International Game Developers Association

Full name:

Games Education
Course

Table of contents 1 Teachers 1.1 Instructors 1.2 Guest speakers 2 Course Background Information 2.1 Location 2.2 Classification 2.3 Student background needed 2.4 Course prerequisites 2.5 Time periods 2.6 Course Description 2.7 Course Learning Objectives 2.8 Student Requirements 3 Weekly Structure 4 Assignments and Evaluation 4.1 Week by week topics 4.2 Analysis Assignment 5 Course Materials & Facilities Used 6 Analysis of learning methods 6.1 What worked 6.2 What didn't work

[edit] Teachers

[edit] Instructors

• Alice J. Robison, PhD
• Kristina Drzaic, Teaching Assistant

[edit] Guest speakers

• Jason Booth, Harmonix
• Nick Hunter, Electronic Arts
• Jesper Juul, IT-University, Copenhagen
• Philip Tan, Singapore-MIT International Game Lab

[edit] Course Background Information

This course was designed by Alice J. Robison as part of her postdoctoral fellowship in the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT. Videogame Theory and Analysis was a special topics offering in the Comparative Media Studies program at MIT and may be repeated in the fall, 2007 semester. Details on the CMS program can be found here: http://cms.mit.edu and more details on the course will soon be posted on the MIT Open Courseware page at http://ocw.mit.edu under the Comparative Media Studies heading.

[edit] Location

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

[edit] Classification

See: Areas for classifing for your course.

Primary classification: Introduction to (academic) Videogame Studies

Secondary classification: Socio-cultural analysis of videogame play

[edit] Student background needed

Open to undergraduate and graduate students from any field or discipline; no prior gaming experience required.

[edit] Course prerequisites

none

[edit] Time periods

Course met in the fall semester of 2006 for 14 weeks. We met twice a week for 90 minutes with a 3-hour lab one night a week. 90-minute sessions were spent on discussion of course readings; lab sessions were devoted to student presentations of videogame analyses. Because students were expected to choose and play a single game for 50 hours or more, they regularly reported on their game progress and related their experience to the assigned readings. Students presented formal analyses in lab twice each during the semester for about an hour.

[edit] Course Description

This course serves as an introduction to the interdisciplinary study of commercial videogames as texts, examining their cultural, educational, and social functions in contemporary settings. By playing, analyzing, and reading and writing about videogames, we will examine debates surrounding how they function within socially situated contexts in order to better understand games' influence on and reflections of society. Readings will include contemporary game theory and the completion of a contemporary commercial videogame chosen in consultation with the instructor.

Writing, reading, and playing is heavy; students are also required to present game analyses at each class meeting, providing other students with the opportunity to observe a wide variety of game genres, play styles, and designed rule systems. By examining games together in class, we will discuss how various theories of game design and play are applied to games as texts. Students will be invited to present out-of-game learning and literacy activities as data that show how games are used and played in their organic settings; we will study the implications of these data as well.

Students are free to bring their own disciplinary expertise to the classroom setting. Perspectives from computer science, architecture, media studies, literature, engineering, physics, etc. are all welcome and will add a healthy intellectual rigor to the course. Likewise, students without experience playing or observing videogames are highly encouraged to enroll, as their perspectives and points of view help others see what they’re missing, so to speak.

n.b.: Though the course subject matter is videogame theory and analysis, we will not be producing games in this class. Instead, we will analyze games as interactive media, as rule-based systems, as cultural and social texts, and as designed learning spaces. We will concentrate heavily on games' potential impact on society, their cultural influence, and their phenomenology and ontology. Students will not be expected to create, design, or produce games or simulations.

[edit] Course Learning Objectives

1. To introduce students to contemporary commercial videogames from a variety of genres, rule systems, strategies, and contexts.
2. To explore videogames’ impact as contemporary social texts, each with their own social communities, cultures, and significance as media.
3. To examine the emerging field of scholarly game studies as it exists across the globe and in various interdisciplinary formats.
4. To connect and compare videogames to other contemporary digital (and nondigital) media.

