Reframing the Cultural Space of Computer and Video Games
by Kurt Squire, MIT

"Mr. Squire, do you care to answer?"

"Well, the Spanish Armada hit its peak in the late 16th century. They dominated the larger islands with sizable forts in Havana and Port Royale. For a brief time, the English had a colony here or there in Jamaica, and of course the French had their string of islands in the -- what is it, the lesser Antilles - the ones right below the English ones -- right below St. Kitts." I was starting to get warmed up. These obscure names and dates were flowing out of my mouth, but I had no idea where they came from.

Jim Douglas, my high school history teacher, was surprised if not impressed. I was a fair student but not known for "reading ahead" or anything.

"Go on. What kinds of ships did the English have?"

"What kinds of ships did they have? Oh, well, only the Spanish ever had galleons, although you might see an occasional Dutch fast galleon -- not that the Dutch had many possessions, other than Curacao. It made for a great trading base though...Oh yeah, English ships...I can't remember, but they were definitely smaller, merchantmen / trading vessels" Again, rambling about the Caribbean. My best friend at the time, Jason, shot me an incredulous look. "Where in the hell are you getting this...is this some sort of joke?"

Well, no, it wasn't a joke. It was, however, the result of a boy with a Commodore 64 who spent way too much time playing Sid Meier's Pirates! growing up. For an increasing number of people, this kind of story is not unique. Computer games have now been with us for over 30 years. The Atari 2600 is nearly 25 years old. Civilization is now nearly 10 years old. Yet, many Americans fail to recognize these complex achievements as more than fads or child's play. Ask most people what they think about video games, and many will respond that they're a waste of time. 

Cultural Framing of Computer/Video Games

Think about it. If you were to ask people to rank leisure activities in terms of their cultural value, which ones would come out on top? Chess? Reading? Television? Video Games? One possible list might look something like this:

-- Chess / Reading

-- Golf

-- Computer Chess

-- Board Games

-- Computer Games

-- Playing Team Sports

-- Television

-- Video Games

Of course, this list will change depending on you ask -- many urban neighborhoods place more value on athletic competition than on solitary activities. Nevertheless, a list like this helps uncover some common perceptions about video games. Many critics argue that games produce socially isolated people or promote violent behavior. Games are simple, mind-numbing entertainment. Playing games is a waste of time. Some of these criticisms may (or may not) be true, but to view all game-playing through this lens is to ignore the broader history of games and the diverse range of game-playing experiences available.

In fact, the PC games sales charts reflect this diversity. The Sims -- the "animated dollhouse" game where players create and play out digital fantasy households -- has dominated the charts for 18 months straight. Other big winners for 2000-2001 include RollerCoaster Tycoon (a game about managing theme parks and designing roller coasters), Age of Empires (a real-time historical strategy game), and Black & White (a fantasy "God" game exploring morality). Hack-and-slash games like Diablo II or first person shooters like Max Payne have done well, but are dwarfed by the success of The Sims.

Pawns of the Game

Unfortunately, games like Doom or Quake have garnered a disproportionate share of attention in the press, as they have become pawns in a culture war waged by cultural conservatives. As many gamers, critics, media scholars, and social researchers agree, this discussion has been devoid of any serious study of games. For example, this spring, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft cited the game Dope Wars as an example of the "the culture of violence" that may have contributed to a spate of recent deadly school shootings" (Reuters News, April 4, 2001). How a simple, text-based game (based on a nearly 20 year old DOS game) that is downloaded over the Internet, played on Palm Pilots, and features no graphical imagery is contributing to the very real issues of violence is questionable. As this example reveals, much of the rhetoric in this culture work has much less to do with any real knowledge of games than with fears about violence in American culture.

