
Video Games Are the Future of Education - nqureshi
https://nabeelqu.co/education
======
speeder
I own a educational game company.

Long story short: it doesn't sell.

At my company we identified, at least if your target is kids, two ways to sell
edu games.

1\. Sell them to institutions, like governments, schools, companies, whatever.
Thing is, the features they look when choosing a game to buy, are ones most
likely to make the game unfun, the end result is often boring stuff noone
WANTS to play.

2\. Sell them to the public directly, but word of mouth here is often poor,
specially if your age range is narrow, for example if your target is kids
between 4 and 8, the kids will play the game, love it, but parents won't tell
other parents to buy it, most of their friends probably WON'T have kids the
same age.

Thus if you are going for fun games, you need path 2, and to do path 2 you
need a ton of exposure that is NOT word of mouth, we found out this means or
you have massive marketing budget, or you have some kind of connection to
media so they advertise you cheaper.

Our biggest competitors all ended being media companies themselves, for
example Disney is an obvious one, but another was Toca-Boca, at first they
looked like a tiny indie studio, but somehow they ALWAYS get featured in
multiple magazines, store front pages and so on, eventually I found out they
were created by a multi-billion media empire named Bonnier,

Since then I found that is easier to get money from creating other things,
since I don't have the necessary media connections.

Well, even NORMAL games often need media connectios (for example, Jon Blow was
a journalist before he made Braid, Nintendo literally printed their own
magazine for a while, the indie clique that existed around TIGSource was
heavily tied to CMPMedia, many of them being presenters in events, or being
friends of their employees, or working for them directly, the whole thing is
very "incestuous").

~~~
shafyy
We also tried to make educational games and came to a similar conclusion. The
truth is, kids (or adults) don't want to play "educational" games. They just
want to play fun games.

And, let's be honest, games that try to teach you math or science are just not
as fun as Fortnite or Minecraft.

Now, you can make the case that some games are educational by mistake. Like
Minecraft, Age of Empires, Sim City or Kerbal Space Program. But noone would
see them or describe them as "educational" games.

So, what we're trying to make now are creative games. In my opinion,
creativity is extremley important and there are fun ways to be creative, that
are not eductional in the strict sense. For example, Lego comes to mind.

~~~
mcv
> _" Like Minecraft, Age of Empires, Sim City or Kerbal Space Program. But
> noone would see them or describe them as "educational" games."_

And that's the problem. Because they are educational. And because they are
both educational and fun, people are much more engaged to learn from them than
from "real" educational games.

People who play Europe Universalis learn way more about early modern history
than they ever learned at school. As Randal Munroe pointed out, you learn way
more about orbital mechanics from KSP.

If you want to make truly educational games, you shouldn't focus on the
educational part, but take the educational part and wrap it in tons of fun.

Of course there are topics where this is going to be hard. I have absolutely
no idea how anyone could make a fun game that revolves around German grammar.
(Or do I? The best way to learn a language always seems to be to actually use
it with a native speaker. Having a friend who speaks the language you're
trying to learn would be a great way to do that. There might be something
here.)

But something like geology could be part of a simulation where you need to
find certain resources, and that's easier once you understand how those
resources are formed. And then there needs to be something fun to do with
those resources, of course.

~~~
eru
Geology is a big part of Dwarf Fortress. They take their different stone types
very serious.

About 'German Grammar': check out Heaven's Vault
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Vault](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heaven%27s_Vault)

But honestly, humans don't learn languages by understand their grammars with
the logic part of their brain. Games would be ideal to produce comprehensible
input, and test players on their comprehension via actions, instead of making
them reply with words.

There's some evidence that trying to produce language to early in your
learning just ingrains bad habits. So instead you can just follow increasingly
complex instructions to show that you understand. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Input_hypothesis)

~~~
wolfgke
> But honestly, humans don't learn languages by understand their grammars with
> the logic part of their brain.

As a native German speaker, I disagree. For me, the German grammar (in
particular the declination system) is what I would consider the type system of
the German language. So yes, I _do_ think a lot about German sentences in
terms of types/grammar that are/is involved.

EDIT: When I was a pupil at school, the only thing that I loved about the
German classes (for native speakers) were the grammatical concepts. At that
time, I really couldn't understand why these weren't taught in math classes
...

~~~
amatic
Well, you did learn to understand German sentences way before school and
grammar, I think that was the point. A baby can learn any language without
studying its grammar, and in the early period not being able to pronounce the
words.

~~~
wolfgke
> Well, you did learn to understand German sentences way before school and
> grammar, I think that was the point.

Learning the first language as a baby takes many years - and even after these
years, you are still only on a "baby talk level". That is why I don't consider
these "natural" approaches for learning a language to be a good idea - they
are far too slow to be economical.

------
adrianhon
The author claims “where games mostly fall short is that they’re not that
transferable to the real world. The skills you learn are highly specific to
that game,” but “this will change,” because the cost of game development is
decreasing. But his conclusion doesn’t follow; we might get more educational
games, but not necessarily ones with skills that are more generalisable.

As someone who’s spent the last 15 years making “serious” or educational
games, the larger problem is that while it’s hard enough to design a good game
that’s fun, it’s even harder to design one that’s fun _and_ educational. So
hard that most designers simply don’t bother, especially since it isn’t that
lucrative.

~~~
mettamage
@adrianhon: here's my trick.

Instead of creating serious games. Teach people to be serious players!

I have learned a ton from the following games:

\- Poker (statistics)

\- Any game (English)

\- Factorio (programming / software design)

\- Warcraft 3 (mental arithmetic and resource management)

\- World of Warcraft (market manipulation -- I created a temporary monopoly on
an item and earned 500 gold within an hour as level 20 player, culture -- I
met a South African person who spoke Afrikaans while I spoke Dutch)

\- The Werewolves of Millers Hollow / Maffia (politics, lie detection -- or
lack of it, the difference between bad actors and ignorant people doing the
exact same thing)

\- Imperial 2030 (investing)

~~~
burntoutfire
For most people, poker will probably more likely lead into a gambling
addiction (or at least a habit of regularly flushing money down the train at
the tables) than an inquiry into probability and statistics. Most people are
probably just not inquisitive enough to dig into the maths behind poker.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
I think you need a teacher to put the game in context.

Let's put aside for a moment the optics of a school teacher having their class
play Poker (even though obviously they wouldn't be using money). I can imagine
a lesson plan going something like:

1\. Have kids play some individual games with each other.

2\. Stop the games, and go over some of the actual math concepts behind Poker.
At this point, the kids are engaged and will want to learn better strategies.

3\. Run through a game as a group, with the teacher asking the class what they
should do each turn. Ask students to explain why they think one move is better
than another, get brief discussions going where applicable, and write
probabilities on the board.

4\. Let the students play another round of individual games to apply what
they've learned.

~~~
_jjkk
Learning via video games is so powerful for many kids because of the agency
they're provided. Also they are intrinsically motivated to play the game and
they can't help but learn.

"Stop the games", "put the game in context", etc. mostly kills this feeling
for many kids. Only the most skilled teachers are able to do this without
making the whole thing unfun.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
In this case though, you're stopping the game to teach strategies on how to
_win_ the game.

~~~
_jjkk
But for some kids, the mere act of stopping the game and stepping in as the
authority to "teach" is enough to shut them down.

Video games are good at getting through to those who don't respond well to
adults stepping in and contextualizing things all the time.

~~~
eru
Yes, the computer stopping things is often easier for kids (and people in
general) to accept than another human ordering them around. I guess it feels
more like a force of nature than an agent to be argued with.

Folklore has it, that Haskell's linter hlint was created so that the author
could help his wife's coding without jeopardizing their marriage. The extra
indirection step helped.

------
tchaffee
Hot takes from people with no experience in the field are only interesting to
other people who have no experience in the field. It seems developers are
particularly prone to this hubris. I don't find many doctors writing about the
future of programming languages, or teachers writing blogs about the future of
medicine. Yet you can find thousands of these hot takes from developers about
the future of education. Or pick your subject. Even worse you can find
startups by these folks. Startups who are getting it wrong with people's
education.

I would have way more tolerance for these articles if they started with "I
have never studied education, I have not taught children, I haven't done the
homework or any reading on pedagogy, but I would like to do some thought
experiments on hacking education...".

Brainstorming can be useful and bad ideas should be welcome during
brainstorming. I understand why it is embraced on HN. But it has to be closer
to the end of the spectrum of experts brainstorming than it is closer to the
end of the spectrum of monkeys randomly typing a work of Shakespeare.

Imagine junior programmers brainstorming the future of cryptography. It's just
going to be cringe. Nothing significant is going to come out of it. Of course
they should do it between themselves. And that's where it should end.

As far as why video games are not the future of education, there are many
things worth learning that are best learned by doing them, not by taking part
in a simulation. Speaking and understanding a language, playing a musical
instrument, painting, public speaking, tying knots, soldering electronics,
using shop tools, and many more. All things I learned in public school and
many of which I still use. My public school wasn't amazing. I could point out
many flaws. But the good teachers I had were pretty amazing. Take that human
out of the picture and replace it with a video game and I would have learned
far less.

If you want to know the things that could immediately be improved about public
education and have a measurable positive outcome, talk to teachers and get
ready for some pretty obvious answers that are generally going to require more
money.

Does that mean video games don't have any future in education? Of course not.
But they are nothing near the silver bullet promised by the author.

~~~
chromanoid
Everybody can make children, so how hard can it be to educate them? /s

I totally agree with you. I think especially teachers face such know-it-alls
much more than other occupations.

