Why Games Work – The Science of Learning

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Gigi

Direct Link To Paper: Why Games Work – The Science of Learning. (PS – some external sites do not like direct links to a PDF format, so I used this blog post instead).

A few months ago, I had a realization. At first, it didn’t seem like much. A little side-step from what I was writing about. But, as I worked on it, I realized it was something more: a new idea. It sent chills up my arms. After much research, I couldn’t find many papers on the topic, so… I wrote my own.

The paper is: Why Games Work – The Science of Learning. It will officially be published/presented at the Modsim World 2011 Conference in October. But I want to open it up to get early feedback. Maybe I missed something. Maybe it’s been covered already. Help me refine the idea. Shout out and let me know.

Here’s the idea in a nutshell: the things that are known to improve learning are almost exactly the reasons why games work. In other words, games work because of the laws of learning.

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Conor Linehan 5 pts

You might be interested in reading this paper I published at ACM CHI last year that makes some very similar observations, and also suggests how behavioural psychology can be used as central the the educational game design process: http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/4475/1/linehan_et_al_ABA_games_authors_version.pdf 

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aztecmelong87 5 pts

 Conor Linehan do you happen to have researches or articles on principles of learning?

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It's my gravitas icon. I set it up in my own blog and now it appears everywhere :)

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Ok, I feel kind of silly, but I have to ask. How did you get a picture on the replies?

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Seems like a constant battle to balance the need to create great gaming experiences for end users but also meeting the needs of the decision makers. Some we win, some we lose. Until these two gel, or at least become more forgiving we wont see the industry grow to meet its full potential. And hopefully your paper will help us win some :D Unfortunately I'm not at SEIGE, ModSim or I/ITSEC but I am at Learning 2011. Based in the UK we have to be quite selective about which US conferences we visit!

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 Like Mauricio Magnus

As soon as I read the sentence 'Games work because of the laws of
learning.' I had to read on. I'm an instructional game designer and one of the challenges I come across in my role pretty much every day is to help people understand why games work. My background is in behavioural sciences and especially psychology so I've studied developmental behaviour and learning theory for years, and your paper provides a really nice summary for explaining the core aspects of learning theory and how they link to game design! Totally agree with everything you said and feel everyone in L&D interested in taking their training to the next level should read this! :)

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Great comment. I can totally relate. I've been on the game side of learning games for years and it always baffled me that the instructors/teachers and the game designers had such a hard time communicating. Instructional designers use a different vocabulary than the game designers, but at the end of the day, I think they're basically trying to deal with the same problem. Just from different perspectives.

I really enjoyed Raph Koster's book. That was the first time I had ever thought of 'fun is learning'. I mean growing up, you never hear that. Or maybe you do, but the school system focuses on grades and tests and performance. Somewhere along the way, the idea that learning and mastering skills is fun gets lost in the desire to achieve standards of learning. But, in games, that's EXACTLY what you do. You start with a new concept, then you apply the techniques in the game in different ways and learn all about the mechanics that the designer has created. Slowly, over time, you start to master the game and then at some point, you're done.

We've all played games where all of a sudden we just have no interest in playing anymore. One day I'm loving it and the next... no interest at all. That's the proof that we really do like learning and mastering patterns.

If you're attending the SIEGE Atlanta game conference, ModSim, or I/ITSEC, stop by and say hello.

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