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PROFESSOR: So today in class,
we've got a guest lecturer.
Scott Osterweil from the MIT
Education Arcade at MIT Game
Lab's going to be talking
to us about learning
and play in games to put us
in the mindset for the games
that you're making that
feel like they might
be educational or more
about awareness, to take
some ideas from him on that.
Then after that, we're
going to do a play test.
So this is your
first opportunity
to give staff and clients,
if our clients show up,
the experience of
playing your games
and giving you some feedback
on the low-fidelity prototypes
that you have right now.
And again, they could be
digital or non digital.
That's going to be
pretty quick today.
We don't need everybody to
play everybody else's games,
if you don't like.
So what we're going have
you do is set up your games.
I expect if they're
paper, you probably only
have one copy of your game
running at any one time.
So just make sure
that everyone who's
on the team who is not playing
is observing and taking notes.
If you do have digital
and would like to set up
multiple stations, please do.
It's always helpful.
Our next play test
is November 5.
We're having the
class from 21W032,
the Introduction to
Digital Media class
taught by Ed Barrett.
They'll be coming in at the
end of the day at about 3:00
PM to test your digital games.
So on November 5, it's
a good opportunity
for a first playable
version of your digital game
to get tested by people
who are not in the class.
And then after play test today,
we'll take a quick break.
And then we'll do presentations
where each team will come up
here, and you've basically
got the floor for two minutes.
We want to hear what is the
state your game right now,
basically referring back
to your product backlog.
What are the features
that are planned?
What did you test today?
What does your build
look like today,
your low-fidelity
prototype look like today?
And just let us
know how it's going.
We're going to ask for a number
of these short two-minute
presentations throughout
the rest of the semester.
And those dates are in the
handout for project four.
And I'll be making mention
of them as we go along.
And then the remainder of
class, you've got about hour
to an hour and a half at the
end of class to work in class.
I'm going to let you
know how much time you're
going to have time for working
in class for future days.
This Wednesday, you'll probably
have about two full hours
in class to work, looking at
what our lecture schedule looks
like.
So that's that.
Any questions about
what we're doing today?
Any questions
about project four?
OK.
I'm going to hand
it off to Scott.
SCOTT OSTERWEIL:
[INAUDIBLE], this
is the [INAUDIBLE] switch
you were talking about?
PROFESSOR: Yep, I'm
switching it over right now.
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Well,
it's nice to see you all.
I see at least two faces
from-- three from classes
that I taught, so forgive
me for those of you who may
have heard some of this before.
So this was sort of
teed up as if I'm
going to talk to
you about education,
but I'm actually not going to
talk to you about education.
I'm going to talk to you
about something else entirely.
Maybe we'll get around
to education by the time
we're done.
But what I want you to do right
now-- hang on one second--
is turn to the
person next to you
and play a quick
round of tic-tac-toe.
So I do like doing
this, even though it's
hard to get people to stop.
It's actually kind
of interesting to me.
When I've done this with an
audience of about 300 people,
it takes a long time to
corral everybody back,
which is really remarkable.
If you weren't
playing a game, I hope
you were at least looking
around and noticing
that the room got
kind of loud and there
was a fair amount of laughter,
and noise, and animation,
which is really
remarkable when you
consider the fact that
tic-tac-toe is a stupid game.
That by age eight,
you had figured out
that there was no point
in playing tic-tac-toe
because you almost
always play it to a draw.
I'm always amazed when I ask a
bunch of adults, which you are,
to play tic-tac-toe,
how into it they get.
And I think in the end,
it's the thing I really want
to talk about, which is play.
I know you guys have been
in a class studying games.
Have you talked much
about the word play?
Good.
We are all in the
business of making games,
and yet we don't stop
much to think about play.
But play is not something that
was invented with the Atari.
People have been playing
games for a long time.
The oldest known game
implements are older
than the oldest known writing.
I don't know how many
of you know art history,
but this is the
late 16th century
in what's now Belgium,
the low countries--
Flanders in those days.
The great genre
painter Pieter Bruegel,
who did a painting called
Children's Games, in which he
documented over 100
games that scholars have
been able to identify
as real games that
were played at that time.
And if you think about
it, at that point
there wasn't really much of
a thing called childhood.
That by the age of 11
or 12, you were probably
working in the family
business, whatever it was.
You were expected to take
on adult responsibilities.
And yet clearly, play was still
a huge part of their lives.
Now, this is a
fanciful painting.
He was not trying to
be realistic here.
But the point was play was a
huge part of their lives then.
So we know that they
were playing back
in the 16th century.
We know they were
playing 6,000 years ago.
We actually know that
our ancestors played too,
that other vertebrates play.
In fact, Edwin Wilson has sort
of argued that ants play too,
but let's just stick to
vertebrates for a minute.
When mountain goats play--
there's a alpine mountain
goat-- they play
by-- and by the way,
let me just say quickly
from my definition,
play is the stuff
you do when you don't
have to do something else.
You don't have to get food.
You don't have to evade
capture, or protect your young,
or procreate, or find shelter.
When you don't have to do all
that stuff-- some of which
you do playfully, by
the way-- but when
you don't have to do that
stuff and you're on your own,
you play.
And so mountain goats
play by actually chasing
each other around the mountains
and jumping from cliff
to cliff, ledge to ledge.
And they do it in
spite of the fact
that mountain goats
will occasionally
fall to their deaths.
And if we know anything
about evolution,
we know the behaviors that lead
to the deaths of individuals
are behaviors that are
more likely to die out,
unless there is some
advantage to the behavior that
outweighs the risk.