[edit] Student Requirements

1. Complete all assigned readings for the course by Tuesday class meeting time. Participation in class is required and evaluated.
2. Complete all in- and out-of-class writing assignments as they are issued by the instructor. Expect daily informal, ungraded writing assignments, occasional take-home writing assignments meant to scaffold longer midterm and final papers.
3. Complete (or play, at minimum, 50 hours of) a single contemporary videogame and present a minimum of three analyses of your game in-progress during weekly labs.
4. Complete a mid-term essay analysis of your game and its connections to course readings.
5. Complete a final paper or project.

[edit] Weekly Structure

Tuesdays and Thursdays will be spent examining the readings, organized by theme (see below). Students are expected to have completed all readings by the start of class on Tuesday. Because there will be occasional in-class writing assignments, completing these reading assignments is essential and required. Participation grades will suffer if students have not completed weekly reading assignments (see attached participation rubric). On Thursdays, graduate students will be assigned specific readings and will be expected to lead seminar-like discussions around them.

Monday night labs will be spent examining and playing various students’ games. On Thursdays of each week the teaching assistant will arrange for three volunteers to present their games the following Monday. Students will be required to complete at least 3 of these assignments throughout the semester and will be formally evaluated according to a rubric provided by the instructor.

Midterm and final projects will be assigned and arranged in consultation with the instructor. Graduate students may choose to organize these projects in connection with their theses; undergraduate students will be given a choice of assignments to be provided during week three of the semester.

[edit] Assignments and Evaluation

In-class participation and writing assignments: 20% [Spontaneously issued and collected] 3 lab analyses: 10% each (30% total) [Lab assignment will be distributed during first lab] Midterm: 15% [Individual projects allowed but essay prompts will be available as well] Final: 35% [In-class presentations of projects will be scheduled for the last weeks of class] About grading: I am a writing teacher by training, so I will work hard to help you beef up your writing skills in this course by providing plenty of opportunity for revision and one-on-one support. If at any time you’re feeling unsure of my expectations, please don’t hesitate to ask. I’m here to help. I will also do my best to provide a clear assessment rubric for each major assignment so that you can get a good sense of what I’m looking for in a final draft of a project or paper. All out-of-class assignments issued may be submitted online via the class website. Students can expect about a 1-week turnaround, longer for the midterm.

If you get behind in your work because of gaming, I will be slightly sympathetic but will not necessarily excuse that behavior. Keep up with your work, do the readings, come to class, and you’ll be fine. If at any time you’d like to talk about your grade, you will need to schedule a short meeting with me in my office and we’ll chat. I won’t talk about grades via email, however.

[edit] Week by week topics

Schedule

REGARDING THE SCHEDULE: see class website for details, changes, updates, explanations.

September 6 Introduction to the course, brainstorm game ideas, introduce key concepts

September 11: LAB Looking at a few sample games, start to talk about what games to play for class

September 12 & 14 HISTORIES & DEFINITIONS Jesper Juul, “Game, Player, World” (online) Mark J.P. Wolf, “Genre and the Video Game” (online) Caillois, “The Definition of Play; The Classification of Games” (S&Z) Malliet & deMeyer, “The History of the Video Game” (materials) The Dot Eaters: Videogame History 101 (online) Costikyan, “I Have No Words” (S&Z)

September 18: LAB September 19 & 21 NARRATOLOGY & LUDOLOGY Gonzalo Frasca, “Ludology Meets Narratology” (online) Jesper Juul, “Games Telling Stories?” (online) Mateas & Stern, “Interaction and Narrative” (S&Z) Henry Jenkins, “Game Design as Narrative Architecture” (S&Z) Jenkins vs. Aarseth video (online)

