Educational Games: Are They Worthwhile to Produce?

[ Source: http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/at-work/education/atari-founder-plans-to-make-education-as-addictive-as-video-games ]

Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari, is working on a really interesting project right now. He wants to make educational games that are fun for kids. He wants to make learning accessible, and not feel so much like work. Learning can absolutely be fun. I used to play games in elementary school, which are mostly lost in time, on the Macintosh computers in the computer lab; games like Number Maze, a game where you have to solve math problems and go through mazes, Oregon Trail, which teaches us a bit of history, and Mr. Fix-It-Up, a game all about grammar and sentence structure.

Did I enjoy those games despite the fact that they were educational? Of course I did. They were stupidly fun, and had all sorts of amusing quirks to them, like Mr. Fix-It-Up would say "Yes-yes-yes, I get it now" when you got the right answer. Those things stuck with me, because frankly, they're weird. I'd argue it also helps to be playing these sorts of education games at an educational institution, because at school we tend to resign ourselves to the fact we're going to end up learning something. If I were to play those games now, I would love it for nostalgic reasons, but would I find it challenging? Not in a million years. Those games are for children, so I'd be solving terribly complex math problems like 3+7, and it would probably be somewhat unpleasant.

To combat this, Nolan Bushnell wants to essentially make educational games which get progressively more difficult as the player gets smarter, or better at the game. This is an obvious characteristic of many video games already. It's implemented in tons of games, with difficulty levels ramping up as the player gets more skillful at the game, but I'm sure he wants to take it even further. As you learn and excel at one thing, the game takes note, and starts throwing harder challenges at you. Makes sense.

Nolan Bushnell wants to make learning more fun, and try to inspire more creativity. I support that notion entirely. Creative projects, such as getting students to write fantasy stories, (or whatever stories they like) are an absolute necessity. Children need to use their imagination; in adult life our imaginations are all but crushed by the real world, in its infinite bleakness.

If educational games are sold commercially, I suspect it might only be parents who are buying them for their kids. Kids don't want educational games. Kids want entertainment. The tricky part is making their entertainment educational, and their education entertaining.

-Mark Johnsen