And it would easy
to assume from this
that mountain goats
are learning how
to do the things they need
to do, like jump and land
on precarious ledges.
That that's what they're
learning through their play.
We might extend
that thinking when
we look at an image like this.
By the way, you can find images
like this on the internet.
Anyway, so we've all seen
images of cats or puppies
fighting, playing at games that
look like fighting or hunting.
And if we take that example
and the example of the mountain
goats, it's easy to conclude
that play is about rote memory.
It's about learning to do
things through repetition.
But they've done a study
where they prevented kittens
from the opportunity to
play while they grow up,
play with other cats.
And it turns out they learn
how to hunt just fine.
What they don't
know how to do is
how to interact with
other cats or make
other more complex decisions.
What I'm going to argue
is play is about something
far more involved that just sort
of rote memory and repetition.
Last animal example.
They did a study where they
gave an otter a fish every time
it swam through a hoop.
Now, if you think about
what an otter's needs are,
that otter was rich
beyond its wildest dreams.
Everything it needed
was right there just
by swimming through the hoop.
So did the otter retire as we
might do if all our needs were
taken care of?
No, it started swimming
through the hoop upside down,
backwards.
Playing with a hoop with
its way of exploring
how the world worked.
The otters-- I assume
there's more than one--
the otters knew that swimming
through a hoop got fish.
They wanted to find out
what else it could do.
And again, this is when
survival is no longer an issue.
So play is really the way in
which we explore the world.
Just looking at these
images of children,
there are four different
continents here,
four very different
kinds of games.
But I'd argue the affect
is the same in all of them,
and that what's going
on in all of them
is the same thing, that
the kids in these pictures
are really constructing their
understanding of the world
through play.
What I want to argue is
that through play, we
begin to build the kinds
of conceptual structures
that we are going to then
engage with more formally
in other spheres of life.
And I could argue that
it's only for children,
but I'm going to
argue further that it
doesn't stop in childhood.
But sticking with
childhood for just a moment
and using my own
personal example.
I loved playing with
blocks when I was a kid.
And this is all
pre-kindergarten.
I can remember the
pleasure of discovering
that two square blocks
were the same size as one
rectangular block, and
two rectangular blocks
were the same size
as one big block.
And the kicker was that
that was equal to four
of the little square blocks, and
that those relationships could
then be replicated elsewhere.
That that was a pattern
that I could find elsewhere
in the world.
And so pre-kindergarten
now, what I am really doing
is developing a primitive,
but I would say robust sense
that math is the way we
actually model the world.
That we can actually model
the world mathematically.
Now obviously, as four-year-old,
me couldn't have said that.
Four-year-old me couldn't even
necessarily answer 2 plus 2
equals.
But four-year-old me knew
something far more robust.
I was starting to
really understand
that the world could be
described mathematically,
and that that was why
I was primed to be
a relatively good math student.
The challenge, though, is that I
just played with blocks the way
I chose to play with them.
No one made me.
In fact, if you'd sat me
down and say play with blocks
and discover what you can about
numbers, I might have refused
and age four.
Players' motivations are
entirely intrinsic and personal
in all play.
You cannot make somebody play.
I think it's helpful to think
about it as if there were
four freedoms present in play.
Freedom to experiment.
I thought I had
revised the slides.
I really sort of revised that.
I think it's better say freedom
to explore is the better word.
But what I was doing
with those blocks
was seeing things about
the blocks that were not--
the package showed
pictures of things
you could build with
the blocks, but that's
not what I was doing.
I was sort of exploring
properties of the blocks
that no one was
telling me to look for.
Freedom to fail.
If you played with
blocks, you probably
built a tower that
eventually fell down,
and you probably learned a lot
from the tower falling down.
You probably, in fact,
persisted at trying
to get the tower to stand up.
And along the way, you were
learning all sorts of stuff
about mechanics and physics.
Freedom of identity.
If you think about
doll play for a minute,
a kid in the floor of
their room acting out
conflict between two dolls,
or stuffed animals, or action
figures is really exploring all
the roles in their own family,
in their world.
A kid who plays at Luke
Skywalker versus Darth
Vader is really figuring
out what part of him
or herself is Luke
Skywalker and what part
is Darth Vader, because we think
we have both of them in us.
And that's what we
explore through play.
In less than a week, on
Friday, a fair number of you
are going to engage in identity
play at a fairly large scale,
so it's not just
a childhood thing.
I mean, I'm talking about
Halloween, obviously.
And anyone who's ever
played World of Warcraft
or any number of games knows
that in fact, through games,
we play with our
identity over time.
Finally, freedom of
effort is the freedom
to really play hard
or play relaxed.
You cannot make
somebody play hard.
And if you watched
the pattern of play,
people will play intensely.
They will suddenly ease up.
Again, stick to World of
Warcraft for a minute,
sometimes you want to grind.
You just want to do the
mindless stuff for a while.
And sometimes you want to
enter into an intense battle.
They both happen.
So here's the challenge for us.
The player's
motivations are entirely
intrinsic and personal,
as I've already said.
And I'm also arguing
that obviously, learning
is happening through play.
But how do we channel
play into learning
while still allowing
for its fundamentally
open-ended nature?
So if you, as Rick
said, are going
to be making games in
which you want to-- well,
I hope you're thinking about
real learning rather than just
conveying information.
And I'll get to
that in a minute.
But whatever it is you're
doing, theoretically you
want to make a good
game, they still
have to have the
freedom to play.
You don't have a
game without play.