It is difficult for many to make sense of this contentious and politicized cultural debate because to date, there has been very little disciplined study of gaming. Some social science researchers have compared "violent" games like Doom to "non-violent" games like Myst, or comparing the rates of aggressive and violent behavior between gamers and non-gamers. Unfortunately, this research suffers from many problematic conceptualizations: violent acts are removed from the narratives contexts in which they are situated (Jenkins, 1998); researchers used invalid comparison techniques, studying games from different genres that differ along multiple variables -- such as comparing Myst, a slow-paced puzzle adventure game to Castle Wolfenstein, a fast-paced 3D action shooter (Anderson & Dill, 2000). These studies generally lack any real-world evidence linking game-playing to acts of violence; they ignore broad trends that that show inverse correlations between game-playing and violent behavior; finally, they make wild logical leaps in linking very constrained behaviors in laboratories to violent acts where people really get hurt. Anderson and Dill (2000) found that players who lost a round of Wolfenstein 3D "punished" opposing players with noise blast that lasted 6.81 seconds, compared to Myst players, who blasted opponents for 6.65 seconds -- a .16 second difference (there was no difference between players who won their round of Castle Wolfenstein and Myst players). To suggest that a .16-second increase in duration of a noise blast is qualitatively the same as committing mass murder is not only an illogical leap, but a disservice to the worthwhile enterprise of studying what are the root causes of tragic events like school shootings or youth violence. Fortunately, a handful of social science researchers such as Jonathon Freedman (2001) and Jeanne Funk (2001) have begun to call for more rigorous research and are taking a much more disciplined look at the impact of gaming on people's lives. Hopefully social science researchers will follow suit; as a generation of game players move into academic positions, perhaps such poorly defined research studies will be challenged and a more rigorous body of research will evolve.

What's missing from contemporary debate on gaming and culture is any naturalistic study of what game-playing experiences are like, how gaming fits into people's lives, and the kinds of practices people are engaged in while gaming. Few, if any researchers have studied how and why people play games, and what gaming environments are like. The few times researchers have asked these questions, they have found surprising results. In 1985, Mitchell gave Atari 2600 consoles to twenty families and found that most families used the game systems as a shared play activity. Instead of leading to poor school performance, increased family violence, or strained family interactions, video game were a positive force on family interactions, "reminiscent of days of Monopoly, checkers, card games, and jigsaw puzzles" (Mitchell, 1985, p.134). This study suggests that investigators might benefit by acknowledging the cultural contexts of gaming, and studying game-playing as a cultural practice. If nothing else, it highlights the importance of putting aside preconceptions and examining gamers on their own terms.

Reframing the Debate

Underlying this unease about video game violence research is a growing disconnect between anti-gaming rhetoric and people's actual experiences playing games (See Herz, 1996; Poole, 2000). The first generation of gameplayers is now in its 30s. Despite (and perhaps because of) the hundreds of hours I've spent playing war games, I'm pretty much a pacifist. I love Return to Castle Wolfenstein, yet I'd never own a gun. The successes of such books as Joystick Nation and Trigger Happy suggest there is an maturing generation of gamers who feels the same way: games are integral parts of our lives, yet they've largely gone unexamined.

So far, concerns about the effects of "violent" video games have drawn our attention away from the broader social roles and cultural contexts of gaming. There is some evidence that this trend could be changing -- in the past six months humanities researchers have turned more attention to games. Art museums in both the U.S.A. and U.K. have developed or are planning substantial game exhibits in 2000-2002 (See Barbican, 2001). Panels at conferences are almost ready to give up on the "Are games art?" question and start asking "What kinds of art are they?" or exploring how and why they work (Jenkins, in press; Squire & Jenkins, in press). Other humanities researchers are examining games to see what they might teach us about the future of interactive narrative (Murray, 1999).

The most under-examined potential of games may be their impact as an educational medium. Playing games, I can relive historical eras (as in Pirates!), investigate complex systems like the Earth's chemical & life cycles (SimEarth), govern island nations (Tropico), manage complex industrial empires (Railroad Tycoon), or, indeed, run an entire civilization (Civilization series). Did I forget to mention travel in time to Ancient Greece (Caesar I,II, & III), Rome (Age of Empires I, and II), relive European colonization of the Americas (Colonization), or manage an ant colony, farm, hospital, skyscraper, themepark, zoo, airport, or fast food chain? As my opening anecdote suggests, the impact of games on millions of gamers who grew up playing best-selling games such as SimCity, Pirates!, or Civilization is starting to be felt. Perhaps there are important cultural questions beyond "Do games cause violence?" that academics could begin exploring. 