Not that I know it better, but thinking video games can replace human
interaction is so silly. Probably all teachers knew it long before Hattie's
meta study, the teacher is the key to good learning....

~~~
yiyus
I also agree with you, but I think there are good reasons teachers face this
more than other people. Everybody has been educated, all we have been exposed
to the work of educators. All we have thousands of hours of experience of how
the education system works. That does not make us capable of doing their work
(and, certainly, it does not make us capable of doing their work better), but
everybody has a relatively well formed opinion. On the other hand, most people
do not have an opinion about how to improve programming languages, for
example.

~~~
chromanoid
That's a really good and probably true explanation!

------
fullshark
Look at what the “elites” do to educate their kids. Do they long to put their
kids in front of a computer to play video games or do they pay top dollar for
tiny teacher:student ratios at great facilities with competent
teachers/leadership?

I can’t imagine anyone dealing with kids learning from home this lockdown and
thinking education should be more technologically driven.

~~~
musicale
> I can’t imagine anyone dealing with kids learning from home this lockdown
> and thinking education should be more technologically driven.

With the possible exception of the social aspects, lockdown distance learning
seems like a waste of time vs. self-directed learning. Which could be as
simple as letting kids do things outside and around the house. Or maybe
providing bookmobiles and mobile libraries, maybe even a small budget to allow
each kid to buy some affordable paperback books from an educational publisher
like Scholastic, or cheap used books.

Perhaps schools could focus on providing resources and support for whatever
students might actually want to learn (perhaps from a broad list of options)
at their own pace, rather than forcing a particular curriculum at a pace
dictated by the school.

Technology-wise I am not sure that the current lockdown remote classes are
more beneficial than, say, playing video games (or other games) for a couple
of hours a day, which would also probably be more fun and social (though
single player games are also fine) and more enjoyable for parents as well
(especially if they get to play a bit too.)

~~~
watwut
> Or maybe providing bookmobiles and mobile libraries, maybe even a small
> budget to allow each kid to buy some affordable paperback books from an
> educational publisher like Scholastic, or cheap used books.

Kids don't want to read and read less then they used to.

My kids did learned more from lockdown online classes then from games. I can
tell this one with certainty. It was less then they are normally learning in
school.

------
jay_kyburz
I'm a game developer who just finished a few months of home schooling 2 kids,
and I agree that games are the future of Education, but not for the same
reason as the author.

1\. I think we'll eventually have software manage the progress of our children
as they learn. It will present new ideas when they are ready for them, and
test that old ideas stay fresh in memory. Software can do a better job than a
teacher can, because the lessons can be tailored to the student. (rather than
the whole class at once)

2\. The software can do a better job at encouraging a student to "want" to do
the tasks. Teachers can use praise, rewards, and sometimes punishments, but
software can open up a whole world of other things. What happens next in a
story? Leveling up characters or objects you care about? Competition? Mystery
Boxes?

It was never fun to grind through killing 100 Goblins, but you did it so that
you could get the magic sword at the end.

The hard part is not software development. The hard part is finding things
that students want to work towards, then give them so much of it that they
want to do it all day long for 13 years.

~~~
manofstick
> It was never fun to grind through killing 100 Goblins, but you did it so
> that you could get the magic sword at the end.

I think you're taking exactly the wrong lesson from that. It wasn't fun to
grind through the goblins, but it wasn't _challenging_ either. You did it
because you could turn your brain off. I opine that if it did require thinking
then the world would now be overrun with goblins...

~~~
redbar0n
I think he took the right lesson in that case. I at least did it for the
rewards. I for one don't do tedious and mind-numbing tasks, that involve
serious involvement over time, just to turn my brain off. I might do the
dishes, but that is very time constrained, and not something I repeatedly come
back to doing unless I have to.

On the contrary, games usually inspire work by precisely _being challenging_.
That's what normally keeps people coming back to play them for their own sake
(the autotelicity of games).

------
pcmaffey
Video games will change education in the way that books changed education
(speculation I know). They're not a replacement for human discourse, for the
teacher-pupil relationship, for social fitting, etc. But they make learning
scalable and accessible in a way it wasn't before.

I'm most hopeful we will see this in maths. I know this has been talked about
for 40 years with computers, since Papert's Mindstorms (highly recommended if
you haven't read it). But the potential to teach math through immersion as you
would a native language IMO = the potential to leap society forward
exponentially.

Why hasn't it been built yet? Lots of comments in this thread already about
the blocking incentive model and education system. 100%. I'd look instead
outside the system, to something like Minecraft. Obviously, we don't want to
privatize education into the hands of some monocultured tech platform. But a
diversity of games that teach different things to people at different levels?
That supplement social education? That are fun first? eg. Here's a basic word
game I built that everyone seems to enjoy, and is also a great vocab lesson:
([https://apps.apple.com/app/esoterica/id1505210583](https://apps.apple.com/app/esoterica/id1505210583)).

If we can find the right models to support such a diversity (we're certainly
not there yet), I see great promise in that future.

------
kemyd
Related: [https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/06/18/poland-puts-
computer-...](https://notesfrompoland.com/2020/06/18/poland-puts-computer-
game-this-war-of-mine-on-school-reading-list/)

Quote:

Poland’s government will add the computer game This War Of Mine to the
official reading list for children in schools, the prime minister has
announced during a visit to the developer of the game, Warsaw-based 11 bit
studios.

“Poland will be the first country in the world that puts its own computer game
into the education ministry’s reading list,” said Mateusz Morawiecki, quoted
by Polsat News. “Young people use games to imagine certain situations [in a
way] no worse than reading books.”

------
lubujackson
What consistently gets missed in educational software is that it tries to
teach rote memorization through gameplay rather than process. Games excel at
teaching process quickly - learn by doing, learn by experiencing. And yet we
have had 30+ years of crappy games about jumping on the right number to learn
multiplication tables.

Games should supplement traditional education, not attempt to replace it. They
should fill in the gaps and extend what can be taught. Teach the scientific
method through a mystery game where you have to compound evidence to validate
a theory (or better yet, invalidate it - equally valuable). Instead of math
word problems have characters with problems you can solve using various
methods - don't make the player do the math, train them to identify the right
tool to use (a geometry problem, an algebra problem, a calculus problem).

Fill in those educational gaps that people only improve by stumbling in the
dark.

------
wespiser_2018
Perhaps, but if there is one thing we know, it's that massive online courses
do not work well as we have currently tried them. Students don't come back
year to year, and engagement throughout the course is very low [1]. Using a
video game might help solve the engagement problem, but I would be hard
pressed to think benefit of using a video game (increased engagement in the
learning process) would be worth the 10-100x development cost with
considerably more risk.

Where I think video games can excel is in more niche applications like Kerbal
Space Program, not teaching something like European Literature.

[1]
[https://joseruiperez.me/papers/journals/2019_Science_MOOCPiv...](https://joseruiperez.me/papers/journals/2019_Science_MOOCPivot_postprint.pdf)

~~~
tsumnia
While I do agree, it is not without caveats. One issue is that "engagement" is
not a good metric for measuring learning. One of the early studies made on the
DragonBox math game system[1] showed less benefit than allowing re-practice
opportunities with a traditional tutoring system with no reward system. This
was despite students showing higher levels of engagement, enjoyment, and
completing more exercises using DragonBox.

Engagement and enjoyment are tricky metrics because they often report positive
numbers; however, when compared to less engaging or less enjoyable methods
they can perform worse for the end goal of learning. They can create
motivation to learn the topic, which I support, but at some point that benefit
has a ceiling effect.

[1]
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yanjin_Long/publication...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Yanjin_Long/publication/268577301_Gamification_of_Joint_StudentSystem_Control_Over_Problem_Selection_in_a_Linear_Equation_Tutor/links/5470fb2b0cf24af340c3b8fd.pdf)

~~~
wespiser_2018
Indeed, and I think if you optimize for engagement, you are really failing to
consider that once you target a metric, that metric is no longer useful.

For the MOOC example, what I meant by engagement was, "Week over week, does
the student return?" or Weekly Active Users as a percentage of total students
at the start of the course. For a MOOCs, the number of students disengaging is
so high, that there is obviously a problem, and this is what I meant to
communicate. Thanks for the article!

~~~
tsumnia
MOOCs are an interesting area as well, as they share similar drop off to free
mobile games - high initial recruitment and engagement, but immediate drop
off. I love a lot of the components that MOOCs use and utilize them in my
course design, but the high drop off is why I support traditional class-based
environments. The cost of tuition and fear of failure ensure they stick with
it. In another world, I think it's one of the reasons why many physical sports
like martial arts have high drop offs as well, no risk from failure.

This is one of the reasons I don't particularly care for motivation studies,
as I believe it's only a temporary method to generate traction. Once learning
becomes difficult, it requires a higher order of motivation I call
"discipline" to maintain.

But back to MOOCs, there is work on MOOC forum analysis[1]. In short, forum
activity and the people you associate with in an educational forum can have a
significant impact on your grade. Note this study was post-hoc analysis, but
students that primarily discussed non-course relevant topics were more likely
to fail the course.

There is also the fact that MOOC students come from a variety of life
experiences. Students of different countries have different cultures and as a
result, will behave differently [2]. France, for example, only wanted to view
the course in [2], not engage.

I think the beauty of a MOOC is the accessibility and automated feedback
feature that from their design. Beyond that they suffer from a lot of human
conditions that can't really be controlled without removing or reducing those
features. Plus, as I mention, there isn't a lot of cog psych research on
"discipline" yet to identify the qualities that encourage its development
besides Duckworth's "grit" (if I'm wrong I'd love to be pointed towards them).

[1] [http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-1446/GEDM_2015_Submission_2.pdf](http://ceur-
ws.org/Vol-1446/GEDM_2015_Submission_2.pdf)

[2]
[https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED592695.pdf](https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED592695.pdf)