You can have something that
has the structure of a game
without play, but
it won't really
be a game if
they're not playing.
But anyway, so that's
where games come in.
That's how we can channel
learning sometimes
while still being open ended.
And just to use the most absurd
example, think about golf.
It was Bernard Suits who
originally used this example.
But in golf, you're
hitting a very small ball
with a very long stick.
Anyone golf here?
Yeah, that's what the normal
percentage is in a class.
But it's hard, right ?
The first time you
swung the golf club,
you might have missed
the ball entirely, right?
Yeah.
Sometimes even when you start
connecting with the ball,
it goes the wrong direction.
It goes 10 feet, 20 feet.
When you can finally
hit it some distance,
it goes into the water,
it goes into the woods.
It costs $2.50 every
time you lose a ball.
If your goal, after all, is
to get the ball in the hole,
why don't you just pick it
up, and walk to the other end
of course, and drop it in?
The golf game would
go much quicker.
You'd never lose a ball.
You have a lot more success.
But no one chooses to
play golf that way.
If you think about
it, people choose
to play golf by moving
the ball to the hole
in the single
stupidest way possible.
And as Bernard Suits
said in this context,
games are really
about overcoming
unnecessary obstacles.
And unnecessary is critical
here because every game
is, by definition, unnecessary.
If you're really
playing, it's voluntary.
It's not required.
Your survival does
not depend on it.
So by definition, every
game is unnecessary,
and therefore the obstacles
in every game are unnecessary.
And the game is the
voluntary overcoming
of unnecessary obstacles.
So why do we do it?
Why would we do all that?
Well, in games we
willingly submit
to arbitrary rules
and structures
in pursuit of mastery because
that's what's going on in golf.
Even in golf.
You think it's hard, and yet
even though you missed the golf
ball the first time, you
think, I think I can hit it.
And then eventually
you do hit it
and you say, I think
I can hit it further
and I think I can
hit it straighter.
And in fact, the game
gives you feedback.
The game is continually
giving you feedback
as to how you're doing.
No matter how
ridiculously hard golf is,
you set for yourself
proximal goals.
I'm going to hit a little
straighter, a little further.
And the game lets you do that.
No one runs out
into the golf course
and says, stop, you didn't
hit the ball far enough,
or yells at you and says, hit
it further, further, right?
They let you
playfully explore what
you can do with that golf ball.
And you keep saying
I'm getting better,
and so you keep playing golf.
And that's true with every game.
And I'll talk about a couple
other examples going forward
about that.
So games give you proximal goals
which seem worth achieving,
but only if you can
continue to be playful.
And that's I think
the thing we sometimes
lose sight of when we're making
games is the playfulness.
We remember the goal.
We remember that there's
an outcome that we want.
And we remember that we want the
player to get to that outcome.
But we forget about
playfulness, which means we
either make a game
that's too easy.
We lead them right
to the outcome.
That's like picking up the ball
, and walking to the other end,
and dropping it in the hole.
And a lot of games do that.
Or we just figure I'm going
to make it really hard.
I don't care whether
they enjoy themselves.
They're going to get there.
And of course they don't.
They quit.
It's one thing to
define a challenge.
That's important.
The real art in it is
defining a proximal challenge,
one that people can reach.
And I would argue that if
you're talking about games
in which you want to
convey information
or you want people to learn
something, all of that
has to hold true.
And in fact, the other
thing I'm arguing,
obviously, is that at in every
game, people are learning.
That the reason you
like playing golf
is because you're learning.
And Raph Koster sets
this out really well
in the Theory of Fun,
the book A Theory of Fun.
But that basically, the
fundamental pleasure
of gameplay is
learning, is learning
to master the game,
which means in a sense,
if you're doing
a game and you've
got some goal for some learning
to happen, all you've got to do
is make that learning
interesting and worth
achieving by giving people
the right set of goals
to work toward it.
So I keep talking kind of
interchangeably between play
and learning.
And yet the four freedoms
of play, which I'm arguing
are the four
freedoms of learning,
are not the four
freedoms of school.
If you think about school, and
I'm not talking about MIT right
now, if you think about your
own high school experience--
high school is particularly
bad-- what kind of freedom
is there?
Freedom to fail?
Not so much.
Freedom to explore?
Well, I mean, even a
high school science lab,
everyone is expecting to get
the same results by following
the exact same procedure, right?
And that's the most experimental
you ever get in school.
Certainly no freedom of
effort or freedom of identity.
You sit in your
same seat every day
and you're expected to
behave the exact same way.
And you're expected
to work equally hard.
You can't come in and say I
don't feel like working today.
So there's very
little play in school,
at least as it's
currently embodied.
And this is why I
mention school here,
is because I think
one of the challenges
if you're an MIT student is
that you were probably pretty
good at the game of school.
You probably did what
was required of you.
You probably didn't
necessarily recognize
that doing the things that
school required of you
is not when you were
actually learning,
that that was just
playing the game.
That the learning was
more self-motivated
and more self-directed.
And so frequently people,
when they turn around
and try to make anything
to do with learning,
whether it's a game, or write
a book, or create a curriculum,
they replicate everything
that's bad about school.
And the reason I don't like to
say I make educational games
is because when you think
of educational games,
you think of all the bad
games that have replicated
what's bad about school.
Games that have largely taken
the dead carcass of a game
and stuffed it full
of academic content.
So you're going
to shoot at aliens
and you're going to
memorize your times table.
Now, what aliens have to do
with times tables, I don't know.
Any I'd even argue that
memorizing your times table
is of questionable value.