September 25: NO LAB TONIGHT

September 26 & 28 MMOGs T.L. Taylor, “Gaming Lifeworlds: Social Play in Persistent Environments” (scanned copy in materials) Nick Yee, “Psychology of Online Games” (online) Constance Steinkuehler, “MMOGaming as Participation in Discourse” (online) Edward Castronova, “Virtual Worlds” (S&Z)

October 2: LAB

October 3 (NO CLASS OCTOBER 5) SPACE & PLACE Talmadge Wright,“Themed Spaces” (materials section) Constance Steinkuehler & Dmitri Williams, “Where Everybody Knows Your Screen Name” (online) Justin Hall, “Mobile Gaming” (materials section)

October 9: NO LAB TONIGHT—COLUMBUS DAY VACATION October 10: NO CLASS TODAY—COLUMBUS DAY VACATION October 12: MIDTERM DUE

October 16: LAB

October 17 & 19 PLAYER PERSPECTIVES Edward Castronova, “The User” (scanned copy in materials) T.L. Taylor, “Whose Game is this Anyway?” (scanned copy in materials) Richard Bartle, “Hearts, etc.” (online and S&Z) Raph Koster, “Declaring the Rights of Players” (S&Z) T.L. Taylor & Beth Kolko, “Boundary Spaces” (online)

October 23: LAB

October 24 & 26 DESIGNER PERSPECTIVES Birdwell, “The Cabal: Valve’s Design Process for Creating Half-Life” (S&Z) Doug Church, “Formal Abstract Design Tools” (S&Z) Marc LeBlanc, “Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics” (S&Z) Chris Crawford, “Eastern Front (1941)” (S&Z) Eric Zimmerman, “Iterative Game Design” (online) Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman, “Game Design and Meaningful Play” (materials)

October 30: LAB

October 31 & November 2 GAMES & LEARNING Kurt Squire, Masie Report (materials) Jim Gee, “Semiotic Domains” (S&Z) Constance Steinkuehler, “Cognition and Literacy in MMOs” (materials) Innovate, Aug/Sep 2005 special issue (online) The Escapist, Issue #59 (online)

November 6: LAB

November 7 & 9 GENDER T.L. Taylor, “Where the Women Are” (materials) Helen Kennedy, “Lara Croft” (online) Henry Jenkins, “Complete Freedom of Movement” (in S&Z) Elisabeth Hayes, “Women and Video Gaming: Gendered Identities at Play” (materials) Mia Consalvo, TBD

November 13: LAB

November 14 & 16 RACE & REPRESENTATION always_black, “Bow, Nigger” (S&Z) Jim Gee, “Cultural Models: Do You Want to be the Blue Sonic or the Dark Sonic?” (S&Z) Ernest Adams, “Not Just Rappers and Athletes” (online) Leonard, “Not Just a Hater” (online) Wagner James Au, “Freeform Identity” (online) Everett & Watkins, “Now Representing: Games and the Learning Space of Race” (TBD)

November 20: LAB

November 21 (no class November 23) GAME CULTURES & IDENTITIES Joost Raessens, “Computer Games as Participatory Media Culture” (materials) Sherry Turkle, “Computer Games as Evocative Objects” (materials)

November 27: LAB

November 28 & 30 VIDEOGAME CRITICISM Richard Rouse, “Game Analysis: Centipede” (S&Z) Kurt Squire, “Viewtiful Joe” (materials) Chaim Gingold, “What Warioware Can Teach Us” (online) Ian Bogost, “Videogame Criticism” (materials) Jim Gee, Why Videogames are Good for Your Soul

December 4: LAB

December 5 & 7 Presentations

December 11: LAB

December 12: LAST CLASS Presentations

[edit] Analysis Assignment

Each Monday night in lab, up to five students will present moments in their games to the rest of the class. These presentations should meet and often exceed the expectations laid out below. Undergraduate students will be expected to complete this assignment three times throughout the semester; graduate students will present more often.

