recreation of a place or situation eg
mayor of a city, controlling financial
outlay and building works
• sports games
• strategy games - such as commanding
armies within recreations of historical
battles and wars.
Even with this taxonomy, there are
exclusions; a small number of games will
be released every year that defy
categorisation. In addition, some games
fall into more than one category; for
example, football manager games (where
you buy, sell, select and position players)
arguably fall into the categories of
simulation, strategy and sports games.
This classification also leaves out the
individual or multiplayer contrast, which is
making a real difference to how games can
be played.
2.2 THE PREVALENCE
OF GAMES PLAY
Statistics for game hardware and software
revenue and the volume of players indicate
a major social and entertainment culture
(though the actual ‘size’ of the mainstream
video game industry at present is open to
interpretation). Industry commentators and
digital game researchers often quote game
statistics in relation to other media. For
example, Sony’s Playstation2 console
launched in Japan in February 2000,
selling 980,000 units in its first weekend
and thus becoming the biggest launch of
any electronic consumer device in history
(Poole 2000). There is also the oft-quoted
observation that over the Christmas 1998
period in the US, one videogame (Zelda:
Ocarina of Time) grossed $160 million, far
exceeding the most popular cinema film
(A Bug’s Life). However, such simplistic
comparisons are increasingly questioned;
for example, the aforementioned
comparison does not take into account the
cost of the game ($50) against that of the
cinema ticket ($6), the demographics,
release dates, or the life of the product,
since it is common for up to 90% of film
revenue to be generated from DVD and
video rather than cinema release.
The recent transfer of characters between
computer game and cinema screen is
evidence that computer games, once seen
as a minority interest, are increasingly an
established and powerful aspect of our
cultural landscape. Such transfer does not
always work; many of the game ‘brands’
that have been turned into movies, such
as Resident Evil, Mario Brothers and Tomb
Raider, have been poorly received by both
critics and audiences. Similarly, most
attempts to produce ‘spin-off’ video
games based typically on summer
blockbuster movies have been poorly
received by critics and have failed
ultimately to sell in the volume that
successful games titles now do.
That said, digital games are clearly an
important part of most young people’s
lives today. Recent figures suggest that
nearly 70% of children play computer
games every week, and mobile games
play is increasingly common, with 68%
of children playing games on their phone
every week (Facer 2001). A growing body
of research points to games currently
being the most frequently used ‘interactive
media’ amongst children. Beentjes (2001)
and Feierabend & Klingler (2001) showed
that playing games was the most
prominent PC-related activity of children
between 6 and 13. |
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2.3 WHY DO PEOPLE PLAY GAMES?
Research on the motivations for games
playing have been carried out by
researchers across a number of
disciplines. One of the earliest, and most
cited, research works is by Thomas Malone
(Malone 1981) who identified three main
ways in which games were able to motivate
players: fantasy, challenge and curiosity.
Other research confirms these findings;
for example, in research using educational
software, Amory et al (1988) identified
curiosity (“what happens if I do this”)
as a common motive in playing a game.
Presumably the fact that something does
happen encourages players to proceed,
and the quality of what happens in terms
of user engagement is the factor that
keeps them playing. The TEEM data
suggests that degree of difficulty is
important here; for children to enjoy
playing, the game must be neither too
difficult nor too hard (McFarlane et
al 2002).
A key concept that frequently emerges in
the literature is that of ‘flow’, first
discussed by Csikszentmihalyi (1990). This
is summarised by several researchers as
“the state in which we are so involved in
something that nothing else matters”,
which has clear relevance to research into
games and play. Debate on the issue of
‘flow’ centres around how the ‘state’ can
be created in an individual, and measuring
how it might make a person more
receptive to receiving, comprehending and
using educational-based content and skills
(we will go on to discuss in more detail
how ‘flow’ might apply to the design of
learning games in Section 4).
A 2001 survey (ESA) produced four main
reasons for gameplay, namely:
• 87% of most frequent computer and
video game players said the number
one reason they play games is because
it’s fun
• games are challenging (72%)
• games are an interactive social
experience that can be shared with
friends and family (42%)
• games provide a lot of entertainment
value for the money (36%).
Therefore, no clear consensus emerges on
the reasons why people play digital games.
This is unsurprising since the games
themselves vary enormously and, as some
researchers point out, the individuality of
the player provides a sometimes complex
set of reasons for game play. Poole (2000)
notes that:
“Videogames are powerful, but they are
nothing without humans to play them. So
the inner life of videogames - how they
work - is bound up with the inner life of
the player.”
2.4 CONCERNS AROUND
COMPUTER GAMES PLAY
2.4.1 Games displacing
other activities
The impression of much of the massmedia,
and some research, is often of a
population of children playing video games
to the exclusion of all other activities. The
implication often being that time
traditionally dedicated to ‘better activities’
such as social play and physical
recreation, is spent on anti-social,
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for children to
enjoy playing,
the game must
be neither too
difficult nor
too hard |