There may be a place
for it, but it's
certainly not what being good
at math is about, fundamentally.
And too often,
games for learning
end up being about simply
I'm going to feed you content
that would be
boring in a lecture
or boring in a textbook.
And guess what?
It's going to be just
as boring in a game.
The only difference
is we're going
to surround it with things that
we think you think are fun,
like shooting at aliens.
So it sort of
translates into people
thinking that what
the world needs
is something like
Grand Theft Calculus.
But in fact, without
playfulness, a game
is just going
through the motions.
It's just gym class.
Volleyball in gym is not
the same as volleyball
at the beach, and there's
a reason for that.
And even smart MIT
kids making games
when they think there's
learning involved end up
reverting to gym
class, to just I'm
going to make you play this
game to learn this stuff
you don't want to learn.
Just to talk about
the difference
between a good learning game
and a bad learning game,
let's talk about difference
between spelling bee
and Scrabble.
In a spelling bee, most of
us, when we do a spelling bee,
are nervous.
Our palms are sweating.
We think we're going to fail.
Eventually the
moment comes where
they say no, you're wrong.
Sit down.
You're probably relieved.
When they say, you're wrong,
sit down, nobody says to you,
well, that was interesting
that you spelled it that way,
or I can understand why you
might have chosen to spell it
that way, because
it rhymes with-- no.
They just say you're
wrong, sit down.
And that's the end of it.
The end of a spelling bee, one
person feels good, the winner.
Maybe the kid who comes
in second feels OK.
Everyone else is relieved
because they don't
have to do spelling anymore.
And I first coined this analogy
thinking about bad games.
But I later came to
realize that it's bigger
than that, because
if you think about--
so I don't know how
many of you know this,
but 7% of the
population in the US
graduates high
school saying they're
good at math, which means
we take an hour a day
for 12 years teaching
93% of the population
that they're not good at math.
We would be doing them all a
big favor by in kindergarten,
saying you're not going to do
math and just leave it at that.
Or better yet, we
could figure out ways
that teaching
method that actually
were meaningful and relevant to
people, rather than making them
feel like they're
not good at math.
So that's a bad game.
And so what I'm really arguing
is that school is a bad game.
School is a game in
which we reward people
for learning how
to play at school.
Sometimes they're
smart at some things.
I'm not saying that
there aren't people.
But largely our goal
is to weed people out.
And we filter some
people into some fields
because they seem good at it.
For everyone else, we're
sort of convincing them
that they-- whew, I don't
have to study anymore.
I'm done with school.
I never have to
learn anything again.
That's the way most people
end up leaving school.
Scrabble, you sit down.
You got your board.
You got your tiles.
You're moving
around all the time.
You're being creative even
in the downtime just thinking
about all the words you know.
If you never win a
game of Scrabble,
you have all sorts of
other proximal goals,
like getting a 50-point word,
or getting a triple word score,
or getting the highest
score you ever got.
Just like golf, it gives
you lots of feedback.
By the way, most
people who play golf,
they're not in a tournament.
They're not playing
to win a game.
They made their own game.
Maybe I'm going to get a lower
score than I got last time,
or maybe I'm going to get at a
lower score than the person I'm
playing with.
Well, at Scrabble,
it's the same thing.
So you're continually setting
your own goals within the game.
The game has goals.
It has something called victory.
And we all may aspire
to that victory,
but we have lots of other
ways of measuring ourselves
that are not about victory.
And every player makes up
their own game within Scrabble,
and golf, and any good game.
We actually all play a different
game when we play a game,
and that's not a
fault to the game.
So one last thing I sort of want
to bring into the conversation
as we think about
this is an expression.
It dates back to around the same
time as the Bruegel painting.
But in English, we first see the
expression all work and no play
makes Jack a dull boy.
And at first, your
first response
is that's a good thing, right?
Yes, play is important.
So it seems to be a
statement in support
of what I've been saying.
But the only trouble with it is
that it also sort of suggests
that there is this dichotomy.
There's work and there's play.
And I may have sort
of suggested it
by saying it's the
thing you do when you
don't have to do anything else.
But then I did
modify that by saying
that you do some of these
other things playfully as well.
And in fact, when
we go into school,
we think that there's
learning and there's play
and they're different.
But in fact, I'm going to go
quickly through those slides
and just go up to
here and just say
I think we really need to
think of it more like this.
And we need to think about
situating things here.
And fun, by the way.
Let me just be clear about fun.
Fun is not giggles.
Fun doesn't even necessarily
require a smile on the face.
If you think about yourself
playing a video game
at age 11 or 12,
there were probably
moments where your
tongue was sticking out,
and you're cross
eyed, and you're
yelling at the screen,
that's not fair,
and you threw your controller.
And then you beat the game
and said, that was fun.
And Seymour Papert a retired
professor from the Media Lab,
is the one who coined
the term hard fun.
And hard fun is not
a special category.
I would argue that lots of fun
is hard fun, maybe most fun.
Certainly most
games are hard fun,
and that most good
learning is hard fun.
The things you learn that
aren't fun, yes, there
may be some value to
memorizing your times tables,
but it doesn't make
you a mathematician.
That's not where the
real learning happened.
There's things you have to
memorize-- although I heard
somewhere that a
10th grade biology
student has to memorize
more words than a 10th grade
French student.
And if you think about it, how
many of us, other than those
of us who go to biology,
ever use all those words
that we memorized about?
None of it.
So, I mean, I think too much
of our vision of learning
is still based on memorizing
stuff that you then
get tested on, rather
than building up
cognitive structures
that you can then
work with through the rest
of your life, which is what
we really want people to do.