What are kids learning by playing SimCity? Is it deepening their appreciation for geography, helping them develop more robust understandings about their environment, or perhaps promoting misconceptions about civic planning? How does a game such as Civilization III work as a cultural simulation? Does it impact players' conceptions of politics or diplomacy? Is there any way to reappropriate Civilization for use in history classes? Given the immense influence of SimCity and Civilization in present game design, what innovations might be sparked by games built around science, engineering, literature or architecture subjects? How might these innovations have an impact on the rest of game design?

These questions suggest three fruitful areas of research:

(1) Studying the role that games like SimCity and Civilization play in people's lives and how it relates to their understanding of other phenomena;

(2) Reappropriating commercial entertainment games such as the SimCity or Civilization series for use in formal learning environments, and;

(3) Creating games that can be used to support learning in other domains, such as advanced math, science, and engineering.

Studying the Impact of Gaming

With SimCity more than a decade old, a generation of youth has grown up with edutainment. Yet, we know very little about what they are learning playing these games (if anything). Are sim games, civilization-building games, or war games having any impact on how students perceive social studies? Games such as SimCity depict social bodies as complex dynamic systems and embody concepts like positive feedback loops that are central to systems thinking. Are students developing intuitions about systems as a result of playing these games? Do players think they are learning anything about history or urban planning through these games? Are the perceived educational benefits part of the attraction of these games?

One way to explore these issues is to spend time observing game playing and talking with game players about how they relate to entertainment. Few studies have been done examining game playing in social contexts since Mitchell's Atari 2600 studies in the 1980s. Several years ago, Sherry Turkle and Amy Bruckman studied MOO players, yielding interesting insights into how people negotiate among their many virtual identities (Bruckman, 1993a; 1993b; 1994; Turkle, 1996). More recently, a few researchers have studied correlations between game players' characteristics and popular genres, but these broad statistical studies fail to open up the complex relationships between consumers and media. Further, they miss the social interactions that are a fundamental dynamic of so much of game playing and made earlier ethnographic accounts of game-playing so fascinating. Even a quick glance at fan communities around games such as SimCity, Civilization, Railroad Tycoon, Everquest, or The Sims, each of which has dozens of fans websites where players create and trade game objects, maps, levels, scenarios, and stories points to rich relationships between fans and these games.

Reappropriating Entertainment Games

Most people assume that games like SimCity are used frequently in geography or urban planning classes. Indeed, Maxis has published a set of resources for teachers on its website, touting that, SimCity 3000™ can be used in the classroom to enhance just about any instructional unit. It can stand alone as an enrichment computer activity, or it can be used as a pivotal activity connected to other activities and projects done before, during, or after using the computer program. Use the lessons in this guide to integrate SimCity 3000 into your curriculum, with minimal preparation, or to create custom lessons to suit your needs.

Having used SimCity 2000 at Boys and Girls clubs, I feel safe in suggesting that sitting a classroom full of kids down with SimCity and setting them loose is naive, if not potentially destructive. Students may benefit from exploring relationships between supply and demand and population growth and taxation, but they might also develop very naive concepts of how cities form, grow, and evolve. As urban planner Kenneth Kolson points out, SimCity potentially teaches the player that mayors are omnipotent and that politics, ethnicity, and race play no role in urban planning (Kolson, 1996). While the opportunities for using games like this to support learning are great, so are the risks of fostering deep misconceptions.

Fortunately, one can easily imagine creating instructional resources around a game like SimCity or Civilization that pushes students to think about their game-playing more deeply. For example, Civilization players might create maps of their worlds and compare them to global maps from the same time period. Why are they the same? Why are they different? Students might be required to critique the game and explicitly address built-in simulation biases. Finally, students might draw timelines, write histories, or write create media based on the history of their civilization. The possibilities for using a game like Civilization as a springboard into studying history are endless, but so far, there are less than three magazine or journal articles published on the topic, and no one has done serious research in this area to date.  

