The Sandbox

Back in 2005, NPR reported that the Institute for Creative Technologies (at USC), in conjunction with the Office of Naval Research, began using a sort of mash-up of Full Spectrum Warrior called "Virtual Iraq" to treat soldiers with post traumatic stress disorder. Maintaining a significant amount of control over what happens in the scenario, therapists were able to manage the amount of violent, anxiety-producing activity that the soldiers were exposed to virtually.

In the wake of this week's Games for Change conference in New York, I begin to wonder if this gulf between academia and the games industry might be closing somewhat. Not only were many of this week's sessions geared toward the creation of social consciousness raising games, but there was a significant emphasis on marketing as well.

Here is the gulf, indeed. In academia, technology as a vehicle for teaching and learning (as opposed to research) creeps along like a stagecoach, while the games industry in general begins to swarm and consolidate into vast money-making machines, squeezing out the little guy with inventive ideas and other agenda than bursting their piggy banks.

So neither gets to benefit from the other's expertise.

It still shocks me to see how many "serious" games out there have very little "theory" behind them to marry their intentions and gameplay to actual pedagogical or consciousness-raising effect. Serious Games seem to be stuck in a loop of pushing the motivational and stealth-educational advantages of information transmission, rather than spurring analysis, systems-thinking, and interactive debate. To be honest, I would rather read a few cogent, concise paragraphs on, say, the situation in Darfur, than to run a character through a grassland looking for fuel wood and dodging space-invader bombs in the form of slaver trucks.

Without serious experimentation and analysis with games as educational tools, however, there is no solid basis from which to convince educators of more than the vaguest of benefits for game-oriented educational activity. It's a catch-22.