Goals and Expectations This analysis assignment is meant to give you practice and experience with presenting your theories, analyses, and ideas to a friendly audience. It is my hope that as you read and consider the materials we discuss during the week, you will begin to connect those ideas to your experiences with your game. If there are particularly interesting moments, ideas, concepts, happenings, etc. with your game that you think are relevant to class discussions, readings, and course materials, you are encouraged to sign up for a Monday night analysis. You will then bring your game (or recorded moment in the game) to class and present your analysis in lab.

Analyses can be either a close reading of a particular moment in a game or else a broader (but focused) discussion of a particular game rule, narrative structure, character model, social phenomenon, etc. that you consider relevant and meaningful. For example, you may wish to present the WoW community’s reactions and dealings with Chinese farmers; or the way that Halo’s tutorial level expertly teaches players the game’s “design grammar” (Gee) in a safe way; or perhaps you want to show KoToR’s innovations with game ethics. Whatever your choice, you are free (indeed, encouraged) to discuss it with me first so that I can help you focus the presentation.

Logistics and Parameters You are responsible for recording and preparing the moment in your game that you are analyzing. For help, ask friends, colleagues, others in the class. You are required to provide a handout to go along with your presentation. The handout can be in the form of a short paper, a multimedia video, a transcript of an in-game discussion or interaction, an outline of a longer paper you’ll write for your midterm and/or final project, etc. Presentations should take about 20-30 minutes. Presentations should reference and connect to readings in the course. Presentations are conducted individually, but you may consult others in your preparation and collaborate with others who are playing your same game or have experience with your topic. Presentations are not necessarly arguments for your particular approach to your game; instead, they should take the form of analyses, connecting theory to the text or experience you’re examining. Tell us what you notice, what you observe, what’s interesting to you and for what reasons. Criticism and arguments will begin to form later in the semester, but toward the beginning, we’re just looking for focused, detailed observations, themes, and connections between reading and gameplay.

Evaluation Criteria Analyses will be evaluated according to the following: q Your ability to connect an idea or concept brought up in class and/or through the theories presented in the reading and show how your game reflects, complicates, enhances, or demonstrates a topic from game studies. q Your detail with regard to the moment or topic of your presentation. These should be tight, focused, in-depth analyses of particular moments or game phenomena. I’ll be looking for evidence that you’ve thought critically about the game moment/phenomenon you’ve chosen to present. q Clarity and polish of the presentation and handout.

I will provide you with written feedback and a final grade on your presentation. Students are encouraged to consult with me prior to and following an analysis, as each of these presentations should be considered a possible springboard toward future work in the course.

It is my hope that as you work through your analyses presentations you’ll use them as an opportunity to brainstorm and think through ideas for your final project. I imagine that you will use these presentations as an opportunity to apply what knowledge you’ve gained from reading and discussing the game theory we read. Evaluations will ultimately based on how well you show your ability to connect your reading to your gameplay experiences.

[edit] Course Materials & Facilities Used

Videogame Students are required to choose a videogame to play throughout the semester. Requirements for making that choice are as follows:

Required Texts
Salen & Zimmerman (2006). The Game Design Reader. MIT University Press. ISBN: 0262195364

Gee, J.P. (2005). Why Videogames Are Good For Your Soul. ISBN: 186335574X

Online readings available here: http://www.kaboodle.com/alist/cms-998.html

Regular upkeep with readings associated with your game: magazine/online reviews, bulletin board discussions and forums, fan-produced media and texts, online chats, etc.

Recommended Texts
Raessens & Goldstein, (2005). The Handbook of Computer Game Studies. ISBN: 0262182408

Wardrip-Fruin & Harrigan, (2004). First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game. ISBN: 0262232324

[edit] Analysis of learning methods

[edit] What worked

Please discuss what techniques worked well

[edit] What didn't work

Please discuss what techniques didn’t work as well as you had hoped

---

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.