Novices, Gamers, and Scholars

From Brock University's Digital Humanities Compendium

[edit] Novices, Gamers, and Scholars: Exploring the Challenges of Teaching About Games

by Jose P. Zagal and Amy Bruckman

From Game Studies, volume 8, issue 2, December 2008

Reviewed by Spencer Roberts, February 13, 2010

Zagal and Bruckman’s article focuses on difficulties and possibilities present in courses that are devoted to teaching about games, whether in order to analyse, design, or development. They conducted a study in which they spoke to various instructors of game studies courses, hoping to find common issues and solutions.

In their study, they identified five main types of game studies courses:

• Game Design Analysis courses focus on the cultural history and impact of games, providing the students with a general idea of what games are, what impacts they can have, and how to analyse them.

• Game Design Practicum courses give students the tools to take apart previous games and design new games based on what they learn about game design.

• History and Culture of Game Design courses provide an overview of the history of computing and games in order to follow changes in game design and audiences.

• Theories of Games and Play courses direct students toward the theoretical side of game design and the social aspects of games, including how they are shaped by and shape our society.

• Nintendo Entertainment System courses deal solely with games produced on the NES, allowing students to critique the games from a contextual setting and design games using an emulator.

The study also found that student groups were often quite diverse, with many different disciplines being represented in single classrooms. This led to problems with common levels of discourse, but also allowed students to engage and perhaps adopt different perspectives. Students who have previous experience with games were found to be generally less open to the idea of critiquing and analysing video games, while those without previous experience were often found to struggle with playing games and learning the skills to achieve success in games. The instructors who were interviewed considered one of the hardest parts of their teaching to be helping students release their previous understandings of games, whether good or bad, in order to open themselves up to new ways of analysis.

Even when students were comfortable with the concept of critiquing games, instructors found that they had trouble expressing their views of games. Zagal and Bruckman suggest that this may be due to the lack of academic reviews and critiques on games, which prompts students to look to journalistic or gameplay-oriented reviews. Methods of addressing this issue include establishing a vocabulary of game ontology and game design patterns that students can use to voice their opinions.

Another major hindrance to studying video games is the amount of time and effort that is required to adequately accumulate experience and understanding of the game. Courses that intend to discuss a wide spectrum of games simply cannot require students to develop deep experience with each game because of the many hours that would be necessary. Thus, game studies courses usually either expect students to become the sole expert in one game within the class or establish a very shallow experience with a variety of games. This is a drawback for two reasons: option A does not provide enough breadth of experience, while option B provides not enough depth. Neither option is ideal.

The biggest issue that the study highlighted was the concern that the comparatively new field of game studies has no established canon, no understanding of the fundamentals of the field, and no sense of solidarity between the various departments or courses. Instructors may all use the same texts, but are often acting separately from all other game studies courses. This can be challenging, partly because instructors are isolated in their teaching, but also because students are accustomed to a certain level of certainty in their disciplines. While the lack of concrete answers for many questions can be unsettling for students, it also allows them to engage the primary issues of the field on a personal level, developing ideas and finding new methods of exploration.

Overall, Zagal and Bruckman have provided a valuable insight into the problematic nature of game studies, as well as offering various methods of teaching that attempt to address these problems. Unfortunately, they too are hindered by the lack of established doctrine within the field, and so leave the article asking many questions that have not yet been answered.