That's my point, because
I know you're doing
this work with the Red Cross.
You have information
you want to convey.
I want to argue that if
the information you want
to convey fits on a 3
by 5 card and people
can carry it around
with them, then
there's no point in
making a game of it.
So just to do a
parallel example,
I've done games for the working
poor, games where the goal is
to explain to them that they
shouldn't take out payday loans
or take on credit card debt.
Well, in fact, you could
write that on a 3 by 5 card.
If I handed it to
most people and said
don't take out a payday
loan, don't take out
credit card debt, they would
nod, and smile, and agree.
And then they would
go and do it when
they were in extremis, anyway.
They don't do it
blithely, but they do it.
But my point is that the
understanding that you really
need is more subtle
and more complicated.
You really want to give people
some functional understanding
of something.
So when we did that game,
what we really tried to do
is put people in the situations
in which they might otherwise
get loans and help them see
what the alternatives were.
That that was the important
learning, and helping them
recognize those moments.
The learning was sort of
helping them, and helping
them feel empowered to be
able to make decisions.
So we were doing lots of
stuff beyond conveying
the information don't take
out of credit card debt.
And so similarly, I think you're
doing games where you probably
think you want to
convey information,
but that's all information
that could fit on a pamphlet,
or on a 3 by 5 card,
and you probably really
don't want to make
a game out of that.
You probably really want
to make a game that's
going to be about helping people
through some experience master
something.
And through their sense
of mastery, change them.
So I think that's it
in a nutshell, what
I want to say, and just use the
rest of the time for questions.
And then you're to see
your paper projects
with everybody else.
Any questions?
Yes.
AUDIENCE: So a lot of
your initial description,
it actually sounded
like grad school.
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Yeah?
AUDIENCE: So I feel
like grad school
is quite the opposite of
what you're saying school is.
PROFESSOR: Yeah?
Say a little more, because
not everyone knows.
So [INAUDIBLE] and fail,
because [INAUDIBLE]
why did you go to grad school?
Because you can explore things.
You can fail.
You can do a project
that doesn't work,
that nobody's really
going to get mad at you.
You just do the next paper.
Afterwards, you can try
as hard as you want.
And there are days
when you don't
feel like [INAUDIBLE] too much.
I'm not sure about identity.
PROFESSOR: Right.
Well, a lot of people
enter grad school
thinking they're
going to do one thing
and end up leaving
doing something else.
They have that freedom to.
I mean actually, that's
true of undergraduate too.
I would say undergraduate,
and certainly at MIT, it
seems to me slightly
more playful.
Well, I don't know.
I'm not familiar.
I don't know what it's like
the freshman year, when
you're doing all those psets.
I don't know what that's like.
I was a theater major
at a different school,
so I don't know
what that's like.
But I do see, and particularly
in upperclassmen, a fair amount
of play in your work.
But I think it is true.
What I'm really
arguing at core is
that what real education is
about is learning how to learn,
is learning all
the kinds of things
you need to do to
know how to learn.
And some of it means just
having your natural curiosity
positively reinforced instead
of negatively reinforced.
Kids are naturally curious.
They don't have any
trouble asking questions.
We slowly start doing
things that make
people stop asking questions.
We killed the curiosity
in most people.
And so I'm really
arguing that education
should be about
maximizing your curiosity
so that you continue to
ask interesting questions
for the rest of your life.
So my example of
math, I don't see
why there's no reason why
everyone who graduates
high school couldn't,
when they then
hear a politician
quote a statistic,
say how does he know that?
Where did that
statistic come from?
And when you read a
survey, say that question
doesn't seem like a
good survey, or that's
correlation, not causation.
Those are all things we can
learn in high school math,
for example.
So it's much more about learning
how to think than it is about--
and for statistics, it's far
more important to know how
to ask those questions than it
is for everybody to know what
the r value is of something.
I think that's a term in
the statistics, isn't it?
Yeah.
I haven't taken statistics.
And the reason I'm
going back to sort
of trying to talk to you about
what education should be about
is because if you do games
for learning, particularly
because they're
games, get you've
got to shake the false
model of learning is
and go for the truly
playful model--
because otherwise,
it'll be the same kind
of boring educational game
that probably made you look
askance at having to listen to
me at all in the first place,
because that's
what you thought I
was going to be talking about.
Yes.
AUDIENCE: What's your opinion
on games that by structure makes
it easy or hard for the players
who play with a lot of effort,
like hard work, or play
without a lot of effort?
SCOTT OSTERWEIL:
You can do a game
that's all-- requires
nothing but 100% effort.
And in a sense, the play is
who decides to play that game.
The people who are
willing to put themselves
through 100% effort all the
time, they voluntarily do that.
And so you've found
your audience.
I'm not saying you couldn't
do a game like that.
I'm saying that it's likely that
in the course of most people's
gameplay, they're going to
have this need to-- a game
where you get on the rails
and the clock is going,
and you guys [INAUDIBLE].
That's why there's
usually plateaus
of some kind or another.
There's an acknowledgement
that people
need to stop and take a breath.
Even if it's just a
plateau, a savepoint,
there's some
acknowledgement of that.
I think games where
there's actually
some combination of really
intense play and more
relaxed play can sometimes
be more satisfying.
So I'm not saying that a
game can't be all hard--
or the other side of
it, Farmville clearly
was very popular with lots
of people who really wanted
to do kind of mindless stuff.
