Jane McGonigal believes there are four factors that make online games like World of Warcraft so engaging: They surround us with people willing to trust them with a world saving mission that is on the verge of what you can achieve but is still achievable. They provide a community of collaborators, that want/need our help [...]
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Video games are tied to childhood like the fish and the sea. Children wade in the waters of technology; they survive and navigate digital environments. However video games have historically been viewed as cheap entertainment with little value. Certainly sociopathic games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas; bloody titles like Manhunt, God of War, or [...]
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Check out this video from Will Wright, the creator of the insanely popular video games Spore and the Sims. This talk was given at the National Academies summit and was popularized by one of the latest blogs I follow by Andrew Revkin. Revkin posted a follow-up piece to his review here. Could video games become [...]
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Little Big Planet is a video game on the Playstation console that allows players to create and share their own game levels, as well as rate and play the game levels created by others. According to Mashable.com, LittleBigPlanet 2 works a little bit like a YouTube for games, if YouTube more prominently featured a Facebook-like activity [...]
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There’s a term you need to know if you serve in children’s ministry: serious game Especially if you’ve ever played Rayman Raving Rabbids, you might be wondering, “Serious games? How can a game be ‘serious’?” Serious games have been around for since the 1960′s and with the growing use of digital games in homes and [...]
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I’ve written about different perspectives on video gaming and the teaching/learning process. Hopefully you’ve had a chance to read about people like Jane McGonigal or Quest to Learn. Maybe you’ve read a book by Marc Prensky or James Paul Gee. These individuals and organizations posit that video games are powerful tools for learning and they [...]
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Hopefully you’ve had the chance to read my first last two posts on serious games (Introducing Serious Games and Serious Games Defined). It is possible for a game to have an educational purpose and these games are becoming more and more popular and embedded into the cultural landscape kids in our ministries are developing in. [...]
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I just finished reading a Wired Article entitled “Why Aren’t Games About Winning Anymore?” by Jonathan Liu. Liu uncovers a recent trend in video games where modern games are less about actually getting to the last level (a la Super Mario Brothers) and more about gaining achievements during the game. For instance, I have become [...]
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I am continuing the series of posts on kidmin and video games. In my research, I came across Evoke. According to Evoke’s blog, “Evoke is a ten-week crash course in changing the world. It is free to play and open to anyone, anywhere. The goal of the social network game is to help empower young [...]
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I just came across an article entitled, “I Want It Now! The Fierce Urgency of Videogaming’s Future.” The article identified a key characteristic of today’s video game consumer: impatience. Ever heard of Farmville? The insanely popular Facebook game’s chief game designer recently pinpointed that many gamers lose interest in a game because the game takes too [...]
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