~~~
tsumnia
As an aside, you might be interested in my colleague's work on MOOC Forum
analysis as she goes into some discussions about what type of students come
back to MOOCs - [https://nikign.github.io/](https://nikign.github.io/)

------
jimbob45
Nope. Human contact is the future of education. Rent-seeking scumbags trying
to shove technology into education where it isn’t needed can find another
industry to ruin.

~~~
gbear605
Technology is a good replacement for existing technology. Replacing a
worksheet with digital problems can work well. Replacing a textbook with a
virtual lecture can work well for many students. Replacing an instructor with
digital problems doesn’t work.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
In my experience there is a lot of crappy and hard to use tech in education
that if improved would make things much easier.

In highschool we used this system
([https://www.managebac.com/](https://www.managebac.com/)) which I found to be
incredibly useful and easy to use and everything was logically placed in the
same application. Then when I went to uni we had about 10 cobbled together
applications that were all crappy and confusing and my results definitely
suffered when I failed to find important information and notices.

------
disqard
For those who fervently believe that "Video Games Are The Future of
Education", I would like to recommend two books: "Geek Heresy" by Kentaro
Toyama, and "The Flickering Mind" by Todd Oppenheimer.

The former offers a voice of caution, and is written by the former head of MSR
Asia.

The latter is filled with historical examples of "x is the Future of
Education" (for x ∈ {"radio", "television", "computers", ...}) each of which
has failed to replace human instruction, showing that there's something about
human interaction that appears to be crucial for education.

~~~
unnouinceput
None said to replace human interaction completely. On the contrary, the
examples given by the author includes plenty of human interaction, with fellow
players and teachers alike.

The point of the article is to give games and software more "room" opposed to
what's right now in education, meaning only boring teachers that will simply
go through their lessons without a sliver of passion.

------
austinl
When I was in elementary school, my math class spent a good amount of time
playing Roller Coaster Tycoon in small groups. I can't remember exactly how it
worked, but I think we rotated who got to drive, while two or three other kids
watched and gave advice.

While a lot of adults have fun pushing the boundaries of Roller Coaster Tycoon
(e.g. designing roller coasters that smash into each other), we were very
serious about it! The goal was to make a truly profitable park, and I remember
having conversations about optimal ride and souvenir pricing, revenue per
building, etc. (with our very limited vocabulary).

 __I think games need to be fun first and educational second to have any
chance. __We didn 't realize we were learning while playing RCT, we were just
excited by the challenge and the goal. The means to achieve the goal just
happened to be loosely grounded in real world business practices.

------
fatso784
Implicit in this argument is an egocentric and individualistic viewpoint in
universalizing how the author learned as "the future" a.k.a. the way everyone
should learn. I don't fault the author for having this, many people do. I wish
the author reflected on the role of social factors in education. Learning in
this post is something that's thought of as individualized, which is something
that educators and cultural psychologists have pushed back on for decades. It
totally ignores the role of teachers.

Consider: "AI will make humans vastly more effective by automating tedious
tasks." Sure, but _which_ humans? If games are indeed "the future," let's pay
teachers even less than we do now, or fire them --that will be the response.
That's in fact what Graham says --"I had examples to work from, but no
teachers or classes." Let's be real here: Graham's father was a nuclear
physicist, he likely grew up rich, and he attended Ivy League schools. Maybe
he "didn't need teachers" because, I don't know, his home life was very
supportive and he knew how to engage in the dominant, elite American culture?
I like Graham here, but c'mon man.

------
msb
> 1\. The things you learn by yourself stick; the things that are “taught” to
> you do not stick.

This is called Active Learning and there are decades of work that have gone
into demonstrating it's effectiveness. Also see: Constructivism. Although the
majority of k-12 education still emphasizes passive learning, constructivist
approaches to learning are being taught around the world and in the U.S.
(Papert's work is a good resource for those who are curious)

> 3\. Schooling mostly fails at giving you this deep understanding.

I think calling 'schools' (so many, not sure what type this person attended) a
failure is a bit harsh. The type of freedom in learning that the author is
arguing for is HARD at scale. It requires smaller classes, more engagement
from teachers, and an entire re-evaluation of how academic achievement is
measured. We humans are still evolving...we'll get there. A good start would
be to pay teachers more. A better start would be to prepare parents to support
active learning in the home.

> 4\. Video games will become a core component of education.

They already are: [https://clalliance.org/](https://clalliance.org/)

The general sentiment of this article is fair, but if you are going to make a
statement about education you should reference educators rather than bloggers
and biographers.

Edit: One more thought about the PG tweet...

"you'll surprisingly often have to teach yourself. I had to teach myself Lisp,
how to write essays, and how to start a startup. I had examples to work from,
but no teachers or classes."

First, I would argue that school provides us with the ability to teach
ourselves. Paul taught himself Lisp, but did he learn how to program at all in
school? Probably. He had to teach himself how to write essays, but surely
school taught him how to write? Also, there are plenty of schools that offer
writing classes...usually electives. Startups, well...that's silly...that's
why we have MBA programs. Actually, I am not sure what PG's point is with this
tweet. Is it a critique of the educational system in the U.S. or a reflection
on missed opportunities from his youth?

~~~
wolco
3\. Freedom of learning happens after school. You can't expect to be graded on
a course you made up.

~~~
msb
Sure you can, you just have to change the way outcomes are measured.

------
firefoxd
Video games style learning are great. But I don't know if a classroom of
children systematically playing video games on a time based limit to learn a
subject will be the same experience.

Freedom and pace is what makes them a great medium. That's the opposite of our
education system.

~~~
itsjustme2
My kids go to a fairly highly-rated public elementary school in the midwest
U.S., and in addition to live math instruction, they also have time allotted
within their class to play www.prodigygame.com

This is basically a turn-based RPG, but to make each turn successful, you
solve a math problem whose difficulty has been selected based on your past
performance. They also play it at home, and I believe it has strengthened
their math skills and given them a way to go at their own pace rather than
that of the classroom. They earn levels, avatar mods, pets, and many other
things to keep them coming back.

They also occasionally play chesskid.com at home as recommended by their chess
teacher.

One thing I worry about is whether exposing them to such addictive games so
early in their development will cause behavioral or even neurological side
effects. I have heard about similar studies of teenagers revolving around drug
use [1] but I don't know of any studies around video games (which also can
cause addictive behaviors) and/or around children younger than teenagers. I
would love to hear from others on HN about this.

[1]
[https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-MH105488-01A1](https://grantome.com/grant/NIH/R01-MH105488-01A1)

~~~
ping_pong
My kid was very into Prodigy, but after a couple of months I discovered he was
spending more time going around decorating his house and trying to talk to
other kids through their limited chat feature. He ended up avoiding battles
because he said it slowed down what he wanted to do.

~~~
selimthegrim
Wait, Prodigy the ISP? (I'm 33, so old frame of reference)

------
anonytrary
Mentorship is the future of education -- it's all about minimizing the teacher
to student ratio. Video games are a creative way to present content, but also
deprive students of other essential inputs for education. Saying that video
games are the future of education is like saying in 1999 that MS Office is the
future of education.

Maybe everyone will be consuming homework and lessons through video games, but
no video game is going to completely replace real-life interaction. I'm not
entirely sold on remote learning, especially for children (K-12). Getting
taught remotely is like watching TV in black-and-white. It works, but it's
just not the same.

~~~
thewarrior
Mentorship isn't the future it's the past and the ideal. We've had examples of
this since Plato and Socrates. In the Indian tradition apprenticing under a
guru has been THE way to acquire knowledge of both spiritual and artistic
subjects like Indian classical music.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru%E2%80%93shishya_tradition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guru%E2%80%93shishya_tradition)

------
ChicagoDave
Love it. Especially the failed business plan I had from 8 years ago. The OP is
correct, but good luck getting the education world to change. It's monitored
by "moms" that don't like change, school districts that run on what is known,
and a publishing industry without a single success in interactivity in the
decades computers have been around. Any success has been small and anecdotal,
even Khan Academy. In order to truly change our education system, we need to
spend a hundred million dollars on R&D with interactive storytelling to get
the breadth of material correct, then another billion developing the depth.
After words, students could freely "roam" through stories and learn at their
own pace. Interactive software could monitor reading and comprehension levels
and adapt, it can provide real-time feedback to teachers who can "steer the
ship".

I worked on this for several years, got close to the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation. The guy in charge of their education grants eventually stole all
of our ideas and put them in their next grant application process that was
directed at "publishers with an existing customer base of at least 100,000
students" which means established companies.

Pearson, Britannica, McGraw-Hill, and all of the other education publishers
have one goal. Maintain the status-quo. Feed their existing content-developers
who are solely focused on static page-oriented content. Why change? They have
billion dollar contracts with states to deliver textbooks at exorbitant prices
($100+/student/class/year).

I'm not bitter. Just disappointed. I definitely did not know what I was
getting into and did not have the pedigree to chase down this business. But I
did have a pretty good team and had Gates Foundation took a chance, we may
have been able to prove the interactive model. That in itself would have been
worth the investment.

It's dated, but still relevant. Here is Textfyre's business plan...

[http://plover.net/~dave/textfyre/Textfyre%20Investor%20Prese...](http://plover.net/~dave/textfyre/Textfyre%20Investor%20Presentation%20September%202012%20V3.3.pptx)

~~~
jimhefferon
Can I ask, what is the subject? Is it reading? History? Geography?
Interdisipinary across some of those?

(Not trying to be adversarial, just interested.)

~~~
ChicagoDave
I'm happy to offer any details.