I guess we all have
the need sometimes
for non-taxing-- so there's
nothing wrong with a game which
requires almost all
in or very little in.
It's just that the
reality is, the player is
going to move fluidly from
one state to the other.
And if your game can accommodate
that, so much the better.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE],
there's something
that I want to
comment on [? that. ?]
It is totally possible to
play Farmville extremely
in hard fun, isn't it?
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Yeah.
AUDIENCE: I had a
interesting [INAUDIBLE]
just playing [? for them ?]
and that required very, very
precise timing [INAUDIBLE].
So it is possible [INAUDIBLE].
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Yeah.
And the point is
that Phillip chose
to make it that kind of game.
And everybody will
choose to make
it that kind of--
too many games,
I think we freely make
the mistake of imagining
a certain path for a
player on the win state,
and we design the game
around that player,
following the path
to the win state.
And we forget to think
about all of the time
that players are
likely to spend either
trying to break the game,
or play in different modes,
or in fail state.
I mean, one of the things
I encourage students to do
is make sure that the failure
is the most interesting part
of your game, because if your
game is at all challenging,
people are going to be spending
a lot of time in failure mode.
A, you want to reward
them and say that's OK.
We're happy to see you here.
And b, you want to make sure
that it remains entertaining
while they're in failure
mode so they don't quit.
Like I said, I think
it's an easy mistake
to fixate on what's the
path to success look
like, and not think about
what the whole gameplay
experience is like.
And that gets worse when
people have an agenda,
like a game for the Red Cross.
We really fall into that trap.
And that's why so many
serious games seem
so serious, and
earnest, and humorless,
because all the
designer thought about
was the player earnestly
achieving the goals
that the designer set
out for the player,
rather than thinking
about the player playing.
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: I guess this goes
back to your example about golf
[INAUDIBLE] and not having
somebody yell at you for not
hitting the ball straight.
How do you think
that kind of goes
with the existence
of golf teachers, who
are paid to essentially tell
you you're doing it wrong?
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: I guess I'm thinking
of my own dad and [INAUDIBLE]
my sister, who have very
different opinions about a golf
coach telling them
to do it right.
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: So
the relevant thing
there is that they elected to
have a golf coach tell them
to do that at a certain point in
their-- if you started somebody
with a golf coach
yelling at them-- now,
it could be very gentle, loving,
helpful person, in which case
it might go fine.
But chances are if you started
somebody with someone standing
over their shoulder telling
them what to do every moment,
they probably would never
develop a real interest in it.
So the point which you elect
to have somebody there,
you have your reasons now.
You have your motivation.
And so that's a different
experience at that point.
I think lots of kids
who get turned off
to musical instruments
or sports because too
early in the experience,
they're forced
into sort of just reproduce the
results that some adult wants
you to reproduce, rather than
explore this and figure out
where your motivation is.
Well, thanks.
But I'm sticking around, so if
you have any other questions,
I'm happy to take them.
PROFESSOR: Another
reason I wanted
to ask you to come
and talk to class.
So we mentioned a couple of
the other game classes we have
at MIT that we're teaching.
And you teach 615, the
Games for Social Change?
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Games
for Social Change, yeah.
PROFESSOR: Next fall, right?
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Yeah,
that'll be next fall.
PROFESSOR: Can you
say a little bit
about what that class entails?
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Yeah.
And Sabrina took it.
It's sort of taking the same
principles that I was talking
about and using them to
think about if you're
interested in social change
and how you could use for that,
understanding that you
can't make people change.
And so the question is,
how can you use play
to actually encourage change?
And so probably we're
looking critically
at how society works.
And the task we're trying this
year for the first time-- well,
you're doing two big
projects this year.
We're just now finishing a
project on the theme of walls
to go in conjunction with the
25th anniversary of the Berlin
Wall coming down.
And that's going to be
on display at the Goethe
Institute, which is
a place in Boston,
and it may also be
on display in Munich
at the same time, the games.
And then we're going
do a project where
we try to actually
look at some system
in society, like school,
which is a bad game,
and try to redesign
it as a good game.
Not make a game about school,
but rather redesign school
itself as if it were a game.
Every year we try
different stuff.
The one thing I
like to try to do
is come up with
projects that actually
have-- for which you're doing it
with somebody besides just me.
I don't just want students
doing stuff for me.
I want them doing it for
some bigger audience,
and we try to do
that in every game,
every semester [INAUDIBLE].
And that's [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Cool.
Yeah.
So if you really
like what you're
doing right now with the Red
Cross/Red Crescent project,
and you want do more
of this kind of stuff,
take a look at that in the fall.
And if you're looking
for some help or insight
about the design of your
project this semester,
the Games for Social
Change materials
are on the
OpenCourseWare website.
And we'll post those
readings and materials there
so you can take a look at that.
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: It's
a bit of a seminar,
so I think there's no lectures.
And so I think there's a lot--
PROFESSOR: The readings.
SCOTT OSTERWEIL: Yeah.
And they're not
always explicitly
about what we end up
talking about in class.
So I don't promise that
they'll always be helpful.
But anyway, they're more
like thought starters
than [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: All right.
So it's 1:48.
Take a really quick break.
And then set yourself up
into your five groups,
and set up your play test.
We'd like to start
doing play test at 2:00.
So 12 minutes from now,
if that's possible.
Do you think it's enough time?
So we're about to get started.
How many stations do
you have for testers?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
many [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: How many
are you going to have?
Three?
All right, three.
Cool.
If you're not using your
computer to run a game,
then close it or set it
aside so people know.
How many stations are you
going to have over here?
