What Games Were Becoming in 2010

I found this book while looking at games as a possible field of work. It came out in 2010, when PC games were still central to the industry I knew and phones and social networks were beginning to change who could play and when. The authors were also writing into a debate that often treated games chiefly as a problem. They wanted to ask what a game could do.

Games Made for Something Beyond Play

The book uses the category of serious games for work that brings play to another task. Its examples include America’s Army as a recruitment project, the World Food Programme’s Food Force as a way to introduce food aid, and Wii Fit as a reason to move. A player can act on a rule and immediately see what follows. That gives a teacher or designer something different to work with.

The authors connect this possibility with the sense of absorption often called flow. They also turn to Raph Koster’s argument that learning to recognize patterns is part of what makes games fun. I could see how those ideas might help in a classroom. A game still has to be chosen for what the students are meant to learn.

The Short Session and the Social Network

Cafe World on Facebook is one example the book returns to. It was easy to enter the game through a network you were already using. Later, KakaoTalk games made that idea familiar in Korea. A phone and a few minutes became enough to start a session, and invitations traveled through a network of people you already knew.

The Technology You Hear as Well as See

The book turns briefly to engines and to sound. I liked the example of Foley, where a convincing sound can come from recording something other than the event on screen. A recorded clap may not sound like the clap the scene needs. The choice of sound is part of what makes an action feel real.

The social networks and devices have changed since 2010. The question I remember from the book is still open: what could someone learn, feel or do differently because they were able to take part in a game?