The goal was interdisciplinary because that's how teachers have to teach these
days. They don't have enough time to teach each subject separately so they mix
things together.

But it would be relatively straight-forward (not easy) to build weekly story-
based content that contained geography, history, science, politics, and more.
Textfyre was going to align our stories to Common Core Standards. This would
have allowed for stable content delivered to all fifty states. The platform
also would have had embedded testing. When you complete a story, you've passed
the test!

Despite what many people have claimed, Common Core Standards are just
measurements [http://www.corestandards.org/](http://www.corestandards.org/),
NOT content itself - don't get me started on the confusion people have brought
to the education world by attributing content publishing to Common Core. The
funky math is just a different way of doing math. It has nothing to do with
Common Core itself. The real argument is that some states/parents don't want
their kids measured nationally. "My Timmy in Texas can't possibly be compared
to your Joey in California! They're different worlds!"

We potentially could have replaced several textbooks between 3rd and 8th
grade, significantly reducing educational costs and improving outcomes. The
crux of the plan is that it needs millions of dollars to prove the model. We
needed to develop a proven and approved 36 week set of stories that aligned
with existing teaching methodologies, train teachers, develop the platform,
security, etc. No small thing.

~~~
mncharity
Skimming the deck, one concern I'd have is understanding the effort required
to gather domain knowledge.

One reservation I've had about Khan Academy, is a "gather college textbooks
and distill them" story doesn't work well when textbooks so poorly describe
domains. When MIT did a VR intro to cell biology, they reached out to people
with direct research expertise. And found them very intrinsically motivated to
contribute. But it's still no small effort.

Creating _excellent_ stories, especially interdisciplinary ones, requires far
more intensive domain expertise than is usually appreciated. And seems more at
the scale of (neglected) societal infrastructure, than something that can be
MVPed in passing.

But perhaps excellence in stories is more than is needed. At least to develop
and prove the delivery mechanism. But coming from science ed, I think of
misconceptions as toxins that can severely diminish outcomes.

So as I read the Boston Harbor story slide, I thought... The big heavy canvas
fluttered away?!? Is there a hurricane? Was anyone killed? Did they launch a
boat to recover it? Why was the label sun-weathered if it was under a canvas?
Did they really use printed labels on sea cargo? I'd have naively thought
branding the wood more likely. And so on.

An issue with science education graphics, is they often mix aspects done with
great care for correctness, with aspects that are artistic license with little
connection to reality. And students lack the background to identify which
aspects are which. Creating rich ecosystems of misconceptions that compromise
understanding.

But students' understanding of history is and will remain so poor, that
perhaps there's little there to damage. Content might be pure upside,
regardless of shortcuts taken to keep creation costs plausible. At least until
we do better.

Re Gates Foundation... perhaps a useful model is that they think of patents
and established companies as keys to impact at scale... and thus do things
which can seem less than ethical if one doesn't share that perspective.

~~~
ChicagoDave
Been meaning to respond to this...

Domain knowledge is exactly the part that needs to change. The current
"publishing" domain experts are very likely long-term employees of the
existing publishers and they "see" content in a textbook fashion. They
probably know they have X words, Y images, and have to convey Z elements in
each chapter. I doubt publishers ever reach out to actual domain experts.

In my vision, I would have had experienced interactive authors work with
actual domain experts and educators to develop stories that included XYZ, but
also the additional depth that a story can provide.

One of my education advisers was an established history teacher in Illinois
and he basically said he stacked the textbooks at the front of the class and
never used them. Every day he would tell a story and provide his own
materials. He considered the textbooks a huge waste of time and provided very
little in the way of usable knowledge.

I could pull together a half dozen interactive writers for under a million a
year. Engaging with domain experts would be challenging, but not without
funding to trade. Add education staff, programmers, testers, and a group of
parents and students for outreach and you have a solid group to develop
something profoundly different and likely significantly better than what the
average 3rd through 8th grade student endures.

Textfyre was way ahead of its time. Many people told me that and I still don't
know how to fund it. It would require someone or some entity that thought it
was a valuable effort.

I'm on my third startup and I've often told people, if I ever hit it big with
one of my ideas, I am likely to swing back to Textfyre and bootstrap it.

------
sitkack
For all the shallow criticisms and outrage at the quality and mechanization of
education, I share the same angst, but as KSP, Factorio and Zachtronics have
shown that is there is place for educational games.

With that said, we need to when and how to apply it. I would conjecture that
education can't be the byproduct, it has to be the goal. And that educational
and fun are difficult in the product of each. Given that I have only given
three examples and others would be hard pressed to add more, that (STEM)
educational games are less .1% of the games market. I would argue that many of
nextgen indie games are educational in how they help the player handle
feelings and life changing events.

The most effective educational games will probably have to be funded by the
state and implemented by interdisciplinary teams of academics and game
developers.

~~~
photonemitter
Loved the Zachtronics games, but at a certain point they hit the issue with
becoming 5+ h investments into a single problem, and cross the boundary to
tediousness.

Only fully finished exapunks, which somehow didn’t scale as harshly wrt time
investment.

After looking more into these a month or two back, it seems like they’re very
hit or miss with people, and only manage a smaller impact in terms of people
playing them.

------
honkycat
I've always thought that the civilization series are actually pretty
educational: You spend hours and hours in this game, full of real world
countries and leaders, and a huge wealth of information is stored in the
"civipedia". If you get curious about a leader you can research them and who
they were.

You learn, at very high level, how society progressed from sticks and stones
to the modern age, and what level of sophistication technology was based on
the date. Different forms of government, many other things.