AUDIENCE: Two.
PROFESSOR: Two?
And group behind you,
how many workstations?
Four?
How many workstations
are you going to have?
Two?
And in the back, how many?
One?
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 9, 12.
So basically if you have--
there's one, two, three, four,
five testers, plus let's
say each team send out
two people to test other games.
Remember to rotate.
We're going to do this
for about 20 minutes,
as long as it takes.
And then see where we
are and do it again
to get some just quick
testing and make sure
that the five of us get to play
a good number of your games
and give you some
feedback on that.
So remember, if you're using
digital-- if you're not,
if a computer's not
being used for testing,
close it or make it look
like it's not being used
for testing by typing on it.
Let's get started.
Can I get everyone's
attention really quick?
Can I just get a
really brief report?
How many teams-- how many
tests did you guys get?
AUDIENCE: Two rounds
and three [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: So you feel like you
did a good amount of testing?
For the team close up here,
how many rounds did you get?
How much testing did you get?
AUDIENCE: We got about
four [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Four?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]?
PROFESSOR: How many
tests did you get?
How many people played the game?
A good number?
AUDIENCE: We had two
who played [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Cool.
I'm just trying to get a sense.
You guys feel like you've got a
good sense of number of people?
Did you guys get four or five?
And in the back, how
many players did you get?
AUDIENCE: We only
had one [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: Has it been useful?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
PROFESSOR: OK.
So let's close off
testing for now.
If you'd like to test later
today or later during the class
period, you can.
Go ahead and finish off whatever
testing you're doing right now.
And at 2:50, we're
going to come down
and each team's going to give
a brief, two-minute description
about the state of their game
and your product backlog.
And those are actually
going to get recorded
so that we can send them to
Pablo and the rest of his team,
so they can see what
you've been working on
and give us some
feedback about it.
OK?
So 2:50.
Everyone set?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: So Snap, come on up.
And again, two minutes.
Talk about your features.
Talk about what's in your game
now, what will be in your game.
Also, give a really brief
description of the topic
your game's about.
So this is for our clients
to know what we decided
to do for all of our topics.
AUDIENCE: So we're Snap.
So we've decided to [? return ?]
Snap into a multiplayer game.
So it'll be all everybody
playing at the same time.
Right now we have a game that
looks pretty similar to what
we played in class,
where you can enter words
and you can snap with anybody
else who has played the game.
Right now we don't
have any fiction
and we don't have any
indication of score
other than just the number
of times you've snapped.
We're hoping to change that.
We got a lot of really
good feedback today,
and we've thought new ideas
for how to convey feedback
to the player and some
improvements to the UI,
because right now
we don't really
express much to the player.
That's about it.
PROFESSOR: Any challenges
that [INAUDIBLE]
leading up to where you are now?
Is there anything [INAUDIBLE]
questions [INAUDIBLE]
risks that you have right now?
AUDIENCE: So the networking is
still a risk, as we just saw.
It's a lot more confusing
when something doesn't work,
why it's not working.
We also do want to confirm
that the game that we build
is similar enough to Snap
in terms of satisfying
the client's goals.
So we don't want to change the
game, even if it's more fun.
We want to make sure
that the game still
satisfies the
client's requirements
and that they'll still be
able to use it and gather
the information they want to.
And that will require
some careful testing
to see what people end
up doing with Snap.
PROFESSOR: And what
did you decide on?
Have you decided on
tech yet, or are you
still trying out multiple--
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
So I think we have a tech.
So we have a server
running on Node.
And we're going to use
Phaser for the front-end
so that we can make a
more expressive game.
For now, we're not
using Phaser, though.
The current prototype
doesn't use Phaser at all.
AUDIENCE: One thing you asked
earlier was [INAUDIBLE].
Does that basically
mean that you
have to run on two
different flight, or--
AUDIENCE: Yeah, yeah.
So the idea would
be to experiment
with what sorts of entire
group visualizations
would be interesting to
put up for the entire room.
And the back-end team might work
on what sort of visualizations
we want to show separate
from what we want to export
at the end of the game.
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]
anybody else?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: Thank you.
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]
Cholera is Awesome.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
So the current
state of our game,
we spent a lot of time
thinking about design
and how exactly we
want to do things.
So we're currently
making sort of a game
where you control--
or don't control.
You take care of a
bunch of villages.
So you see different villages,
how infected they are,
and how many people are
dying sort of thing,
and then implement measures
to prevent cholera spreading.
So you give people soap
to wash their hands
or set restroom facilities,
or use vaccination,
and that sort of thing.
And so a lot of the
feedback that we
got on a lot of questions
that we're facing basically
revolves around the issue of
making this game realistic
versus making this game
more fun sort of thing.
So you can make a really
unrealistic game that
can be tons of fun,
but we also want
to stick to reality because
at the end of the day,
we do want to teach the people
that are playing how to prevent
cholera from spreading.
So there's sort of this
trade-off that we have to make.
And the second trade
off is sort of like you
can make a blantanty educational
game that just throws back
at you that can sort of be
fun for the first time you
play it, but doesn't have
a lot of replay value.
And it's sort of hard to make
a great educational game that
also has a lot of replay value.
So we're thinking, maybe
consider maybe we don't
want that much replay value.
Maybe this is a game that these
people will play once or twice,
learn what they need to learn,
and then never play it again.
So it's sort of trade-offs
that we need to think about.
PROFESSOR: So you're still
working on the paper prototype
that you need [INAUDIBLE]?
AUDIENCE: Yes.
PROFESSOR: OK.
Cool.
