you.

 

[Andy44]

Yes, I like to play the German side in the old Close Combat games for the same reason.

 

[simonpro]

I have been wondering why most of the commercial games you see around are about destruction, made in the most eye candy fashion.

Because explosions in high resolution are cool. Sesame Street isn't.

When taking control of U boat and I told him to fire a torpedo at a merchant, a friend who loves history and is father, asked me "why should I fire upon them, they have not done anything to me" and I told him "because high command instructed to do so".

Does he realise it's only a game? Shooting torpedos at pixels very rarely kills real people.

When I recently downloaded and played Defcon, I felt sick... 1.2 million people dead, 2 million dead... It was a game about genocide and extermination of human race. And the goal of the game was to exterminate more than your enemy. My wife felt terrified when she saw it.

IIRC that's the entire point of the game, to make people realise how insane nuclear war is.

So I wondered what makes educational games to have less development than games about destruction.

People don't like education. People do like blood and guts.

This is the same reason that, say, Bruce Willis movies sell pretty well whilst a movie about the history of knitting wouldn't.

 

[Notebook]

This is the same reason that, say, Bruce Willis movies sell pretty well whilst a movie about the history of knitting wouldn't.

History of knitting, marvellous, where can I buy it? Is it multi-player?

N.

 

[Urwumpe]

IIRC that's the entire point of the game, to make people realise how insane nuclear war is.

Exactly, a perfect example of the education behind playing a game. Together with a very stylish "Wargames"-inspired atmosphere.

 

[T.Neo]

Because explosions in high resolution are cool.

You don't have to be sesame street to be educational. On Mythbusters there are quite a few explosions, deadly machinary, dismembered crash test dummies, etc, yet I would regard it as having a very educational theme.

IIRC that's the entire point of the game, to make people realise how insane nuclear war is.

Yes, exactly. It makes you think.

 

[garyw]

I love orbiter and the way it's open. I enjoy planning a mission and learning from my (frequent!) mistakes but on some evenings and weekends I really don't want to be bothered with all the technicalities that Orbiter involves. I want to go blow something up and it's then I'll pull out GTA San Andreas and have a blast fest.

Sometimes you just want to sit down and wreck havoc.
You don't want to learn anything.
You want to see how many people you can kill with a sniper rifle before the cops get upset.

 

[Eagle]

Sometimes you just want to sit down and wreck havoc.
You don't want to learn anything.
You want to see how many people you can kill with a sniper rifle before the cops get upset.

I think GTA is less about the violence than it is to do something novel and competitive. See how many laps around an area you can do in a car with five stars. How long you can hold an intersection using only Molotov cocktails, etc. Its less about playing the game then testing the limits of the game.

After playing Battlefield 1942 for a while I tried as many weird things as I could. Jump off the hood of a jeep while you detonate dynamite underneath to fly 50 ft in the air and parachute back down. Repair an airplane in mid flight. Get kills by running over badguys flying 4 ft above the ground in a B-17. Ram ships into things, park them alongside each other so you can jump from one deck to annother. Snipe people from the wing of a B-17 way up in the sky. Jump out of your airplane onto a Stuka, damage it with a pistol until the computer ejects, repair it midair and fly away.

 

[T.Neo]

After playing Battlefield 1942 for a while I tried as many weird things as I could. Jump off the hood of a jeep while you detonate dynamite underneath to fly 50 ft in the air and parachute back down. Repair an airplane in mid flight. Get kills by running over badguys flying 4 ft above the ground in a B-17. Ram ships into things, park them alongside each other so you can jump from one deck to annother. Snipe people from the wing of a B-17 way up in the sky. Jump out of your airplane onto a Stuka, damage it with a pistol until the computer ejects, repair it midair and fly away.

What the?