~~~
PeterisP
Civilization is a strategy sandbox with a historical theme but no attempt to
replicate historical events. But in general that can work - for example, the
various grand strategy games by Paradox (Crusader Kings for early middle ages,
Europa Universalis for late middle ages/rennaissanse, Hearts of Iron for WW2
era, etc) can bring a _lot_ of perspective in the relevant eras and their
events. It also was very useful in learning geography, as it forced me to
learn the relative locations and properties of various regions I've never been
to.

~~~
selimthegrim
Paradox is notorious for almost too steep learning curves.

------
adenverd
Video games will become a much more powerful force at sparking kids' interest
and creativity in a subject, which will lead to better educational outcomes.
In my experience, video games are a fantastic way to learn the initial 50% of
a new subject, and to appreciate and enjoy it. Some anecdotes from my life:

\- I learned programming through an in-game (Star Wars Galaxies) scripting
language. That little bit of experience automating repetitive tasks set me up
to excel in high school and college programming courses, which led to a career
in data engineering, and now AI and robotics.

\- I was introduced to game theory by a prisoner's dilemma situation in a
video game (KOTOR).

\- I learned economics and market forces by trading on Runescape's Grand
Bazaar, and how to model and optimize a production system by managing a little
island kingdom.

Not only did I learn new subjects from these experiences, but learned that I
could excel at and have fun giving them my attention, on my own time and for
my own purposes, without the external pressures of grades and tests. This gave
me the confidence and energy to pursue them more deeply in school.

One thing that's interesting about all of these experiences is that they were
all multiplayer and extremely social games (KOTOR, while a single-player RPG,
was played with siblings and friends). I suspect that the social aspect was a
primary motivating factor, and wonder if that principle holds for the broader
population. I certainly wasn't the only kid in my class trading on the bazaar
to get some extra GP.

------
jfarmer
I replied to the author, here:
[https://twitter.com/jfarmer/status/1274828706893066240](https://twitter.com/jfarmer/status/1274828706893066240)

I think the author falls into the trap of "transmissionism". There's a
universe of facts out there and students learn them one after another by
interacting with the environment (directly, via a teacher, via simulation, via
textbook, whatever).

But take an example like learning how to cook a medium-rare steak. "Cook the
steak until it feels like the flesh on your cheek."

What does it mean to "learn" that lesson? Anyone can say it out loud,
obviously, even someone who has never cooked a steak.

The lesson about becoming sensitive to what a medium rare steak feels like
when touched. What "simulation" or "video game" can capture that without
reaching Matrix-like levels of fidelity?

As Carl Sagan said: "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must
first invent the universe."

When you simulate, you're creating _some_ universe first, but you have no way
of knowing if it's faithful to _our_ universe.

Better to start with the actual environment and help people improve the way
they pay attention, react to the feedback they're already receiving without
realizing, build better tools to navigate unfamiliar terrain, etc.

Let our universe work for you rather than having to invent the universe before
you even start.

People might object to the steak example or might try to carve out things that
require "physical" knowledge, but I think people underestimate how much of
programming is like learning to cook a steak.

What are you going to "simulate" in order to develop a coding student's
ability to detect "code smells", for example? Developing that sense isn't just
about memorizing the 198723 things that count as a code smell. Most
programmers can't even explain _why_ something is a code smell in a
simulatable way, which is why we describe via metaphor to a sense rather than
an acquired skill.

But unlike our sense of smell it's _obviously_ acquired. Nobody's born with
the ability to detect code smells.

------
mstudio
I disagree with this sort of thinking. I do see that there is some value from
video games, but there are also certainly drawbacks. There's plenty of
research confirming that handwriting helps people learn and process
information. There's nothing wrong with lectures and worksheets. One early
childhood handwriting study is here
([https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22119...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2211949312000038)).

Anecdotally, I see many drawbacks in using video games for learning. With my
kids doing remote-learning, most of the math is taught/practiced with math
games -- most of these have advertisements. It's so easy for kids to tab to
another site/app that's more interesting. I can only imagine that if I had
YouTube a click away from my studies as a 12-year-old, I'd get absolutely
nothing done.

I also disagree that learning always needs to be "fun" and that we have to
sugar-coat everything, including education, for kids. I don't understand why
we can't teach kids to deal with difficulty -- to work on learning -- and then
be proud of themselves when they've accomplished something.

------
phist_mcgee
My PhD thesis was on this very topic!
[https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31437/](https://eprints.utas.edu.au/31437/)

I created a reading comprehension game/platform for 10-12 year olds. It was
not easy designing the game to be fun and educational, but found stat
significance for student's reading comprehension scores playing my games
compared to the control. It's possible!

------
sneeuwpopsneeuw
While yes the game industrie will change some very small parts of education,
my beleef is that it will not change anything big. Most of the time the games
are already there but it is just not used because of many different problems.

I think that there are some small field that will be changed to games. For
example I think there will be more good typing games like Epistory typing
chronicles used in education. And some simple games for counting and learning
a language. But this does not mean it changes the future of education.

I'm a Game Developer my self, for 4 years now, and most of the applied games
and VR companies out there are just a hype to me. But I firmly beleef that
platforms like EDX and Khan Academy and others will become bigger and bigger.
Some schools may introduce a few classes or years with this model and they may
flip the classroom. So in other words watch video's at home do your homework
at school. And yes the simplest of simplest excesses on these platforms may
become little games. But i'm interested to hear from all of you how you think
games may be used or are currently used in education after the hype.

------
ironman1478
The article doesn't really say how video games will be used. Will it be
homework? In school? Lab time? I could see video games being an ok medium for
showing examples of things, but I do find the arguments a bit strange. For
example it brings up the Rutherford model. I imagine it's outdated or
incomplete, but people go get physics degrees where people learn to genuinely
understand that topic. It might be disappointing that school can't satisfy a
person's love for a specific topic, but schools are supposed to be holistic
and introduce you to many ideas. Also, this seems very science focused. I
don't see how games would help with literature classes or a writing class,
where the primary task is to understand a topic and construct logical
arguments to defend a point (I know not everybody's classes were like this).
Even in math, I don't really know how much this would help. The main way at
getting better at doing proofs is grinding through proofs (which imo is fun
and doesn't need a game component).

------
alexbanks
This has been said for the past two decades. I have yet to see anything beyond
ideas/hype.

------
thathndude
There’s an app (not sure if iOS only) called Homer, that aims to teach
reading. It’s more education than game. But one of my kids LOVES it. She
taught herself how to read (with the app’s teaching) at 4. My other kid (6)
has no interest in reading and finds the app boring compared to true games.

Point being, it’s a tough nut to crack, but I’ve seen the potential!

------
tgv
Q1: Who's going to pay for it? Any idea how much of an effort it is to create
a video game that teaches, let's say, statistics? Or geology? Or history? It's
a bit more than writing a text book or creating a series of video lectures.

Q2: Who's going to check the assignments? That'll be people, because there's
no system in the world that can correctly do anything else but check multiple
choice tests and/or provide sensible feedback. We've been trying that for 40
years now, and the results are not hopeful. But if you've got people checking
the answers and giving you feedback, you're not reducing the costs by much.

And about that KSP remark: while physics is one of the few areas for which you
can build decent simulations, that game won't teach you the basics of
combustion, control systems or material science. It just lets you play around.
That's fine, but it's no replacement for a PhD.

------
lordnacho
I'm hoping Minecraft is the thing my older kid needs to learn all the
important stuff, like how to code, engineering, and math.

It's been a lot of fun watching videos of automatic wood/food/etc farms. These
people are really learning how to think and design solution based on the world
they're in. Some of these inventions are simply ingenious.

Plus, you can do actual code as well, I'm guessing after he's tired of
grinding he'll decide he needs to learn how to get things done a bit more
systematically.

There's also the economic aspect of it, thinking about how different resources
are connected, how trading happens, etc.

Whether it works it hard to say though. Video games are a double edged sword,
you can sit for years without learning how to code. You need some way of
creating intellectual progress. Plus you need to actually put time into school
to pick up credentials, and that competes with whatever else you spend time
on.

------
lemoncookiechip
I think something that is being lost here, is the fact that video games are a
broad term and educational video games are nothing new, in-fact, they've been
around at least since the 80s.

To me, this isn't about producing educational video games, as much as adding
video game elements to existing products and making something new and
compelling to the consumers.

An example of this would be Duolingo
([https://www.duolingo.com/](https://www.duolingo.com/)), it's not a game, but
it acts like one by introducing mechanics from games into it's identity such
as the concept of leveling up, completing levels, earning points... They also
do this on a visual level that feels mostly gratifying for it's users.

Of course educational games also have a place, but they're mostly disdained by
children

------
enord
This line again... Education only works insofar as it acculturates children to
greater society (or novices to the society of some specific domain). The
methods of education are social, present in the surrounding culture and
mediated by teachers through social interactions. Consequently, for video
games to be "the future of education", video games have to be the future of
society as such. Video games are _in_ society, much like music, television and
harry potter, but neither are "the future of education". Not even the printing
press could upend the basic structure and process of education, only add
literacy to the curriculum. Forgive me, but I just don't see "playing video
games" make that list in any meaningful way.

------
rement
I am reminded of an early Veritasium video "This Will Revolutionize Education"
[0]

0:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c)

------
HenryKissinger
Coming in 2021: _Call of Duty: Differential Calculus_

~~~
ShamelessC
Ah, yes. COD: Diff EQ, the TI-83 of the 2020s.

------
photonemitter
After thinking about this for a while, there’s a pattern to games that might
be useful to think about: Games generally follow a pattern of: \- presenting a
pattern to look for. \- presenting tools to solve that sort of pattern. Then
task you with implementing and reiterating that sort of solution.

This is close to how we teach STEM, but games tend to start breaking their own
patterns (or the contextual clues for the patterns) in a smoother way. (E.g.
portal where you’re gradually asked to think more and more (laterally) “with
portals”)

So if we take a dichotomal view on education vs learning, we can say that
games will encourage you to learn more effectively (in the context of the
game, typically)

I suspect this can be helped with the concept of gameplay loops/cycles.

What games are good at is aiding the reinforcement cycle at the core of
learning a skill.

(This cycle is also in any technical skill.)

Games are fun as long as they avoid this repetition and reiteration cycle
feeling like a grind. Which is where Educational(tm) material quickly becomes
stuck.

Grind is, in a sense, a qualifier of your experience. How the repetition feels
to you. If you’re “grinding” with a purpose, and it’s paced so your progress
feels steady towards a self-elected goal, then it does not feel like grinding.

If it’s dry-repetitions, then you feel the grind. And that’s the trap of
educational (I think)

(The ideas here are still mostly half-cooked, but hopefully it can add to the
discussion)

------
diegoperini
I think video games are more inspirational then they are educational. Of
course, their power can be channeled to make them more useful but success
stories are rare, if there are any.

I know the head of the largest gaming magazine in Turkey, who quit his job
years ago to consult Turkish game companies as well as the government to build
such games. The government basically funded everything but the result is still
below what they wished for.

Reforming education is hard. So is building video games. Now they had two
problems. Reminds me regex. :)

The games that taught me real lessons were always those hardcore, for fun
ones.

Back in the day (2005), we didn't have Turkish translations for DnD rulebooks.
I pirated PDF scans and read all of them (very slowly) to be able to play as a
DM for my friends. That is still the most challenging reading comprehension
practice I've ever done for the English language.

I played the entire Monkey Island series with a dictionary open. Finished
Starcraft BW multiple times just to be able grasp the story. Played Medieval
Total War with many factions just to see what had been the differences among
them during those times. Started researching the cold war after playing MGS3
since it was otherwise a really opaque thing to look at as a kid from Turkey.
I owe my almost reflex-like analytical skills to those games where number
crunching is the deciding factor for success, such as WoW with its auction
house, Dota with its item combinations, Cities Skyline with balancing
resources, and all those other tycoon games that I don't even remember.

Finally and most importantly, I'm a computer engineer today because Starcraft
BW, Heroes 3 M&M and Warcraft 3 had world editors that can produce maps even
for "multiplayer". Thank you Blizzard and 3DO, I owe you people big time <3.

------
rgovostes
Some time ago there was a foreign language education project in which
localization files for Grim Fandango and The Sims were gradually mixed between
English and the target language. That still strikes me as a great idea,
avoiding the frustration of plunging completely into the other language (as
anyone who has changed their phone's language for all of 30 seconds can
attest).

------
cosmodisk
No,they are not the future. The fact that we now need 'interactive' lessons
with tablets,apps,smart boards and all other gimmicks,while at the same time
motivation keeps declining, attention span is at all time low and etc. On top
of it,the curriculum of most educational programmes getting more and more
watered down. Video games aren't the solution.

------
arendtio
My biggest problem with games is, that they are wasted time. I would love to
see more _good_ educational games, where you have the feeling that you spend
your time on something meaningful and still have fun.

So far my favorites are the Dragonbox games [1].