Thanks, [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
But we're starting to
build up the back-end.
And we're going to be using
Phaser to [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: So you've
already [INAUDIBLE]?
OK, cool.
Forecast-Based Funding, right?
AUDIENCE: Yep.
Hi, we're
Forecast-Based Funding.
The general idea
behind our concept
is that planning
ahead for disasters
is much better than
trying to react to them.
So if you can have operating
procedures or ways of planning
for them [INAUDIBLE]
afford that,
you can reduce loss of lives
in the event of disasters.
We are actually
between two prototypes
right now that we're testing
to try and get at the ideas.
The first one is a sort
of higher-level city-based
simulation of a city that's
at risk of disaster, which you
then have to fortify,
[INAUDIBLE] train volunteers,
or preparing for
upcoming disasters
in order to prevent too much
damage from happening to them.
One of the problems that
we're seeing with the game
is that's kind of abstract
and not as interactive
for players to connect with.
But they are getting
a good understanding
of the idea of planning ahead.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
And so to try and
address those issues,
we have a second
prototype right now,
which is about trying
to actually rescue
people in a flooding city.
And so that hits the other
end of the scale, where
the player is told ahead
of time this disaster
was planned for versus this
disaster was not planned for,
and the appropriate
effects for each.
And then they have
to rescue people
under those two
different conditions,
and then they get
to directly compare
what the experience of
is for acting in one
circumstance versus the other.
AUDIENCE: Over the
next couple of days,
we'll be looking at what we
learned from both of them
and trying to either
combine them or pull out
the parts that we thought were
really useful to [INAUDIBLE].
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE] on this?
This was the hard one.
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE]?
AUDIENCE: I think it was
stated a couple of times
that we should be looking at
people that are policymakers
or donors in the sense of
sort of people who would be
allocating funds from
governments or non-profits,
things like that.
Basically we make it appear
that this type of planning
ahead is a good idea.
PROFESSOR: And have you
decided on technology yet,
or are you still pondering it?
AUDIENCE: We're
probably using Phaser.
PROFESSOR: All right.
Thank you.
Heat Wave.
AUDIENCE: Hi.
So as you guys have
all heard, Heat Wave
is going to be a game
that will hopefully
be used to help Red Cross
volunteers help people in areas
that are either
suffering from or about
to suffer from a heat wave.
So what we did was
we decided we wanted
to test out a very simple
digital prototype, not
with the same type action
as our final prototype,
but not in Unity
because having a working
game in Unity at this
point we didn't think
is a viable option.
So we made a Python
test base game.
And people were
able to choose what
they were going to do based
on the scenario and the people
they were interacting with.
And what we really want to
test it was how does this work.
Is playing a good way to learn?
And if so, how can we make more
learning come out of the fact
that they're playing a game
and then making these choices.
So what we did was we showed
people, and a lot of times,
people noticed
right away, well, I
don't want to sit there
and do nothing, which is
what we wanted them to notice.
And oh, this person passed
out even though they were
only outside for three hours.
Why was that?
So we did see a lot of that.
But something we didn't
see was people sometimes
got stuck in a pattern.
It's just like, well, I'm always
going to do the same thing.
And then they don't
get different results
and they don't really
learn anything.
So we want to give people more
interesting options and more
options in our actual game
so that they try more things
and they learn more.
So that's what
we're going to do.
PROFESSOR: So you
already [INAUDIBLE]?
AUDIENCE: Yeah.
Any other questions?
PROFESSOR: [INAUDIBLE].
AUDIENCE: [? Great. ?]
PROFESSOR: Thank you.
[INAUDIBLE] Animal Village.
AUDIENCE: Hi, everybody.
We're saving the Animal Village.
Our goal is to empower
around 8 to 13-year-olds
to reach into their
community and learn more
about what cholera is,
what its symptoms are,
and how they would
convince people
that cholera is actually happen.
Our play tests were focused on
bringing as many minigames as
possible, and to testing.
So in this case, we
had four minigames.
The main feedback we
got on those games
was that they were far
too easy and simplistic.
And we agree, it turns out.
Our goals moving forward
are to essentially
improve our game
beyond just reading
an informational
pamphlet, and to do things
where it requires
actual abstract thought
and in general, more
effort from the player
to think of the behaviors
and actions they
need to potentially change or
encourage in their community.
We found a lot of success
with this in our game already
present in the mayor dialogue.
And we hope to branch
that up as moving towards,
we begin to implement
our game in Phaser.
Any questions?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE] what's
the upside of having minigames
versus one [? full ?] game?
AUDIENCE: So our goal
with the united minigames
is to be able to
drill down and be
very specific about
which behavior
we want people to show.
There are approximately
three to four core behaviors
that are very necessary
to prevent cholera.
And having one minigame devoted
to each of them in theory
will allows us to focus more
and teach more, as a result.
AUDIENCE: That's
a good statement.
Just riffing off something
else that you said.
I haven't looked that closely
at the cholera documenation.
I'm not so sure if convincing
people that cholera
is a problem is necessarily
the thing you need to do,
but convincing people to change
their behavior and whatnot.
AUDIENCE: So not
convincing people cholera
is a problem because obviously.
It's convincing people
to report cholera
as it happens instead of waiting
to see if that one isolated
case of diarrhea is actually a
symptom of an outbreak or just
someone eating something bad.
AUDIENCE: Right.
So one of the things is
like this early alert thing
[INAUDIBLE].
OK.
Cool.
All right.
PROFESSOR: Thank you.
AUDIENCE: All right.
Thanks.