Creating Next-Generation Educational Media

From an educator's perspective, games may be the most fully realized educational technology produced to date. Tom Malone (1981) showed how games use challenge, fantasy, player control, and curiosity invoking designs to create intrinsically motivating environments. More recently, Lloyd Rieber (1996) has argued that digital games engage players in productive play -- learning that occurs through building microworlds, manipulating simulations, and playing games. Rieber argues that historically, educational games have relied heavily on exogenuous game formulas, meaning that content is inserted into a generic gaming template, like hangman, rather than seamlessly integrated with gaming mechanisms as in SimCity .(He calls this endogenuous game design).

A team of researchers from both Microsoft Research and MIT's Comparative Media Studies program is exploring this issue more deeply through the Games-to-Teach Project (http://cms.mit.edu/games/education/), a research effort that will culminate initially with 10 conceptual prototypes of next-generation educational games to support learning in math, science, and engineering at the advanced high school and introductory undergraduate levels. Over the next few years, we will be designing and developing a suite of games that attempts to harness the potential of interactive digital entertainment to support learning -- while also expanding the possibilities of contemporary gaming. Imagine an action/adventure optical physics game where a player solves complex problems using a variety of lenses, telescopes, cameras, and optical tools. Or, imagine a massively multiplayer resource management game where players design robots in order to colonize a planet-learning physics and engineering practices in the process.

Designing such games will demand a broad, industry-wide investment if it is to succeed. Long-term, this kind of project requires creative game designers who understand the tools and capabilities of the medium and educators who can help ensure an effective product and visionary thinkers who can design a suite of games that will appeal to a broad market. A primary goal of the Games-to-Teach Project is to create games that will engage a broad audience of players by creating rich characters, nuanced gameplay, complex social networks, and interactive stories that tap into a broad range of emotions and player experiences. Over the past few years, there have been signs that perhaps the industry and medium are ready for such a challenge.

Game-Playing as Social Practice

A fundamental tension underlying these research questions is that if games do not promote or "teach" violence, then how can researchers claim that they might have a lasting impact on students' cognitive development? Far from trivial, this concern touches on many core social science research issues. What is the role of the viewer/participant in consuming media? What are the cultural and social contexts of media consumption? How does -- or doesn't-- knowledge transfer from one context to the next?

As most educators will tell you, producing a long-term change in behavior, particularly one that persists across contexts is exceptionally difficult. In educational research, this phenomena is commonly called the "transfer problem" (See Detterman & Sternberg, 1993). The classic example is mathematics. Most of us have all learned the basic skills we need to solve everyday mathematical problems using fractions or algebra, but rare is the time that we will use all but the most simple computational math in our every day lives. One of the main reasons is that our behavior is very circumscribed by context. The tools and resources that we have available in our environment both guide our thinking and constrain our actions. People rely on tools in their environment and manipulate their environment to make tasks easier. So, ultimately, people who have learned Algebra become very good at using Algebra to solve textbook-like problems within school situations, but develop very different strategies for solving real-world problems (Bransford, et al., 1977; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Pea, 1992).

Unfortunately, for educators looking to use games to support learning this rather skeptical view of our ability to transfer learning across contexts also limits the things we can assume that players learn from gaming. A number of pundits and theorists have suggested that game-playing might be increasing kids critical thinking or problem-solving skills (See Katz, 2000; Prensky, 2000; Squire, 2000). I have no doubt that someone who is good at Half-Life might develop skills that are useful in playing Unreal Tournament (a very similar game). But, just because a player can plan an attack or develop a lightning quick reactions in Half-Life does not mean that she can plan her life effectively, or think quickly in other contexts, such as in a debate or in a courtroom -- one of the main reasons being that these are two entirely different contexts and demand very different social practices.

Anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991) use the term "practice" to discuss how actions are situated in their socio-cultural contexts. Essentially, a practice is an activity that involves skills, resources, and tools, and is mediated by personal and cultural purposes. One way to produce more meaningful educational games would be to design games in which players are engaged in richer, more meaningful practices. A game like Civilization III, which involves analyzing geography in order to determine the best geographic location for a city, negotiating trade deals with other civilizations, and making taxation and social spending decisions, comes closer to the kind of meaningful practices educators would like to produce than, say, Half Life. 

Note that despite the wonderful educational opportunities in playing Civilization III, playing the game is still setting parameters and observing a simulation, which is clearly not the same as actually participating in social practices valued outside of school -- like writing history or in participating in political, government, or commercial institutions that extend beyond the school context. In short, playing Civilization might be a tool that can assist students in understanding social studies, but playing the game is not necessarily participating historical, political, or geographical analysis. Even in a game as rich as Civilization III, there is very good reason to believe that students may not use their understandings developed in the game - such as the political importance of a natural resource like oil -- as tools for understanding phenomena outside the game, such the economics behind The Persian Gulf War or contemporary foreign policy.

Therefore, in studying the role of interactive media in the classroom, it is critical that designers leverage the potential of other pedagogical approaches. In our hypothetical Civilization III unit, students might spent 25 percent of their time playing the game, and the remainder of the time creating maps, historical timelines, researching game concepts, drawing parallels to historical or current events, or interacting with other media, such as books or videos. In math and science, educational designers need to be careful not to ignore the potentials of other media; in the Games-to-Teach Project, for example, we are exploring ways of packaging lenses and optics tools with our optics game so that teachers might encourage students to experiment with optics tools in their own environments. In this way, the educational value of the game-playing experiences comes not from just the game itself, but from the creative coupling of educational media with effective pedagogy. In fact, our previous research suggests teachers will adapt the learning materials we create to maximize their potential to support learning regardless of designers' intentions (Squire, Barnett, Makinster et al., in press). As such, the pedagogical value of a medium like gaming cannot be realized without understanding how it is being enacted through classroom use.

The challenges of using games in educational contexts highlight many of the problems with arguments made by game critics who posit that games with violent imagery are "teaching" our kids to become aggressive or increasingly violent (See Grossman, 2000; Provenzo, 1991). This view places tremendous faith in games' ability to elicit specific behaviors and denies our agency as humans, our role in creating meaning, the importance of context, and the qualitative differences between playing a game and inflicting violence on another human being. Based on decades-old behaviorist models of learning, this view assumes that players are passive recipients of games' values or associations, rather than active constructors of meaning. I would argue that game players bring very different goals and intentions to their game playing. One player might play Pirates! intending to explore the history of the Caribbean, while another plays simply to win the game. A sizable body of educational research suggests that students may not use these experiences outside of the gameworld, and future research is needed to examine the actual impact of these games. Within a formal learning environment, however, it is clear that teachers -- like my Mr. Douglas, play a key role for supporting students in reflecting on their practice and thinking about their experiences.

Much of the current hyperbole around gaming has been focused on fear or hype about of the medium -- rather than on a careful look at games' role in culture. Beneath the anti-violence rhetoric lies a fear among many parents and pundits that games are tainting a generation of kids, reducing their attention spans, atrophying their moral judgement, or turning them into thumb-twitching zombies. Reframing these discussions so that the broader social impact of gaming is understood is important if games are to continue to mature as a popoular art form and as an industry. One strategy to give games legitimacy is to weave them into the social fabric. That is -- make them a part of ubiquitous social institutions like schooling and show how they can be used for social good.

The author would like to thank Henry Jenkins, Principal Investigator of the Games to Teach Project, for sharing his vision of using educational games to expand the cultural sphere of gaming and his contributions to this paper. The author would also like to thank Alex Chisholm, Co-Producer of our first Games-to-Teach Project prototype on optics, for comments on earlier drafts of the paper.

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Copyright (c) 2001 by Kurt Squire and MIT Comparative Media Studies. All rights reserved.

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Copyright 2000, MIT