1: [https://dragonbox.com/](https://dragonbox.com/)

------
stared
A collaborative games of science-based games:
[https://github.com/stared/science-based-games-
list](https://github.com/stared/science-based-games-list)

And a question for you: while I do share that games are the way to learn
things (our instinct for playing, shared with other animals, is precisely so
we can learn), do you know any good investors in that sector? My experience is
that three words to turn-off an investor is "a game", "educational" and "for
the public good". :)

The question is very practical: I develop Quantum Game with Photons
([https://quantumgame.io/](https://quantumgame.io/)) and looking for investors
to make it a fully viable game and educational platform.

~~~
disqard
Neat idea! When I played through your Quantum Game levels, the confetti in
Level 3 kept raining while I was playing the next level. Thought you might
want to know (and fix) that.

------
Cpoll
I'd like to see simulation-based games as a supplement to traditional learning
or apprenticeship.

There are a lot of XYZ Mechanic Simulator games which I think have potential
to be effective learning tools. They won't teach you muscle memory, but a good
one can distill a lot of experience into a shorter timeframe than normal. A
mechanic simulator can teach you engine diagnosis and repair quickly because
you can fast-forward the slow, mundane parts. You can also pace the 'lessons'
for better retention, building incrementally on concepts.

We've already seen this be successful in aviation and racing.

On that vein, I've been wishing for a Zachtronics-style game that teaches
electronics, starting with LEDs and resistors and moving on to more complex
circuits.

------
ducaale
> It is currently too hard to make video games. Making it easier to create
> video games will massively increase the supply of good video games and cause
> a gradual revolution in education.

I don't think it is that hard to make a video game considering the many tools
that exist to simplify video game creation. What is hard is making a video
game that is also fun to play.

Some of the tools which let you write a video game without coding experience.

1\. Scratch - [https://scratch.mit.edu/](https://scratch.mit.edu/)

2\. GameMaker -
[https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker](https://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker)

3\. Dreams -
[http://dreams.mediamolecule.com/](http://dreams.mediamolecule.com/)

~~~
disqard
Self-plug for BlockStudio [0], a visual programming language using an extended
Graphical Rewrite Rules paradigm for authoring games, stories, animations,
etc.

It's free, and children (ages 8 through 13) have made thousands of games on
there. A hand-curated selection is at [1]

[0] [https://www.blockstudio.app](https://www.blockstudio.app)

[1]
[https://www.blockstudio.app/bsp/dynamic_gallery/hof](https://www.blockstudio.app/bsp/dynamic_gallery/hof)

------
lern_too_spel
It ended in a non-sequitur. Today, GPT-3 can be used to do smart autocomplete
of a paragraph, but in the future, a model might autocomplete an entire book.
Where is the symbiosis there? Gaming to aquire knowledge has nothing at all to
do with AI replacing humans at various tasks.

~~~
jointpdf
I think you missed the point, because it was right there: AI tools will lower
the cost of producing (educational) games, by enabling creators to rapidly
generate a diverse selection of dialogues, landscapes, textures, music, [...],
which the creators can then choose from or use as inspiration. This lowers the
barrier for independent developers to design educational games. This isn’t
hypothetical—I have aspirations to make an educational game someday (but not
an infinite well of time or skill), and the likelihood of this actually
happening increases as the tools improve.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Don't students deserve better resources than procedurally generated text/maths
problems?

With collaboration I can't see how is possible there aren't already enough
problem-solution sets for pottery much all subjects.

This way the publisher can own copyright on a massive set of problem-solution
pairs and only employ one person for a short time? Seems to be financial
optimisation rather than educational improvement.

Duolingo (language learning app) has generated materials and so often they're
just slightly weird until they've been used, tested live by students, reported
100-times (or whatever), and finally corrected by the app operators.

It's good eventually, but if I were paying I'd be annoyed that there's not a
bit more human effort put in.

With Open course materials it seems we'd already have enough materials to go
around.

------
jccalhoun
Videogames have been said to be the future of education nearly as long as
there have been videogames.

------
Animats
If that were true, we'd have at least a few really great educational games by
now. Any examples?

~~~
darawk
He gives two examples in the article.

~~~
Animats
Factorio and Kerbal Space Program - yes.

Interestingly, both are open-world sandboxes, not plot-driven games. They're
really gamified simulators.

------
platz
The language in this article about knowledge you "feel in your body" is only
briefly mentioned is the concept of "tacit" knowledge, further developed here:

Tacit knowledge is more important than deliberate practice
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23465862](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23465862)

The article rightly prizes tacit knowlege, but does not lay any argument for
why games would give us tacit knowledge.

Tacit knowledge is primarily gained only by experience, and I don't see how
games give us that in ways that the majority of folks would can say they had
unambiguously helped us in the kinds of real world tasks we care about.

~~~
invalidOrTaken
Games have certain advantages over real life in terms of providing experience:

\--- shorter feedback loops: you can play through a game of Civilization in a
few hours/days. There is no analogous real-life experience.

\--- non-severe failure consequences: If you fail in Kerbal Space Program,
there is no Challenger explosion

\--- repetition: Real life usually doesn't provide similar conditions to make
for valid experiments. Games can do exactly that

\--- breadth of experience: In the same way books transport us, and let us
visit other places and situations, games can do the same.

~~~
platz
> you can play through a game of Civilization in a few hours/days. There is no
> analogous real-life experience.

If it's not analogous to real-life experience, you haven't gained any _tacit_
knowledge that useful for real life.

> If you fail in Kerbal Space Program, there is no Challenger explosion

If you're involved in launching Challenger, you don't (and wouldn't) learn how
to do so by playing Kerbal Space Program.

> In the same way books transport us, and let us visit other places and
> situations, games can do the same.

Yes, just like music - but that is a different thing than gaining tacit
knowledge that can be used in a real-life situation. Lets not confuse arts
with professional development.

------
ccvannorman
I built www.supermathworld.com and it was incredibly difficult to sell. It was
too wild for institutions to back it, and word-of-mouth didn't spread from
individual users (as other commenters here have noted for other products)

~~~
enugu
Just played it and it was quite fun in the begining. Skipped ahead to
fractions via blue path, an issue which came up was it was easy to travel into
dead paths endlessly navigating the sea or running around. Went back to
beginning of level and turning right instead of left cleared that issue.
Another issue was that when moving back after an unproductive path, it is hard
to see what was behind the character, you cant see a wall until you hit it.
Moving the camera back helps.

But the game itself seemed very interesting.

------
seastonATccs
So I've got 4 four kids and was the tech director for a school district that
was 1:1. We started iPads about 10 years ago but have now transitioned to
Chromebooks. In my observations educational games work well with under 12.
After about 12 years old social pressure and lack of complexity keep them from
enjoying games that are "educational". Over 12 apps suck as Minecraft, Tynker,
Scratch become more inline with an older kids interest. But if you DO make
educational apps please keep it up. For example Stack the States / Stack the
Countries has been a favorite in with all my kids.

------
coupdejarnac
The only educational game I enjoyed playing in school in the late 80s/early
90s was Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego. I remember kids loved Oregon
Trail, but I don't think it had a lot of educational value.

------
k__
My game design lecturer was a CEO of a serious games company. Now, they are
making regular games.

Some games are used to train soldiers, as far as I know.

I also read, that companies should hire MMORPG clan leaders, because they
usually know how to lead ppl.

------
100-xyz
Our platform lets users make animations in minutes. With no effort from our
side, the platform has been mentioned in a few educational blogs and there has
been decent interest from language learners. Its not in the same vein as the
article, but it does make learning easier. Here is an example animation
created by a user
[https://toonclip.com/player?key1=d8cb0a4b6b](https://toonclip.com/player?key1=d8cb0a4b6b)

Creating while using stuff you are learning seems to have a strong "ownership"
feel.

------
aaron695
> 1 Books I chose to read myself

> #1-3 happened despite formal schooling

How did they learn to read? Plus I've never met a school that didn't encourage
kids to read.

> Making it easier to create video games

Yes, video games are getting harder. And will continue to. GTA 5 cost half a
billion and it's easy to see how it could be better. Until we have amazing AI
it won't change and then nothing in this blog counts.

> Another insight is that making things easier has nonlinear effects.

This is where the blog gets it totally right and what Education really needs.
Just nothing to do with computer games.

------
platz
Sometimes games teach us thing implicitly in the subtext [1], but implicit
learning is probably not a good model for primary education, much in the same
way that music might teach us things in it's subtext, but is not a good model
for primary education of specific concepts.

[1] Naomi Clark: Why Tom Nook symbolizes village debt in 18th century Japan
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgEnbXPZX4s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BgEnbXPZX4s)

------
azinman2
It’s a very common anti-pattern to think whatever worked for you will
universally work for others. Some need more hands on, some need less. Few kids
are entirely self-motivated.

------
jkhdigital
> The fundamental principle of education is to give students an environment,
> and tools, where they can make discoveries themselves.

This is pretty much exactly what happens in Sudbury schools:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school)
[https://sudburyvalley.org/](https://sudburyvalley.org/)

------
sushshshsh
X doubt.

Whoever are putting out the most cutting edge info on technology and
innovation (think WhatsApp company blog, InfoQ, the latest and greatest
academic books on the things you study), that's where the first mover
advantage is for getting a leg up on everybody else in learning the skills you
need to be in high demand.

If you wait for someone else to digest that info and then gamify it for you,
you're already too late.

------
bnj
Video games are great, but the future of education is personal relationships
and caring.

There’s this (seems like mostly unchallenged) assumption that more technology
improves education.

What if more (or any) technology is actually counter-productive for most
learning?

I’m thinking mostly here about k-12 students, and I’m not talking about
actually learning technology (which would definitely demand access) —- but
everything else?

------
lorthemar
In my opinion, this isn't strictly true for educational games. There are many
genres out there while some of them are just about reflexes but some games
require strategizing, teamwork, and adapting quickly to changes. I wasn't
taught these skills which are extremely critical for being successful at my
job. I gained all of these by playing games.

------
moonchild
This idea certainly isn't new. As far as I can trace it, it dates to the late
90s, with Chris Crawford's Dragon Speech[1]. (Well worth a watch, though this
shouldn't be considered an endorsement.)

1\.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaBte1cBi5U](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaBte1cBi5U)

------
hallgrim
What I find interesting is that rarely do people say: we have to solve this
game design problem. Often they say: it doesn’t sell. And that’s because
making educational games requires more than taking classroom lessons and
squeezing them into totally unconnected game designs. They require bespoke
game designs for each and every topic!

------
est
Sadly there is not open-world equivalent of education-by-gaming. I feel every
learning path is preset with fixed dialogues. I can not explore the topic I
like, it's too easy to hit the boundaries of human knowledge.

I feel game design technics can be applied to know-how and know-what learning,
but for know-why learning, we need more advanced AI.

------
AlchemistCamp
I agree. Has anyone else here played through Grid Critters?

It was a surprisingly engageming and effective way to learn CSS Grid and I'm
almost certainly going to buy the author's next course on
[https://mastery.games/](https://mastery.games/)

------
analog31
When I was in college (1982-1986), my summer job was at a computer facility
that served the K-12 schools for a large county in the Midwest. They had a big
room that was equipped with each kind of personal computer, so teachers could
come and try them out, and demo copies of every software title that they could
lay their hands on, including "educational" software. The world had not yet
settled on IBM and Apple, and the Mac was still in the future.

Virtually all of the educational software was lame, amounting to Glorified
Flash Cards with animated characters and other decorations. Most if not all
have been forgotten.

Fast forward to the past decade or so, my kids both grew up in the Internet
era. Educational software is now Web based of course. But it's still not very
far removed from Glorified Flash Cards. The main new feature is surveillance,
ranging from making sure that you covered the entire exercise, catching
cheaters, and tracking your online behavior. Note what one of the other posts
says about stuff being sold that school districts are likely to buy.

Okay, there were two "educational" software titles in the early 80s, worthy of
note: Word processing and BASIC / Pascal. As I understand it, both BASIC and
Pascal were created as teaching tools, but both are completely open ended and
imply no specific curriculum. They also allow students to learn at their own
pace if they want to, and resemble tools that people actually use in the "real
world." They also fully expose you to the consequences of your mistakes.

What "educational" titles do we have today? My high school education predated
the word processor. I believe that my kids learned to be good writers and
thinkers because of the ability to do a lot of writing and have it read and
critiqued easily. And I've never stopped learning from having a programming
tool at my disposal, though it's Python instead of BASIC today. Once again,
those tools contain no built-in agenda and provide total exposure to making
and learning from mistakes.

My favorite educational game is Jupyter. It's not just for math and
computation. It can be used for science too. Science has a peculiarity, that
in order to really learn it, you have to experience how nature can prove you
wrong. Building computerized experiments and measurements is one way to be
exposed to this.

I believe that education is hard because it involves the brain, and we haven't
figured out the brain. We'll be able to automate teaching when we can automate
thinking. Meanwhile I think we can use software and automation to eliminate
_wasteful_ thinking, such as physical library searching and doing some kinds
of mathematical manipulations by hand.

~~~
mcphilip
There was at least one masterpiece of educational software in the early 80s:
Robot Odyssey. I think it was just too hard and obscure at the time to get
much recognition, but I was thrilled to see a write up about its influence in
Silicon Valley some years later in the Salon article “The Hardest Computer
Game of All Time”

[https://slate.com/technology/2014/01/robot-odyssey-the-
harde...](https://slate.com/technology/2014/01/robot-odyssey-the-hardest-
computer-game-of-all-time.html)

------
kunalpowar1203
Is it just me, or the background in the link is killing my eyes. Request the
OP to change it. On other note, I Completely agree with this. I would
recommend online games to many students and even professionals to learn
critical skills (Insert Leadership and planning).

------
tmaly
I just watched the movie October Sky for the first time last night. It really
resonated with me as I use to make my own rocket engines. I think kids
figuring out things on their own is the real way to go. It’s going to have to
come from the individual for it to matter.

------
ccktlmazeltov
Fuck yeah, I feel like I'm a better driver thanks to video game, and got a
shit ton of culture from the pink panther game as well[1].

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZkX544i8RA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZkX544i8RA)

~~~
pbhjpbhj
I always feel like I'm a worse driver after playing games a lot, usually it
encourages speeding and "fun" behaviours rather than good, sensible, law-
abiding driving.

What games have you played to improve driving abilities.

~~~
freehunter
Euro Truck Simulator 2 (and American Truck Simulator from the same studio)
both reward safe and sensible driving along with spatial awareness (trailers
are LONG) and simple economics (your trucking company is a business and you
can grow your company size).

Poor driving (speeding, running red lights, passing unsafely) is very quickly
and sometimes harshly punished.

------
leroy_masochist
If video games can teach K-12 knowledge more effectively than a teacher in a
classroom, the implications for the educational world are interesting. Will we
still need elementary and high schools as physical installations? If so, what
will they teach?

------
irrational
I received a Masters degree in Educational Psychology and Technology in the
late 90s. People were saying this exact same thing back then, but it has never
come to fruition. I’m not holding my breath that the future will be any
different.

------
eastbaygames
Friend sent me here because I'm working on this as we speak! Made 5 prototypes
for VR and PC language-learning games over about 2 years. Our current PC
version for Chinese Mandarin will hit Steam as Early Access in about a month.
Feedback from the community has been positive. People find it very unusual,
interesting, and helpful. It's on Itch.io as a free download until we start
charging for it on Steam.

GAME PAGE [https://eastbayimmersivegames.itch.io/sheng-tian-
episode-1](https://eastbayimmersivegames.itch.io/sheng-tian-episode-1)

COMMUNITY FEEDBACK
[https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/hb762z/10_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChineseLanguage/comments/hb762z/10_years_ago_i_promised_my_wife_id_learn_chinese/)

------
maitredusoi
This one of the most profound text on education! Because it is very simple,
understandable and still tell us about the way we need to move forward in the
near future.

Thanks for sharing. Thanks HN for putting this in the front page ;)

------
throwawaygh
I think there's been a fundamental conflation of _schooling_ and _education_
in the USA. Go back and read Paul Graham's essay on education. It's ultimately
a critique of a very specific and particular social institution.

It is possible that software is the future of US K-12 education. I could see
huge success for a piece of software inspired by DuoLingo's gamification and
Khan Academy's bite-sized quick-"I get it"-gratification content design.

But if you understand the institution of US K-12 schooling -- test scores,
funding formulas, etc. -- you quickly realize that this is a quite dystopic
future. We will raise an entire generation whose only skill is consuming
software that relentlessly optimizes for their test performance. Whole hoards
of students who can ace a very particular test on Algebra but never really
understand deductive reasoning or the concept of a variable/function. As bad
as US schooling is today, and as mediocre as the teaching profession in the US
might be, humans-teaching-humans at least provides _some_ check on the system
and enables real learning.

So, stepping back, the tech elite's attitude toward US education scares me.
It's going to do to our schools what that particular set of neo-liberal MBA
programs did to so many iconic American businesses.

Conflating education and the US K-12 schooling institution causes many smart
and driven people to:

1\. under-estimate the effectiveness of good teaching, and

2\. _fantastically_ over-estimate the role of self-directed learning in their
own lives[^a].

These two errors result in critics of US education over-estimating the
effectiveness of (and under-estimating the dystopian potential of)
depersonalized/scalable solutions to education.

\--

[^a]: I want to say a bit more about #2. My opinion on this topic changed when
I read through a bunch of my old code from middle/high school. I noticed that
my programming ability took three significant step-changes during that time.
The first happened during the time when I was taking Algebra 1 in 8th grade,
when I went from mostly simple CRUD programs to really understanding how
dynamic programming worked. I went from building PHP/SQL websites to being
able to use data structures other than lists/hash tables and design algorithms
for things other than CRUD operations. The second happened during the time I
was taking Geometry; that's when I started really understanding how to
decompose problems and compose solutions. The final step-change happened
during my first programming internship during Junior year. So, I was entirely
"self-taught", but clearly _something_ in my formal education was driving my
programming ability in ways I didn't realize without explicit and rather time-
consuming reflection. And that final step-change was basically intense 1:1
tutoring from a mentor.

~~~
mncharity
> So, stepping back, the tech elite's attitude toward US education scares me.
> It's going to do to our schools what that particular set of neo-liberal MBA
> programs did to so many iconic American businesses.

I flag this argument as thought provoking.

Though... I've reservations about it, as I believe students are being failed
far more pervasively and profoundly, than is almost ever suggested. First-tier
astronomy graduate students so lack integrated understanding of their field,
that they are pervasively mistaken about the simple color of the Sun. Harvard
freshman are described as having had such "good" teachers, clearly presenting
well-organized information, that students now lack both skills and willingness
to wrestle with a body of knowledge and build their own understanding.

I still buy a conservative argument, that things could still be horribly
worse. As much education around the world illustrates. And certainly,
subculture groupthink and reality disconnect is a well trod path to disaster.
And being unable to see the flaws in ones own community is ever popular. So
I'm delighted by a reminder to check the mirror.

But while things could be made much worse, I don't think people appreciate how
profound a disaster we are already living. And are thus severely
underestimating the potential payoff of improvement. And are thus severely
underinvesting in it. But as you point out, the incentives around what form
that investment takes, are scary at present. My reservation is, the status quo
seems underappreciatedly scary too. I've a not-quite joke, that if by some
miracle you could raise everyone's science understanding to that of Harvard
freshman, it might be good for societal equity, but it would seem a pity, that
you didn't try for something less badly broken.

------
shultays
This sounds like something that cab be also told a decade or two ago but it is
yet to be true. I dont see it is being changed anytime soo

------
dgeiser13
I agree with some of what you are saying but if you have to realize that your
best way of learning does not necessarily apply to everyone.

------
AtlasBarfed
Rpg games should be great for foreign language, especially if zork style and
voice recognition.

I always wanted to play through a final fantasy in French.

------
fenwick67
Educational video games have been around for like 40 years now, I don't see
what would have changed to suddenly make them better.

------
ilrwbwrkhv
Just to add, VR adds a whole next level to this. Even as an adult, learning
about the ISS in VR was a life changing experience.

------
Banderly
You left out your best example; at GC you received hundreds of hours of
schooling at pool with no discernible improvement.

------
mudlus
Even if it was, it's not the future of learning.

But, yeah, I could see China using video games in re-education camps, sure.

------
petepete
Not the best chess example when the white queen is toast in the next move.

~~~
altschuler
It's white to move

~~~
petepete
So black has made a move since being in that predicament and didn't block the
queen with the g-pawn?

Either way, struck me as a little odd.

------
barrenko
Future of education is already here, but not many want to recognize it.

------
TheAceOfHearts
Video games can teach you a lot of valuable skills that apply to the real
world. I play Heroes of the Storm at a fairly high level and I've experienced
many improvements in cognition as a direct result. It's important to note that
this is a team-based game in which "carrying" isn't often possible, so you're
forced to rely on your team in order to win.

Some examples of how it has helped me improve:

* Situational awareness and object tracking. Looking at the minimap frequently so I know the last location of each enemy and predicting where they will be moving based on the current state of the match. As a result, I've gotten much better at driving and I feel considerably safer since I can keep track of everything in my surroundings. The car's mirrors are basically your minimap while driving. This same algorithm applies to other real-life situations as well.

* Communication. I've learned how to communicate more effectively to push the team towards victory. It might feel satisfying to insult someone for playing poorly, but that's rarely a winning strategy. Bad players are usually ignorant and they lack a deep understanding of how to play the game. If you provide constructive criticism in a non-hostile or aggressive manner your allies will most often try to integrate that information. Of course, there's all sorts of people, and if someone is unwilling to listen then you just have to play around them as best as possible. Sometimes this means you have to take bad engagement and try to turn things around. This is just learning how to better interact with people.

* Self-awareness and self-responsibility. It's tempting to blame your allies when you make a mistake or a bad call. Sometimes it's definitely their fault, but recognize that you're not perfect and you also make mistakes. Own your failures, don't let your ego get in the way of your growth. Your allies will take your calls more seriously if they see that you're open and honest. Learn to take criticism. Sometimes it's justified and other times it's not, try to integrate the lessons when it's reasonable.

Ever since I started weight training daily I've also experienced improvements
in my reaction time, which has had a direct and positive impact on my gaming
skills. When I'm hyper-focused on a game, it feels like it's moving in slow-
motion and I have way more time to think through each decision.

When I started playing this game I could barely keep track of fights with all
of the enemies and spells flying around everywhere. My cursor would frequently
get lost in the turmoil and I would just try to spam my abilities into the
blob of lights and animations. Now I can largely keep track of each hero,
their abilities, and the timings of everything.

------
homakov
Something in Outer Wilds style of exploring, would be epic

------
qntmfred
Looking forward to what Audrey Watters has to say about this

------
hejja
love the article, upvoted and saved. but the background was absolutely killing
my eyes.

------
hypertexthero
Carl Sagan, in his book The Dragons of Eden (p.p. 153–154 — ___emphasis
mine___):

> Computer graphics are now being extended into the area of play. There is a
> popular game, sometimes called Pong, which simulates on a television screen
> a perfectly elastic ball bouncing between two surfaces. Each player is given
> a dial that permits him to intercept the ball with a movable “racket.”
> Points are scored if the motion of the ball is not intercepted by the
> racket. The game is very interesting. There is a clear learning experience
> involved which depends exclusively on Newton’s second law for linear motion.
> As a result of Pong, the player can gain a deep intuitive understanding of
> the simplest Newtonian physics — a better understanding even than that
> provided by billiards, where the collisions are far from perfectly elastic
> and where the spinning of the pool balls interposes more complicated
> physics. This sort of information gathering is precisely what we call play.
> ___And the important function of play is thus revealed: it permits us to
> gain, without any particular future application in mind, a holistic
> understanding of the world, which is both a complement of and a preparation
> for later analytical activities.___ But computers permit play in
> environments otherwise totally inaccessible to the average student.

> A still more interesting example is provided by the game Space War, whose
> development and delights have been chronicled by Stuart Brand. In Space War,
> each side controls one or more “space vehicles” which can fire missiles at
> the other. The motions of both the spacecraft and the missiles are governed
> by certain rules — for example, an inverse square gravitational field set up
> by a nearby “planet.” To destroy the spaceship of your opponent you must
> develop an understanding of Newtonian gravitation that is simultaneously
> intuitive and concrete. Those of us who do not frequently engage in
> interplanetary space flight do not readily evolve a right-hemisphere
> comprehension of Newtonian gravitation. Space War can fill that gap.

> The two games, Pong and Space War, suggest a gradual elaboration of computer
> graphics so that we gain an experiential and intuitive understanding of the
> laws of physics. The laws of physics are almost always stated in analytical
> and algebraic — that is to say, left-hemisphere — terms; for example,
> Newton’s second law is written F = m a, and the inverse square law of
> gravitation as F = G M m/r2. These analytical representations are extremely
> useful, and it is certainly interesting that the universe is made in such a
> way that the motion of objects can be described by such relatively simple
> laws. But these laws are nothing more than abstractions from experience.
> Fundamentally they are mnemonic devices. They permit us to remember in a
> simple way a great range of cases that would individually be much more
> difficult to remember — at least in the sense of memory as understood by the
> left hemisphere. Computer graphics gives the prospective physical or
> biological scientist a wide range of experience with the cases his laws of
> nature summarize; but its most important function may be to permit those who
> are not scientists to grasp in an intuitive but nevertheless deep manner
> what the laws of nature are about.

> There are many non-graphical interactive computer programs which are
> extremely powerful teaching tools. The programs can be devised by first-rate
> teachers, and the student has, in a curious sense, a much more personal,
> one-to-one relationship with the teacher than in the usual classroom
> setting; he may also be as slow as he wishes without fear of embarrassment.
> Dartmouth College employs computer learning techniques in a very broad array
> of courses. For example, a student can gain a deep insight into the
> statistics of Mendelian genetics in an hour with the computer rather than
> spend a year crossing fruit flies in the laboratory. Another student can
> examine the statistical likelihood of becoming pregnant were she to use
> various birth control methods. (This program has built into it a one-in-ten-
> billion chance of a woman’s becoming pregnant when strictly celibate, to
> allow for contingencies beyond present medical knowledge.)

------
CMay
Games have already had enormous educational impact and that satisfying to use
tools can help pull us towards a better understand of a thing is well known.

The list of games with widespread educational impact of some sort is already
much larger than most people think. As is usually the observation when
edutainment of any sort is written about, the point is really that there are
many important fields of education excluded from this revolution. Part of that
is probably that the cross section of people that are interested in making a
game and those who understand the topic well enough to start with is often not
large. Persisting cultural relevance for your creation is very rare, which can
be crushing. That a game like Snake Pass exists exposing more people to the
uniqueness of snake movement is a near miracle.

Games aren't currently categorized by what a player can learn from them, just
as movies rarely are. Sometimes even putting into words what you came away
with after an experience is difficult, but you know your perspective on
yourself or the world changed in some way. Check any of the movie or game
storefronts and see if they have any comprehensive sections to let you filter
by what people thought they learned from them. Valve is the most well
positioned to implement something like this through Steam, because they
rapidly iterate with experiments and have a strong variety of games available
with an engaged audience willing to do the tasks necessary.

At the moment, you have to guess what you might learn based on the genre or
first impressions. Even still, the ratings for a product aren't there to rate
educational value and the time played doesn't tell you how long you have to
spend in the game to get that learning experience. You can have a 1-2 star
game teach you something priceless, while a 5 star game is a nearly vapid
lifeless husk of manipulation. Stores like Steam almost need a completely
separate perspective view with its own ratings, own tags and own reviews to
make these aspects of games more discoverable. There are people that would be
more than thrilled to populate that information in good faith.

I think there are hidden riches waiting to be described when people are
encouraged to explain to others what it was that they learned rather than what
bugs they encountered or whether the production quality was bad and changes
like that could over time apply meaningful pressure to add more important
educational moments into their games for measurable marketing value.

Being father's day, it wasn't that long ago that my dad was reminiscing about
old TV shows where every episode tried to deliver some moral education. How
hard is it to find those old episodes categorized by what it tried to teach?
Seinfeld was also saturated with educational value through a bevy of unique
situations. South Park is probably more educational than Big Bang Theory,
because oddly enough I see BBT as more of a facade.

In short, it's not only the standard academic teachings that are underserved
or have poor discoverability in all media and I do think continuing to neglect
the explicit identification of this value as newer generations pass up old
media of all types will have a cascading cost that will impact generations of
families.

The side effect is that there will be some educational value that will be
polarizing, like inauthentic diversity education that could become an avoid
flag for many (for both good and bad reasons). That could be a good thing if
it pressures political activism in media to be less overt in order to have
more widespread subtle impact without preaching to people louder than the art
itself is able to genuinely speak.

There are exciting times ahead and I'm optimistic of the many educational
avenues that will be opening up as people wake up to how they learn over the
course of their lifetime, be it calculus or empathy.

------
WalterBright
"my understanding of heroism is to this day shaped by games like Final Fantasy
and Metal Gear Solid."

I simply don't believe this. My father said there is a hidden club in the
military, and those not in the club don't know it exists. You join that club
when you get shot at. It irreversibly changes your perspective.

I don't believe anyone can understand heroism without being in that club.

I'm not a member, though I have been threatened at gunpoint.

